POCD, help!

You know I was thinking more generally last night about these issues and I came to a conclusion about OCD. It seems we are vulnerable to suggestion.

if you've ever heard of the "power of suggestion" it's about how you can manipulate people into accepting your ideas as being theirs, by nudging them along the right thinking paths without them noticing.

The reason I'm thinking about this is because in addition to OCD, I don't feel fear (which is on the antisocial PD spectrum if I'm not mistaken) so as a small child, instead of being anxious about tangential thoughts, I would just do them. My first memory is something in my brain telling me at 4 to jump off a 10 foot play structure in daycare, which I did (and broke my collarbone). The next time was my first day of kindergarten, when I pulled the fire alarm because a suggestion in my head told me to. Various other things in my childhood point to that (alongside conventional OCD symptoms like lining toys up, having to do things in an arbitrary order etc).

It makes me think that the root symptom of OCD is being overly attentive to random suggestive thoughts, and either having an anxious reaction to it (HOCD, POCD etc) or in some cases actually doing it (i.e. me). So I think the anxiety itself is actually completely normal, but its the underlying cause (paying excessive attention to random thoughts or impulses) that causes the disorder.

gomek wrote:It makes me think that the root symptom of OCD is being overly attentive to random suggestive thoughts, and either having an anxious reaction to it (HOCD, POCD etc) or in some cases actually doing it (i.e. me). So I think the anxiety itself is actually completely normal, but its the underlying cause (paying excessive attention to random thoughts or impulses) that causes the disorder.

Yes, I totally agree with you! Almost everybody has intrusive thoughts, weird impulses or whatever but people with OCD start obsessing about it. For example when a "normal" person has an intrusive thought about killing a loved one, he is maybe a little shocked and thinks, "What a weird thought." when someone with OCD wants to figure out why he had the thought, if he has a secret desire to act on it etc.

I really like your posts btw, you contribute interesting ideas!

I agree too. Thoughts become dangerous and scary.