Very Worried I'm Going To Hurt Someone

Hi,

I recently got diagnosed with anxiety, depression, OCD and some attention related things (I don't think ADHD) but nothing else. I've started seeing my one therapist again (just began a regular schedule yesterday) and I go for neurofeedback. The neurofeedback did help in the beginning but things got worse.

It began 2 days after going to one of my mom's friends house's. I began to get hit with these awful powerful urges to hurt someone and they've just seemed to get much worse very fast. They don't feel like intrusive thoughts but very powerful urges. I'm very worried in a way I'm going to hurt someone. I think I have depersonalization too and that makes me feel numb which makes me more uncomfortable.

I guess I'm not sure what I need here. My one doctor told me these thoughts should be DISconcerning, making them sound like it's actually pretty common. My other therapist told me that based off what she knows about me, I don't seem like that kind of person.

Can anyone offer me any advice? Thanks.

Moved from LWMI to OCD. Which I would do, even if you didn't have an official diagnosis. Based on the way you've described it.

Harm OCD. I've had it for over 40 years, and have managed not to murder anyone. As far as OCD themes go, it's common as dirt. Common as DIRT. Rather mundane, even. Nothing a therapist versed in OCD hasn't heard before, I'd bank money on that.

So let me see. Just to make sure of this. You say they're not intrusive thoughts, but I think they are. You have anxiety and depression, and you're worried that you'll hurt someone, right? What do these urges say to you? That you'll do it? That you want to do it? That you'll do it, and not know you did it? That you'll lose control and do it? That you're bound to do it, whether you want to or not? That you'll black out and do it? Do it in your sleep? That you won't be able to help it?

Who are the targets? Folks you know? Pets? Family members?

If that's an accurate description, well, been there, done that. I was 10 or 11 when I developed this OCD theme, during a very stressful time in my life- my parents were fighting and breaking up, and I probably had a whole raft of anger issues and resentment and of course, fear- and not knowing about OCD, I seriously thought demons were trying to take over. Heck, maybe they were- I believe in demons. But still, no matter which, it's all BS. If you were a killer, you'd be killing. You haven't done it, so you're not it.

I'd go long periods where I'd not have the thoughts. Then I'd get them, hot and heavy. I would do avoidance things like hide weapons and such. For me, the worst was after I got in a relationship, then trying to go to sleep it would hit me- I'm gonna kill her. In my sleep. I'll just do it. I want to do it. I'll do it in my sleep and not even wake up. And on and on.

It's all crap. I didn't start getting a handle on it, until I started to cop an attitude. I had to stop caring about it. I had to stop caring if I killed someone intentionally, or not. I reminded myself that in all the years I've struggled on and off with such urges, that I'd not actually done anything. So obviously, I have control over myself, no matter how much my brain screamed otherwise at me. Okay, so I'm not going to do it, and my thoughts can't make me. So I don't care. Not only do I not care because I won't do that, I intentionally make the decision to not care, if I DO do it. Not going to care. Not a bit. I'll worry about it, when I come to myself standing over a dead body. Not before. Until then, I simply don't care what I do, if I lose control.

Now, obviously I do care, and I don't want to harm anyone. But it's the attitude I'm talking about. You have to have this attitude of 'I don't give a rat's ass'. For me, that's what began to kill the ideas of harming others. It was super hard to do at first- and it also involves not acting on any Compulsions to avoid the anxiety. I had to break that Obsession -> Compulsion loop. Anything that is or could be used as a weapon, stay right where they're at. Get behind the wheel of that car and drive. Don't avoid people I've had those thought about. Act as if nothing's going on, because it really isn't. Only as much, as I let it go on in my head. And I decided I didn't want to play with those thoughts anymore, so I picked up my toys and left. Informed my OCD that I didn't care, wasn't going to care, and I decided it couldn't make me care. And it damn sure couldn't make me hurt anyone intentionally for no good reason, because if I hadn't killed a person or pet in decades of getting such thoughts on and off, then I'm not going to, now.

Super hard to do at first, and it took practice. As Yoda said to Luke- do, or do not. There is no try. It's just something you have to out-stubborn your brain with. The first few times that I didn't act on any sort of compulsion to reduce the anxiety, it was super hard. And I thought for sure, I'm going to lose control and harm them. But hey, nothing bad happened. And it began to get easier. And easier. Now, I rarely get thoughts of intentional harm, and when I do, it's pretty easy to dismiss them. I just had to retrain my brain. Oh, sure, if I let myself dwell on it for any length of time, I could slide back into that pattern. So I remain firm. I refuse to care, and in a few minutes I'll have forgotten I had that harm thought. The moment I care about it, I've lost the battle.

Anyway, if any of this resonates with you, know also that besides being a common problem for people with OCD, it's also usually, from what I've read, aimed at things or people you really care about, like family, pets, etc. Also... and this one I have trouble wrapping my head around- it's my understanding everyone gets harm thoughts. Everyone. Like, if me and someone I care about and we're standing on a precipice, and suddenly the urge to shove them off it pops up. Normies get those thoughts. I've had non-OCD people tell me they do, and I've read shrinks say everyone gets them. Normies simply think, 'what a strange thought' and let it go. But not us, oh no, not us. When you have OCD, you place so much importance on what goes on in your head. What? Why did I think that? Do I want to do that? I must want to do that! I'm going to do that! I want to do that, if I didn't I wouldn't have thought it! And on and on. And it sets up this feedback loop where you'll go through periods of just being convinced you're going to dissociate and hurt someone on purpose. Now, as someone with OCD, I really can't understand thoughts like this being 'normal'. But that's what I hear. So if everyone gets them, I must not be the ticking time-bomb my brain would like me to think I am.

Hi,

thank you so much. I think this may really help me. Also, you said in the beginning you moved from LWMI to OCD. What is LWMI?

Thanks.

You posted to Living With Mental Illness. Which is sort of a catch-all for things that can't be well categorised. Seeing as this is a supposedly common OCD thing, and even better (for a moderator, but personally inconvenient for you having to suffer it) you have an OCD diagnosis, so into OCD it goes.

I especially glom onto harm thoughts because I had to deal with them for so long. Not that I don't show my OCD in other ways- I'm a very anxious person and it's kept at arm's length only by apathy and Lexapro. Unintentional harm, for example. I still find it hard not to circle back in my car when I hit those imaginary pedestrians (or the occasional real pedestrian that was not hit, but I worry I accidentally did, anyway). Such compulsions to 'check' that I didn't do a hit-and-run are strong. I check heaters, power plugs, locks, incessantly. However, one thing I did manage to get under control, were those idiotic urges/thoughts/worries of harming others intentionally. They have no basis in reality, and I determined I was going to stop being scared of myself, or die trying. Or would that be, 'go to prison trying'? Since if they were real, I'd eventually have acted on them.

Same thing with pedophile fears- as you've seen if you've looked at this forum's topics for 10 seconds, 'POCD' is rampant here. I'll worry about it, when I've done it- not before. I see pedophile themes as a variant of harm OCD, almost more than it being a sexual OCD theme. The worry of being a monster. The feeling that you will dissociate and just 'do it'. The need for having 1,000 percent control over your every thought and action. Which is impossible, which then just kicks your OCD into high gear because it's unachievable to have that much control over every firing neuron.

With those kinds of OCDs- things that are purely just 'in our heads' and not based on something external such as invisible pedestrians or my continual worries of screwing up at work- I have to make myself worry about it (killing, molesting) when I find out I've really done it, not before. Well, even with the pedestrians- I have to make myself worry I've unknowingly committed a hit-and-run, when the police show up at my door, not before. Otherwise you'll go mad with worry. I call it 'deferring anxiety'. It's not that I don't care if I hurt another, just that I defer that care for when it happens. I defer the panic, the worry, the anxiety, the feeling like a monster, for when I actually have done something. Anxiety about things that haven't happened is pointless. I try to do that for my other anxieties- hypochondria, work, etc. With varying results. I'm most successful when it's something like intentional harm OCD, because it's so outrageous that I'd hurt people or things for no reason. Or even more outrageous, that I'd dissociate and do something. Which I have had some pretty good dissociation at times- and I very carefully steer my brain away from thinking about that, lest I give OCD a chance to bite into something solid and start my brain chewing on it. I have to tell myself that dissociation or not, my core nature isn't going to let me just go out of control and start hurting anyone.