Harm OCD caused by anger

[chalky500]

I used to have harm ocd all the time, all day every day, for about a month, which was crippling. Now, however, I only get it when I'm angry, even slightly, and this is WORSE. Whenever someone mildly ticks me off, even just a bit of bad grammar can cause me to have a flash thought/urge to kill them, and a second later i am almost reeling in horror. Worst bit is, cos theres genuine annoyance there too, I dont have the 'no bad feelings' argument to work with. This is the scariest thing I've gone through since suicide OCD 2 years ago, whenever i felt a little sad I'd get suicidal urges. PLEASE POST OPINIONS BEFORE I CRACK AND LOSE MY SANITY?!:scared15:

[shieldmaiden]

I realize this is an old post, but I had to reply because I get the EXACT same thing. And the weird thing is, that I am NOT an angry person at all, well, I at least am not a violently angry person by nature. But I get these thoughts when I get angry and they terrify me. Even with incredibly stupid things. I wish someone could help me with this too. It's to the point where I can hardly live with myself. Particularly, the moment when I was in the car with my bf and as he wasn't paying attention to the road he began to swerve over the center line as a car was coming and in my split second of anger at him, I didn't say anything to warn him and then he swerved and in that moment I snapped out of it and I've been absolutely terrified ever since. I don't know if there is anyone who can help with this but I've never been more scared of myself.

[Ikaeoph]

Hi Shieldmaiden! Yes this is horrible I have the same thing but, you have to stop thinking so deeply, there are so many people who have terrible anger issues with genuine hatred behind it and even they wouldn't wish harm on anyone, I don't think your anger is genuine because OCD can trick you into thinking you want to do or have a certain something/feeling when you really dont. So you might just be agitated but OCD will make it out to be worse. If you keep thinking about it deeply it won't go, it is best to not react to the thought and get on with an activity that can distract you, yes this is very hard at first but you will get the hang of it. If you want specific points answered just say.

---------- Post added at 22:33 ---------- Previous post was at 22:29 ----------

I must also remind you, 'ignoring' these thoughts will never work, if I said ignore the car keys on your desk, your mind automatically thinks of car keys, so to ignore something you have to be conscious of it so try to let the thought hang there, it will go itself when you are doing activities good luck

[shieldmaiden]

First of all, thank you so much for replying to my reply. I was afraid for awhile that I wouldn't get one. I understand what you are saying. That the ocd uses a strong emotion against you, thus tricking you into thinking you're feeling something that isn't there. I know it's going to be hard to not listen to the thoughts. I still get them when I feel angry or even just slightly agitated and I feel horrible afterwards. What always gets me is that the thought feels like it is coming from me. For example, when I was in the car with my bf and i had the thought when he didnt see the car that swerved into our lane, it felt like me thinking it, wanting it.

[shevab]

hi,my ocd started from being extremely angry:my kids were screaming and I was programming for computer course. I freaked out and first thought i am going mad. Since then,I visited psychiatrist, and he told I am lightly obsessive.The problem is that my violent thoughts are always triggered by anger, the more angry I am,the more obsessive I will be next hour--and this is hard,cause I am not always sure it is indeed OCD. Today I was fighting with DH and got such a bad violent thought and urge--first time in my life, and yes--this is scary,cause you aren't sure if it is OCD or real urge to do smth bad:(

[Jayamashey]

Hi Shevab,

I can fully relate. Mine is also triggered easily and often if I get annoyed or angry. However, before all this I was not an angry or easily irritated person.

And I agree, the scary thing is you question whether it is OCD or not. I also get the thoughts and urges, especially toward DW - which completely freaks me out.

Anyways you are not alone. Work toward resting your system and dealing with the anxiety. If needed I can point you to a great blog of a woman that experienced the same thing and has overcome it.

[OCDguy9018]

I have something very similar to the OP I think. My issues started when I one day felt a random urge/impulse to break peoples necks at work. This terrified me for a long time and then I read about Harm OCD and how common this type of thing was. However, now the only thing I have is I am getting annoyed often, and when I get annoyed it is paired with intense fear. My fear is that I am going to get so annoyed/anxious that I will end up losing control and hurting/killing someone. I have even reacted verbally, out of anger during these times of annoyance and I use this as evidence that the annoyance can make me act. I have never been a violent person in my past. How do I know I won't get so agitated I snap and hurt someone?

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hi and welcome to NMP, OCDguy9018 :welcome:

As you can see from the above, not only are there others experiencing this with their OCD but the responses show this is a common issue with intrusive thoughts.

The fact you have intense fear is an immediate OCD sign. Have you ever known people who are truly violent? I've known some and trust me, they don't have that fear. They would be violent and laugh at the victim, record it and show their mates or brag about it. To them, fear comes when in court trying to get a reduced sentence.

Does that sounds like you? I bet it doesn't.

For good information on these thoughts, you have a guy in the US called Steve Seay and his articles are excellent. He has a few about harm based thoughts. He's a licenced psychologist treating them so that should give you some comfort. Have a read, they helped me understand mine.

The verbal reaction must be scary to you? You've added it as evidence, which is what our negative thinking is going to do. But anxiety can make anyone verbally react, just like how physical pain causes people to, or even a bad nights sleep. Being under such pressure means we upset and at times, we bark at people. I've had a few out of character rages at people myself and it was because my anxiety was torturing me...there's only so much we can take. But that's a whole world away from taking it to the level of attacking someone with violence.

Like you said, you aren't a violent person and this must mean you have a good strong set of inner morals and these are deep. In fact, they are why you react with fear to these intrusive thoughts. So, this should be some comfort, it's evidence you are a non violent person in reality. Those people I mentioned above don't have those same morals, so beating someone senseless and having a laugh about it afterwards doesn't offend them at all.

[OCDguy9018]

Thank you so much for your response. I need to get myself calmer because I feel like I'm constantly just on edge from this OCD stuff. I am sure that is why I reacted verbally in the ways I did.

The other issue that is paired along with my fear of getting agitated is a fear of my mind convincing me to hate people and therefore want to hurt them. Like anytime I get annoyed with one of these people my mind almost like shoves the annoying thing in my face and says "they don't like you" "what if you start hating them and want to hurt them?" This is also a very distressing one. Any experience with these?

[MyNameIsTerry]

That's just classic anxiety, it's looking for risks. It will spend it's time analysing what these thoughts mean and part of this will mean questions about it and whether you want to act, how you could persuaded to act, etc.

I've heard it loads of times in OCD sufferers and had it myself.

Your mind is trying to convince you, it's asking you. These are all questions with answers aimed at reinforcing the obsession, and they are likely to be compulsions of the mental variety, covert compulsions.

If you engage in negative questioning of yourself, you reinforce the disorder. You give it purpose in your subconscious, it's part of feeding back to tick the final boxes in the cycle. This is why acceptance, Mindfulness, etc are really helpful because you learn to stop doing this and starve the reaction which breaks the chain because you stop your compulsions and let the obsession go into decline (as well as many other useful elements such methods bring to work on the obsessions).

The OCD cycle here might help you to box these thoughts:

http://psychology.tools/cognitive-model-of-ocd.html

As you can see, the thoughts that follow your intrusive thought are interpretations and they will lead to some behavioural outcomes as well as more anxiety and the symptoms that come with that. Learning to change the interpretation is a key part of CBT as it teaches you to react in positive/neutral ways to question properly in a constructive manner and reframe them. A Thought Record is very useful for doing this:

http://psychology.tools/cbt-thought-record.html

This type of method starves the negative reaction it is expecting because you are reframing it. So, it's another method you can use other than the acceptance route. I think it can also help with closure when you write it as opposed to dealing with it mentally because there is a tendency to go back to the start again and repeat it all. Learning to resolve thoughts in your mind without such tools takes some practice but you can get there.

[lg123]

I don't want to hijack this thread but I don't want to start another one unnecessarily! I had harm intrusive thoughts four years ago and it was awful - by far the worst of my intrusive thoughts (is this thinking part of the problem?)

I got over it (I can't remember exactly how) but it lost its power.

Due to some really difficult situations, I have fallen back into anxiety, which initially was focused on me not being able to understand people due to ear problems I had. The harm stuff started today. There are sort of impulses as well and I've had some really panicky moments when at work when I've worried about how easy it would be to... well I don't let me mind get as far as the specifics in case that makes it worse. Then I have moments of calm.

But my fear is that this will never go away and I'll have to live the rest of my life like this. Constantly on edge and constantly fearing that I might do something (like I said I haven't got as far as what that something might be, it's just a sort of feeling in my body of I could do something). Is it just me that thinks like that?

[OCDguy9018]

Thank you so much Terry for all your help. You are a very good person!