Hello! Just joined today!

Hello! Forgive me for jumping into the topic straight. Also I will apologise in early hand, that English is not my mother tongue and I will try to make it as clear as I could.

So I remember having an OCD since, an age of elementary school, and if I'm wrong, around an age before 10 probably. I remember the first time when my OCD started and it felt horrible, and it is a trauma. I was once having a conversation with this person overseas using my family members phone and one of my family member told me that it was his friend. He told me to speak to this person so I decided to do so. I was using a profanity at him or some language that he wouldn't understand, and he cursed back at me. It ended peacefully with just a laugh. After having a conversation, my grandma called me over, and as soon as I saw my grandma's face, BOOM! I was thinking in my mind, using a profanity at her. I had my first serious anxiety at that age and it freaked me out. It made me feel like I am such a bad kid. Plus, I see myself having Confession OCD. Since that day, I would confess to my mom what I was thinking and by confessing it, I felt the relief. I was officially diagnosed with OCD at middle school, if I am right. I have been through numerous types of OCD as I aged. I have experienced HOCD, Pure-O and now that I'm an rising adult, which I am gonna be soon 18, my confession OCD started to appear again, or ROCD.

Now here is the issue that I am dealing with right now. I believe that by posting this, it is a reassurance-seeking again, which is not very healthy way of dealing with OCD, and I am very aware of that. Problem is that I have cheated on my girlfriend once, and she forgave me but since then, I feel like most of the contact that I make with female makes me feel really guilty. She is aware that I have a severe OCD but I just feel really bad confessing every single bits and pieces. I know that nothing positive will come out and it will just annoy her, but if I don't tell her about it, I feel like I'm a bad person. I am often dealing with the problem of, "What is the limit of crossing a line, and what is being immoral?" Now the thought that I am stuck with is that I once told my best friend that I would f-word her if I wasn't going out with my girlfriend." It was one of her friend. At that moment, I didn't feel anything, but after few weeks or if I am not mistaken, few days later, I decided to confess her my another intrusive thought. She was laughing about it but after confessing this, now I feel like I need to confess it to her more specifically about what I said. For example instead of using a "F-word", I would use "Sleep" and it would make me feel guilty because it is not 100% accurate. My accuracy problem is pretty bad too, there is a weird pattern that if I don't confess accurately, it is not good enough. Anyhow, I didn't tell her that I said this to my best friend, because in back of my head, i know that this is really stupid, but I feel bad. I use all the techniques like being mindful and it seem to work but it always comes back.

What do you guys think?
Sorry for an extremely long message.
Thank you for reading:)

Dear pandaPanda:

Glad you posted and hoping being on this forum will be somewhat helpful to you.

I would tackle your confession OCD in two ways:
1) Like any type OCD, it is fueled by anxiety, ongoing fear. As such calming yourself in healthy ways will be helpful. Learning Emotional Regulation skills (enduring without reacting to difficult emotions) will be helpful, such as in meditation, mindfulness... Insight into your childhood by attending competent psychotherapy can help as well.

2) Regarding Confession OCD, I would say pay attention so to speak and act in a way that you approve of, so instead of using profanity and then regretting it and obsessing about it and confessing... prevent the whole mess and don't use profanity.

Of course prevention by paying attention to what you say and do, while being patient and gentle with yourself, does require being calm enough to start with.

I wish you well..!

atina

Hi PandaPanda,

I can relate to the whole confession and seeking reassurance scenario. Now I'm aware of it, I told Mr Shark and he will listen to me if I'm really upset, but then he will say that it's reached the cut off point and he won't enter into my compulsion with me any more. Like you, I will feel the need to make sure what I say is completely accurate and give far too much detail! I go round and round in circles and no amount of confessing and telling ever solves the problem or offers me true reassurance anyway.

This approach is a bit like stopping using drugs though. Reassurance and confession are addictive. However, withdrawal is necessary if you are going to improve.

I'm currently seeing a psychologist for OCD. She has asked me to make a daily diary of intrusive thoughts and obsessions. Oddly, this has helped with some of them (although new ones have emerged to replace them). Interestingly, she asked me to make a note of at least one intrusive thought each day that is a nice one. For example, the other day the idea to bake a carrot cake kept popping randomly into my mind. I'm about to start the therapy in earnest next week.

Atina gave some great advice about mindfulness and trying to relieve anxiety. It's not easy to remember to do this when the OCD is making you frantic with anxiety, but it does help.