Just tired and need to get it out (TW)

**Trigger warning for discussion of harm OCD and false memory OCD**

I just needed to get my thoughts out because being open about what I experience has helped me in my recovery a lot.

I'm just very tired of this disorder. I always feel like I have hurt someone. The people I think I hurt have told me I haven't, and that even if I had, they would forgive me and they wouldn't think it was a big deal, but I obsess to the point that I convince myself I caused people some sort of irreversible damage. I wonder if maybe they just repressed it and that's why they think I never hurt them (someone said that with the amount I have reassurance sought, they think those memories would have come back up by now, but still).

Once I started medication, the thoughts got better, which does help me think that maybe nothing actually happened. I was scared the meds wouldn't help, because that would mean the memories were real. I can pinpoint the event that made me start obsessing when I was 12, and I can see exactly how that would cause someone with OCD (at the time severe and untreated) to spiral into creating memories. I realized I hardly even have any memories at all and just thought I did, and those that I do have don't really make sense (ie, the times I think I may have hurt someone I wouldn't have been able to at the time and things like that) but I still just can't trust myself. I've been dealing with this fear that I've somehow traumatized someone since I was 12, and I know it's gotten better, but I can't help but feel like it robbed me of a lot and I wish it would just go away I guess.

Anyway, there's not much point to this. I just needed to get my thoughts out and I don't have therapy for a while.

I have a very good relationship with the person I worry I have hurt. I know, logically, that my symptoms are very consistent with false memory OCD. Also, I've told two of my therapists what my false memories are and they told me it wouldn't really be a big deal. (Normally I don't believe in false memories--ie, most people who uncover trauma memories I 100% believe--but in the case of OCD I know it has been proven that obsession can create doubt to the point of creating very vivid false memories.)

**Trigger warning**

I get scared I was abusive in some way when I was around 12 years old. The things I am scared or think I've done change a lot, which I know means it's not real, but I'd just feel so terrible if I ever hurt this person in some way. I have harm OCD and throughout most of my life it has been severe to extreme, which I know definitely indicates that I am just obsessing.

I know it happens. I saw a case in which someone turned himself in for murder because his OCD convinced him he had killed someone, and it turned out the person hadn't even been murdered (if I remember correctly) and that he'd never done anything. He just thought he had because he had obsessed over it so much he believed it.

**End**

I don't even really have any memories of hurting anyone. I just feel like I could have I guess? I talk to the person I am worried I hurt often, like I said we have a good relationship, and they have reassured me many times that it is just my OCD.

The driving thing is quite scary, I've had that as well.

Thank you for your words. I know that at the end of the day, the person has told me I haven't done anything and that I don't need to worry. My therapists have told me that even if the memories are real, it's not a big deal. At a certain point I have to just say "It's OCD and it doesn't matter" and move on. It's gotten much better in the last two years, so I am going to keep trying. I'm going to try to not ask the person if I've hurt them this time. I've probably asked about 50 times by now and I'm sure they're getting irritated, and I think not giving in to the compulsion will be helpful.

**Trigger warning**

A big part of it is that I was told about sexual things too early and so I would tell some other kids about stuff like that. I thought it was normal to know about and so I thought it was okay to tell other people about it. It was always kids around my age, never much younger or anything, and I remember thinking it would help protect them to know about. I was scared that if I didn't tell people about it, then someone would take advantage of them, and so I thought I needed to tell them to protect them.

I got yelled at for it at one point (up until then I hadn't known I was doing anything wrong) and that's when I became convinced that telling people about it was abusive in some way. My therapists have told me it's not a big deal and it was very understandable for 10-12-year-old me to tell people about sexual things because I thought all kids knew about and talked about it. I just felt guilty because it made me realize a lot of kids don't know about it.

If someone else told me that when they were a kid, they talked to people about sexual activity because they thought it was normal, I would not think they were a bad person. It just feels different for me I guess.

Thank you for your response. Yes, logically I know it's really not a big deal. I guess it's probably normal. I remember other kids around my age would bring stuff like that up to me because they were curious about it, and because I grew up when everyone had phones around that age and was looking things like that up, but for some reason me responding when people talked about it felt like a terrible thing to do.

**Trigger warning**

I think because I was groomed as a child, I got scared I was doing the same thing. The difference is that I just thought it was normal to talk about and had no ulterior motives, and also that the person who did that to me was an adult and I was the same age as the kids I talked to about it.

**End**

It's good to know it's mundane, that doesn't trivialize it at all. It honestly makes me feel a lot better to hear someone view it as that. My Ts have said the same thing, but I get scared they have to because they're therapists or something, so it's good to know it's actually viewed as not a big deal.

Snaga wrote:I would think a therapist might be gentle, but not outright lie to you, either.....

You're right, thank you. I really appreciate it. When I get in that headspace, it's hard to remind myself it's really...not a big deal.

**Trigger warning**

Snaga wrote:Ah I must have missed it, that you've been groomed. *flashes their Groomed card* I've been.. partially groomed as well- it didn't cause me to overtly be more sexual with my peers- probably only because I would have been afraid to- I'm bio-male, and Bi (because of my groomer? I'll never know...), and my groomer was a pederast, so... and back in the 70's being an alternate sexuality wasn't exactly the fad it is, now. So... otherwise, I might have been more overtly sexual, and I don't just mean talking. I didn't want to talk, I wanted to play.

I'm sorry you had to deal with that. I didn't even realize how much it had hurt me until adulthood, but it can definitely really affect you.

**End**

Thank you for all your responses on this. Every time I open up about this it makes me quite scared that someone will read it and think I'm an awful person, so it's nice to see someone saying it's not a big deal.

Well, I will also try to get my thoughts out. I have a typical kind of OCD when you feel like you must do something and if you don't, you are going to have big troubles.

I realized that there was something wrong with me when I was 9 (Now I am 27 years old). It started seeing to me that any stuff I saw or touched laid wrongly and if I didn't arrange it in how it should lay something terrible may happen in the future. I started feeling that I believed in fortunate numbers. For example, I had to shut the door THREE times so that something I was worried about would end up luckily without consequences.

It is curious that these obsessions usually begin when I go through tough times suffeting a lose in all my intentions and aims or I am very afraid of something. When it is allright I feel much better.

My former classmates and friends always took a notice of what I was doing, but they would pretend like nothing was happening.

Nowadays OCD goes on torturing me but I try to convince myself that it is just an illusion or wrong belief created as a result of a strange and unknown event.

I hope that the day will come when it disappears from my mind.