View Full Version : reassurance needed
so i have been worrying about a specific event that happened for a few months now. i am very ashamed to type this but i just cannot get it out of my head. (as some background i'ma girl, just turned 18)
the thing happened in december, about a week before christmas day. i am really ashamed of what i am about to write, i am ashamed of the fact that i would even entertain these kinds of thoughts. anyway, one evening in the holidays one of my closest friends came over. she had a bottle of vodka, we both a got quite tipsy. she wanted to smoke, so we went and sat in my garden. my parents were out, and my brother (he's 12) was in bed. my brother woke up and came downstairs, saw us in the garden and came outside. i was trying to get him to go back to bed. i had my hands on his shoulders and was sort of drunkenly trying to steer him back inside. this is all a bit of blur because i was drunk, but i just very vaguely remember that at one point i had one hand on his shoulder and one hand on his chest as i was trying to get him to go back inside. now at the time i didnt really think much of this, but later after my friend left i got really upset. i dont really remember much of this either, but i know that i felt really guilty, and i cut myself (i have quite a bad self harm problem. until this point, i had not done it in several months)
so anyway, i woke up the next morning, with these cuts i only vaguely remembered inflicting. i could only slightly remember my weird breakdown from the night before, i was upset about the cuts but honestly i didnt think much of it. then a few days later on christmas eve that i suddenly started obsessing that i had done something bad on that evening, that i had when i touched my brother's chest i had some weird sexual thought (i know how awful this is), and thats why i had been so upset later. i have been worrying about this ever since (with a few weeks respite where i managed to rationalise it but recently it has come back). I really cant remember what happened at all, if i had the thought at all or if i just made the whole thing up. i keep asking myself- was the thought before or after i put my hand on his chest? is it bad if i put my hand there even if i was just trying to steer him inside?
let me be completely clear that i do not have sexual thoughts towards my brother or children, honestly it is one of my biggest fears. i used to be very irrationally afraid of having these 'bad thoughts' to the point that i was analysing everything that came into my head and trying to be figure out if it made me some kind of evil or perverted person. i would never ever want to hurt my brother. i love him more than anything, im very protective over him. i have tears in my eyes thinking about the fact that i could ever hurt him. i know that nothing happened that evening that negatively affected him in any way. he's not acting any differently, still his adorable affectionate self. i have asked him more than once to tell me everything that happened that evening, he just says that he saw me and my friend being drunk and stupid and he thought it was funny, then he went to bed. he keeps telling me that nothing bad happened and that i should stop being ridiculous.
i cant let it go and the last few days i have been feeling really bad and anxious- i have horrible thoughts that i am disgusting, that i am evil, that i dont deserve to be happy. whenever i am with my friends or even my family i think 'they would hate me if they knew what i did'. but thats the thing, i dont know if this is just my anxiety playing up, if im just overreactidng. did i really do anything at all? or did i really do something wrong and terrible? i played and replayed it over and over again in my head so many times it has become skewed. not to mention the fact that i was drunk and i hardly knew what i was doing.
at the best of times, its just kind of at the back of my head bugging me, at the worst of times i feel like i cant breathe. i am my a levels in less than i month, and i really need to pull myself together. i need a*aa to meet my conditional offer, but all i can think is 'youre a terrible person, you dont deserve to do well' so im stuck in this loop of doing the bare minimum for school, watching bad tv and binge eating to distract myself and sometimes cutting myself as a 'punishment' for whatever it is i may or may not have done.
please help please tell me im not a terrible person and this is all just in my head, i dont know what to think anymore.
(ps im sorry for the long rambling post)
Its ok to put your hands on your brother's chest/shoulders to steer him indoors. No problem. He says nothing untoward happens - so believe him!
You were a little drunk and confused & in retrospect wonder whether you had a "bad" thought, but this was not so. Its just doubts, horrible doubts. Please stop torturing yourself. I consider you a good person with high standards, whom I would like. Not terrible in the least.
MyNameIsTerry
15-05-16, 07:56
Something I think you need to remember is that you cannot control your intrusive thoughts. If you touched your brother's chest and an intrusive thought to harm him was triggered, that's not a conscious thought process. It is triggered and your subconscious is sending it out to the conscious to do something with it as the thought doesn't match to your deeper beliefs and morals, schemas, etc.
There is also the element of false memory in here and making some big assumptions. What proof do you even have that had such a thought? Your brother has no indication of anything happening and you can't actually remember that side other than taking the perfectly normal action of ushering your brother back into the house. You only touched areas anyone else would, it's not like an intimate area was touched so it's clearly just a big sis shepherding her little brother back to bed.
Have you had previous sexually intrusive thoughts by any chance? Is this maybe why you are worrying yourself over whether you had one then?
Hi everyone and thanks for the replies. Yes I have had these kinds of thoughts before- that's the thing I'm pretty sure all that happened was I put my hand there, then I had a recollection of when I had had those thoughts before, which freaked me out. That scenario I could cope with. The issue is I'm scared that the thought came before the action, so the action was motivated by the thought, if you see what I mean. Part of me is telling me to let it go- he wasn't affected in any way, the action to anyone else wouldn't have looked bad etc. +the whole thing is based off the vaguest fragment of memory. But then the other part of me is saying that I had bad intentions so I deserve to feel this way. And I feel like there's so inbetween. Either nothing happened at all and I should shop feeling bad or I'm completely evil and i don't deserve good things. I can't figure out which one it is
You are very young. And often young people read way too much into their thoughts. What I read into what you called your "awful thought" (and a drunken thought at that) was that it is really not much at all to be worried sick about. As you have said you have no feelings other than normal sister/brother ones towards your younger brother. I would say though to lay off the booze if it is a problem for you. One sign of it being a problem is loss of memory.
At least I think it is...I can't remember:D
N.
MyNameIsTerry
29-05-16, 04:54
I would say though to lay off the booze if it is a problem for you. One sign of it being a problem is loss of memory.
Whilst there is the issue of a problem with alcohol, in which case I would agree on cutting back/abstinence, etc I disagree otherwise because this will possibly create another dimension to the OCD through avoidance, an association between alcohol and intrusive thoughts. The more these fear associations exist in us, the less chance we are going to have of beating them as we have left some foundations behind for further anxiety.
So, if stopping drinking is on the cards, tackle the full OCD too AND include the links to alcohol to ensure you cover all the bases.
I realise there is strong feeling towards alcohol in many mental health sufferers but we don't need to drive either for the most part but wouldn't discourage that in a case of someone with "hit & run OCD".
So, just a possible caveat to consider there.
I always raise this too because anxiety it sneaky. I developed fears of taking paracetamol and I could avoid that for life but what happened next is that my anxiety kept going and started picking vitamin C and any other supplement or med and not long after I wouldn't take my asthma medication. The result was a mild asthma attack and weeks trying to get myself to drop the fear of taking it again.
---------- Post added at 04:54 ---------- Previous post was at 04:41 ----------
Hi everyone and thanks for the replies. Yes I have had these kinds of thoughts before- that's the thing I'm pretty sure all that happened was I put my hand there, then I had a recollection of when I had had those thoughts before, which freaked me out. That scenario I could cope with. The issue is I'm scared that the thought came before the action, so the action was motivated by the thought, if you see what I mean. Part of me is telling me to let it go- he wasn't affected in any way, the action to anyone else wouldn't have looked bad etc. +the whole thing is based off the vaguest fragment of memory. But then the other part of me is saying that I had bad intentions so I deserve to feel this way. And I feel like there's so inbetween. Either nothing happened at all and I should shop feeling bad or I'm completely evil and i don't deserve good things. I can't figure out which one it is
This is common with intrusive thoughts, asking these types of questions. Even if you had a 100% recollection of the event, your anxiety would still get you doubting it all and wriggle in new meaning by analysing it with hindsight bias. You can start to craft the event in a different way to how it really happened and all the implications of it change.
The trigger can be subtle too. It's possible that the trigger was prior to you touching your brother hence the thought coming after anyway but still before you touched him. That still doesn't mean you followed through on your intrusive thought because a) you didn't actually do anything according to external people involved (and you've accepted your brother would somehow show this) and b) the thought itself doesn't matter in the slightest because your intention matters more. You intended to do the right thing, a thought will never derail that unless YOU choose to act on it. There is no evidence you did regardless of your memory gaps.
OCD can create false memories too. It's again like with hindsight bias where we can't fully know so start filling in blanks and making new incorrect associations due to our Cognitive Distortions.
I know this thread is old, but this is a re emerging issue for me again. any input is appreciated
Update on what thoughts youve been having?
pretty much the same as the one's in my original post :( i seem to be stuck in the same pattern
TheChangingMan
23-11-16, 22:22
shw11, It takes alot to come onto a public forum and open up about an issue, regardless of what it entails, you have my upmost respect!
Now, from what ive gathered, its seems this thought is stuck.. and i agree its hard to take something like this away.
Hes your brother, your fine to handle him! Its what happens in familys! You were just making sure he wasnt in danger, a total big sister reaction in my opinion.
I can assure you that your behaviour is completely normal. You were drunk and you cant remember what actually happened. Im pretty sure if something did happen he would of told you so.. I think maybe this has alot to do with your upcoming A Levels. Stress is playing a part, your mind and body is preparing for a big issue... And im sure that your getting ready to succeed in all that is to come
You have to sit and think to yourself... is this worth getting so beat up about? You've recently turned 18, life is going to throw things towards you what will blow you away, and cause thoughts that you do not want to have, but we battle on! We stay strong and we get the positive outcome, I assure you :)
If you need somebody to speak to, im always a message away
TCM x
shw11, It takes alot to come onto a public forum and open up about an issue, regardless of what it entails, you have my upmost respect!
Now, from what ive gathered, its seems this thought is stuck.. and i agree its hard to take something like this away.
Hes your brother, your fine to handle him! Its what happens in familys! You were just making sure he wasnt in danger, a total big sister reaction in my opinion.
I can assure you that your behaviour is completely normal. You were drunk and you cant remember what actually happened. Im pretty sure if something did happen he would of told you so.. I think maybe this has alot to do with your upcoming A Levels. Stress is playing a part, your mind and body is preparing for a big issue... And im sure that your getting ready to succeed in all that is to come
You have to sit and think to yourself... is this worth getting so beat up about? You've recently turned 18, life is going to throw things towards you what will blow you away, and cause thoughts that you do not want to have, but we battle on! We stay strong and we get the positive outcome, I assure you :)
If you need somebody to speak to, im always a message away
TCM x
this is the sweetest post- it really does mean a lot of me to have people reply so thank you :)
i actually finished my a levels a few months ago- and i actually did manage to get the grades for my first choice uni! (yay)
but i sort of decided i wasn't ready for uni yet so i deferred my place until next september, so i'm sort of taking an unplanned gap year now (i'm not sure how good an idea this was as having more free time to think about things/ a lack of structure can sometimes make things worse).
so yeah, thats the situation at the moment, but i am trying my absolute hardest to be more positive, i promise!
TheChangingMan
23-11-16, 22:40
this is the sweetest post- it really does mean a lot of me to have people reply so thank you :)
i actually finished my a levels a few months ago- and i actually did manage to get the grades for my first choice uni! (yay)
but i sort of decided i wasn't ready for uni yet so i deferred my place until next september, so i'm sort of taking an unplanned gap year now (i'm not sure how good an idea this was as having more free time to think about things/ a lack of structure can sometimes make things worse).
so yeah, thats the situation at the moment, but i am trying my absolute hardest to be more positive, i promise!
Hey thats absolutely fine! Its cool to take a year away from studies! One of my Cashiers has just taken two years away from studies due to personal issues! I told her to "Go Find Herself"
You need to lay back, relax, and re-focus, this wont take over your life hunni i assure you! Your in a good place! Keep up the good work!
I always feel when your alone it becomes a problem, i overthink alot too..
Im always a message away remember! But we can chat via this thread man its cool :)
TCM X (Dave lol)
---------- Post added at 22:40 ---------- Previous post was at 22:39 ----------
AND WELL DONE ON THE A LEVELS! Huge Achievement! :)
hi everyone... you guessed it, I'm still worried over this. In December it'll be 2 whole years since the night I described in my original post. This is annoying cause I was actually starting to get my life together, lost loads of weight, started reading and excersising again, was feeling semi happy in my body (a very unfamiliar sensation for me lol) and now the guilt and fear over this incident has come back with a vengeance and I've lost all motivation to improve myself at all cause I feel so ashamed. Oh and I start uni on Saturday, so I'm moving four hours away from my family and I have to make new friends and do a degree??? How am I going to manage that??? someone please help
beingheretherapy
13-09-17, 19:45
Your thoughts are not you.
Your mind is simply a tool that you can observe.
Feel free to let these thoughts pass by and not be effected by them.
Choose the thoughts that are constructive and benefit you and let the rest drift by.
Enjoy.
Wish you well.
Your thoughts are not you.
Your mind is simply a tool that you can observe.
Feel free to let these thoughts pass by and not be effected by them.
Choose the thoughts that are constructive and benefit you and let the rest drift by.
Enjoy.
Wish you well.
I know I can't control what I think, it's more the action that bothers me :(
You didn't harm your brother. It's the OCD part of your brain that is making you worry that you did. The worry that you hurt him has become a long term obsession. But that's all it is. You need not give those fears any more credence. Remember that OCD is also called the doubting disease. It forces us to question everything. We doubt our own thoughts and actions even when we know deep down that we haven't done anything wrong. But over time OCD can convince us that we've done terrible things, when we haven't and never would.
It's extremely common for people with OCD to worry that they've hurt someone else and don't remember doing it. That's all that's happening to you. Nothing more. You haven't hurt your brother and you never would. The only reason this keeps replaying in your mind is because of OCD. The fact that the mere thought that you could have possibly hurt your brother has had such a lasting impact on you proves that you're a good person. And good people don't randomly hurt others, even while drunk.
is there any way this incident could be interpreted in a bad way (for example if the thought came before the action) or does it not matter what I wasn't thinking seeing as the action wouldn't have appeared wrong to somebody else anyway? (does that even make sense???)
I know nothing I did actually harmed him, I've managed to accept that now, but even if he was unaware of it, I'm still bothered by what the action would have said about me, had it been motivated by the thought (which is sometimes how I remember it)
anyone?? sorry of for being needy, so many of you have already been so helpful, its just that I start uni tomorrow and i'm in such a state
HOCDfighter
15-09-17, 15:32
I had Harm OCD, but it dissapeared 1 year ago. So you think about that tought and you feel like you want to do it? Just remember one thing, you dont want to.
The last HarmOCD i had was kicking my ex-gf father in his mouth, but i didn't, because i didn't want to.
Remember, toughts and feelings are harmless things, let them pass and maybe they will dissapear slowly! :)
Good luck and remember "don't care".
I had Harm OCD, but it dissapeared 1 year ago. So you think about that tought and you feel like you want to do it? Just remember one thing, you dont want to.
The last HarmOCD i had was kicking my ex-gf father in his mouth, but i didn't, because i didn't want to.
Remember, toughts and feelings are harmless things, let them pass and maybe they will dissapear slowly! :)
Good luck and remember "don't care".
I used to struggle more with worrying I would do something bad, now I have gotten over that for the most part, it's more the fear that I already have done something, which is worse because then I can't take it back
is there any way this incident could be interpreted in a bad way (for example if the thought came before the action) or does it not matter what I wasn't thinking seeing as the action wouldn't have appeared wrong to somebody else anyway? (does that even make sense???)
I know nothing I did actually harmed him, I've managed to accept that now, but even if he was unaware of it, I'm still bothered by what the action would have said about me, had it been motivated by the thought (which is sometimes how I remember it)
I get what you're saying, and no, there is no possible way that the incident could be interpreted as bad. Having the thought doesn't make a difference because thoughts are harmless.
So I'm now at uni and this is still completely taking over my mind- very frustrating because this is supposed to be a fresh start and I'm unable to enjoy it :( sorry for moaning, feeling very alone with all this right now
I don't suppose anyone has any more advice? sorry I know I keep asking, everything is so overwhelming right now
MyNameIsTerry
19-09-17, 19:13
Whilst there is the issue of a problem with alcohol, in which case I would agree on cutting back/abstinence, etc I disagree otherwise because this will possibly create another dimension to the OCD through avoidance, an association between alcohol and intrusive thoughts. The more these fear associations exist in us, the less chance we are going to have of beating them as we have left some foundations behind for further anxiety.
So, if stopping drinking is on the cards, tackle the full OCD too AND include the links to alcohol to ensure you cover all the bases.
I realise there is strong feeling towards alcohol in many mental health sufferers but we don't need to drive either for the most part but wouldn't discourage that in a case of someone with "hit & run OCD".
So, just a possible caveat to consider there.
I always raise this too because anxiety it sneaky. I developed fears of taking paracetamol and I could avoid that for life but what happened next is that my anxiety kept going and started picking vitamin C and any other supplement or med and not long after I wouldn't take my asthma medication. The result was a mild asthma attack and weeks trying to get myself to drop the fear of taking it again.
---------- Post added at 04:54 ---------- Previous post was at 04:41 ----------
This is common with intrusive thoughts, asking these types of questions. Even if you had a 100% recollection of the event, your anxiety would still get you doubting it all and wriggle in new meaning by analysing it with hindsight bias. You can start to craft the event in a different way to how it really happened and all the implications of it change.
The trigger can be subtle too. It's possible that the trigger was prior to you touching your brother hence the thought coming after anyway but still before you touched him. That still doesn't mean you followed through on your intrusive thought because a) you didn't actually do anything according to external people involved (and you've accepted your brother would somehow show this) and b) the thought itself doesn't matter in the slightest because your intention matters more. You intended to do the right thing, a thought will never derail that unless YOU choose to act on it. There is no evidence you did regardless of your memory gaps.
OCD can create false memories too. It's again like with hindsight bias where we can't fully know so start filling in blanks and making new incorrect associations due to our Cognitive Distortions.
To add the above I've said before, what evidence is there? Couldn't it equally be true that guilt occurred for another reason that you can't remember because of the alcohol?
How do you know you didn't experience guilt because you felt had because your brother got upset about not being able to hang out with big sis? With alcohol involved even something like that might lead into guilt & self harm as you wouldn't be thinking straight.
How do you know you didn't have a row with your friend, feel bad and self harm? If you both can't remember much it's a possibility.
Trying to link feeling guilt for unknown reasons and discovering the a self harm you did is biasing this towards your fears when there is really no evidence. For a start if big sis to harm him, there would be a very good chance of parents being told and he would be acting differently around you.
You can't get a black & white answer in this case, like in many things, so it becomes about where the evidence is pointing and who you are - why would you do it? You wouldn't. And you need to work on accepting this was an intrusive thought and skewed negative thinking that has connected the wrong dots.
You will never know why you self harmed but alcohol can make us very emotionally so maybe you had a spell of mood change due to it? Accept it as something like that and allow yourself to move on.
---------- Post added at 19:13 ---------- Previous post was at 18:55 ----------
is there any way this incident could be interpreted in a bad way (for example if the thought came before the action) or does it not matter what I wasn't thinking seeing as the action wouldn't have appeared wrong to somebody else anyway? (does that even make sense???)
I know nothing I did actually harmed him, I've managed to accept that now, but even if he was unaware of it, I'm still bothered by what the action would have said about me, had it been motivated by the thought (which is sometimes how I remember it)
At the time the thoughts you are likely having were to get your little brother back to bed. Conscious thoughts that accompanied your actions to take him back.
Your issue with thoughts was that the next day you wondered what you had done. These thoughts cannot affect what happened the previous night so in asking if having a preceding thought to an action is bad you are trying to find another link between those actions you are misperceiving and what could trigger them.
But the reality is there was no action to harm him so there couldn't be a conscious thought process to do so either. Even if there were, you didn't act (and I don't for a minute believe there was a conscious thought to harm him). Who knows if there was an intrusive thought but again, nothing happened and OCDers rarely act on their intrusive thoughts anyway. Whether an intrusive thought popped up at that moment is as probable as it popping up at any other moment. Do they pop up?
so even if the thought proceeded the action, me putting my hand on his chest still couldn't be interpreted as an 'action to harm him'?
MyNameIsTerry
07-10-17, 02:15
No, because you could have been putting your hand on his chest to help rather than to harm.
It's rare for OCDers to act on their intrusive thoughts. But what does this mean? It means you don't act out what your obsessio is about. What it doesn't mean is that you don't have compulsions on the back of the obsession. The compulsion however us not to act out the obsession, it's to relief anxiety or stop possible action of the obsession (as the sufferer worries they may do something).
Think of someone having thoughts about harming others with knives. Intrusive thought>panic>hide knives. Interacting with that knife is a compulsion but the sufferer does it in an opposing way to their intruisve thought. They don't attack someone with the knife.
And we have many thoughts so it's easy enough for more than one to be interacting in your brain at the same time that may not be related to each other.
So, putting your hand on his chest may have no connection to the thought at all. It might have been fom knowing you needed to get him safely back to bed and this intrusive thought came along at the same time.
No, because you could have been putting your hand on his chest to help rather than to harm.
.
but I can't remember which it was, that's the problem. The uncertainty is driving me completely insane I can't handle it anymore
I can't stand this it's driving me crazy I'm so behind on all my work cause I can't focus and I feel like I don't deserve to do well
MyNameIsTerry
20-10-17, 02:38
but I can't remember which it was, that's the problem. The uncertainty is driving me completely insane I can't handle it anymore
That's a question you will never know the answer to and anxiety thrives on these as they are uncertainty. All-or-nothing thinking is a problem for us and we want definite yes or no answer but we have to learn to live with the shades of grey that many questions are answered by.
In this case, you examine the facts. Your sibling showed no signs up upset, nothing has been mentioned, you love them so why would you in the first place, etc. All these answer the question far more than the nagging doubt over possible harm, which you have no evidence of.
From here we have to drawn a line under it, try to accept what we have determined and work on moving forward.
I don't suppose anyone has any more advice? sorry I know I keep asking, everything is so overwhelming right now
I hope you're doing great. I know I'm replying super late since you wrote the original thread years ago. I'm also suffering from pureO(OCD with no compulsive behavior but only intrusive thoughts). I was reading through your threads because I have the EXACT same thing going on with me. But seeing that you haven't posted anything lately, guess things are going well with you. I'm happy for that. :)
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