OCD attacking things I love

[shieldmaiden]

So my ocd is attacking is attacking things I love again.

Ok, so I love cats, always have and I would never want to harm an animal period. But my roomates just got a kitten in our apartment and now I'm getting thoughts that I want to harm it. Last night the kitten was crawling underneath the chairs and I told my roomate when the kitten crawled under her chair and when she was getting up it looked like it was crushing the kitten, although I'm not sure, sometimes my eyes play tricks on me especially with ocd, but anyways that's what I thought and I hesitated before warning my roomate and now I'm a mess because I hesitated and had a thought about wanting to harm the kitten and now I'm worried that I'm going to have this the whole time the kitten is here. I don't know why this is happening, I love cats.

[danivsdani]

you probably just hesitated because you weren't sure. then your brain did the OCD thing and started asking the goofy questions. you're not a horrible person you'd never hurt cats you love cats! also keep in mind that the biggest difference between OCD thoughts and actual lack of empathy and thoughts of harming others is the fact that you think about it so much. people who lack empathy and do harmful things never think about it twice and they're certainly not worried by it.

[vicky23]

I have OCD also and my brain has also liked to torture me with thoughts of me harming my beloved dog. I know this isn't ME thinking these thoughts just a weird brain synapse firing things that cause me emotional pain. The fact that the thoughts are causing you distress is evidence that you are not going to put them into action.
SO I've dealt with these just by accepting the fact that they're only thoughts and when they do come, just remind myself they're just OCD and then distract myself with something else
Enjoy your friends kitten! lots of fun and love X

[shieldmaiden]

Thank you guys, so much. This makes me feel better. I keep reminding myself that this is all just the ocd talking. I still get the thoughts, but reminding myself that it's ocd makes me feel better.

[nosweat]

This helped me once. I had bad intrusive thoughts that really bothered me. I got over them by saying to myself "it's ok to have these thoughts" because the more i resisted them the more they nagged at me. The thing is, thoughts are not actions. Actions are what hurt others. You will not hurt the cat so having the thoughts are irrelevant. Everytime you have the thought (or fear) say to yourself "it's ok to have this thought." This way you are not resisting them which may make them worse. This may actually diminish them, this technique worked for me.

I hope you feel better :)

[shieldmaiden]

I will try this.

Thank you.