fear of having been abused

[poppit]

Hi guys,

Hope youre all feeling ok!

Can anyone else relate to this? I have had intrusive thoughts 'what if i hurt someone, what if i was a paedophile' etc, all horrendous as we know but the one I struggle with the most because it tears at my guts is 'what if i believed id been abused by my father'. My dad is the best man in the world, I love him entirely and am convinced there was no abuse but its the thought that pops up more than the rest and then brings fears of repressed memory etcand its the one that floors me because of the pain and the guilt I feel that I could even have thought it.

Its ok to say 'its ok, you wont do it' when having harming thoughts but how do I unthink something like this, how do i look at my beloved father and not feel guilt and sorrow at what ocd has done...and how can do you walk away from a thought that despite my belief nothing happened actually I cant prove? Do I just dismiss it as brain junk?

[milly jones]

ive had this fear

basically cos i have difficulties with intimacy

i thought that it was something to do with abuse in the past

in therapy weve spent hours talking, and apart from a minor molestation at 20 nothing is there

then the psychiatrist diagnosed avoidant personality disorder and it all fitted.

i never liked cuddles even as a baby, a classic symptom

so sometimes when we have these worries, and our minds make sense of scenarios, it could be something we never dreamt of, somthing deep and repressed within our souls

take care

milly xx

[chloe555]

I have these thoughts too, i know how hard it can be when you are getting them and how much anxiety they cause but try not to pay them too much importance.The more time you give to these thoughts the more they will come into your mind.I know its easier said than done.Beleive me i used to not want to leave the house cause of thoughts of harming people but if you ignore them and realise they are just thoughts then eventually they will get less and less.I also find my medication a great help as it is for ocd as well as anx and depression. I am on 20mg clomipramine.
Hope that helps a bit.

chloe x

[phoennixxs11]

Oh my goodness!!! I have struggled with this very thing for months, my dad is one of the sweetest, kindest guys you could wish to meet. He has been a brilliant father and grandfather to me and my children. This thought hit me like a bus one day at work, i also have intimacy issues and i suppose my sub concious was searching for a reason why, then BANG! i began to think these thoughts with absolutely no proof, rhyme or reason, but they wouldn't go away. I was going through hypnotherapy at one point for my blushing and social anxiety and had to stop because i was convinced that i was going to uncover this big surpressed memory.

I no longer am obssessing about this but it was a part of my life which was very uncomfortable, scary and very very upsetting. I never considered myself having OCD and only looked on this part of the forum out of curiosity but the more i read the more i can relate to the topics being discussed. It has been a revelation to me.

[PixieL]

Hi, i totally understand this one, i think the same things like what if i were abused and didnt remember. I know my dad would never ever in a million years do something like that cos hes just awesome and kind and decent and a great person, but we cant help our thoughts. What i do is push it to the back of my mind, and reason with myself that it could never happen. I to have intimacy issues cos of alot of abuse i suffered at the hands of my mother, it wasnt sexual it was mental but it still hurts. So i think my issues are to do with that. Like i said, just think to yourself what an awesome person your dad is and it makes u realise it couldnt have happened, it helps me anyway. xx

[SG]

Ahhh....I nearly cried when I read this because it was such a relief to realise I'm not the only one. I suffered from these worries so badly for months. It was actually affecting the way I acted around my dad and brothers because I really thought that I had been abused and just couldn't remember because I had blocked it out.

This worry all started because I googled the symptoms for feelings of detatchment that I sometimes get. It said that they can be symptoms of dissociative disorders which can be caused by traumatic events in childhood liek sexual abuse. After I read that of course alarm bells started ringing and I started adding two and two together, wrongly of course. I also have problems with intimacy and I thought that everything had fallen into place and I now knew the reason why I am the way that I am.

The problem with my theory though, is that my dad is like my best friend and deep down I knew he wouldn't have hurt me. I've kind of been better this last month or so after reading that these intrusive thoughts can be caused by OCD and now reading all your experiences is even more of a comfort.

[Maj]

I feel for you all because I know intrusive thoughts can be so difficult to live with. But we must remember that they are only thoughts, and thoughts can't hurt us or anyone else. The following words are from Claire Weekes book that covers intrusive thoughts that really helped me many years ago. I copied them down, kept them in my purse and read them over and over again and this truly helped me to recover

Obsession may come when mental fatigue is added to sensitization. Unfortunately few people understand how brainfag works. Frightening thoughts cling and the bewildered sufferer usually makes the mistake of trying to push them away, or to replace them with other thoughts. Occasionally he may be successful, but more often, the more he tries to forget, the more stubbornly the unwelcome ideas cling. As I have said before, discarding thought at will can be dificult, especially when the thought is upsetting and the mind tired. And no wonder he despairs, while he tries desperately to keep unwanted thoughts at bay. So many obsessions in nervous illness begin this way. They are no more than an unwanted habit established by fear and mental tiredness and, in my experience, seldom have a deep-seated significance.
Thoughts can be grotesque when one is anxious, and the stranger, the more unreal and more frightening they seem the more one may feel compelled to follow them through, almost as if mesmerized, determined to find out the worst. Whatever your thoughts, however strange, try not to be upset by them. Accept them as normal in your present state, not as something to be dreaded, avoided. Do not make the mistake of supposing there are certain thoughts you must not think, as if there is part of your brain you must not use. Use it all, even the part holding the obsession and shrink from none of it. Do not be frightened by your thoughts, however severe the compulsion that may accompany them. Severe tension can give such force to some thoughts that they seem to lock their victim in submission. Even here, NEVER FORGET THEY ARE ONLY THOUGHTS, however real and compelling they seem at the moment. It is the fear, not the thoughts, that tenses, sensitizes.

Myra