Intrusive thoughts and rituals

Hey everyone,

I’m new to the site but I am happy I found it. I’ve been looking around and it is good to know I’m not the only one out there with this.

I have done a lot of research on OCD and anxiety. My particular OCD is intrusive thoughts and mental rituals to offset them. I have been dealing with this since I was about 12 years old and I am now 38. It has gotten worse as you can imagine. It’s always the same subject matter but I won’t get into that in this post.

My question is this...

Everything I read or hear about intrusive thoughts is professionals saying you won’t act on them or they are just thoughts and you will not do these things, etc. Although there was a brief period I was afraid I might become the things that bothered me, I quickly snapped out of that because I know for a fact I am a good person and there’s no way I could change out of nowhere.

My OCD is just really creepy disturbing thoughts that I want out of my head.

But these thoughts are so disturbing to me that I can’t just think about something else. I mean I could but I would have this extemely intense nagging feeling until I competed the ritual. With the nagging feeling comes anxiety and this creepy feeling like I’m someone else. It’s hard to explain. But once I complete my mental ritual I feel better.

Does anyone else NOT fear becoming or acting on their thoughts because they know they won’t, but instead just have disturbing thoughts that they need gone and do rituals for it?

It’s just everything I read it’s always people being afraid they will act on these thoughts or become this or that. But I know myself and I know that’s not gonna happen, but these horrible thoughts are still there and I don’t know how to get rid of them. I have tried just letting the thoughts be and dealing wih the anxiety of not doing a ritual for days thing and it does work, but most of the time my brain is on autopilot and just starts doing rituals without me realizing it.

Sorry, I’m all over the place with this post. I just hate going through this and want to enjoy life again. It just gets worse as I get older and it’s actually kept me from relationships because I want to have this under control before I go through life with someone. I mean I date a lot and have “friends” but I don’t get close to them emotionally because I need to have this under control first.

I mean it’s gotten to the point where if the first thing I think of when I wake up is one of my bad thoughts then my whole day is ruined. Like anything good that happens that day I can’t enjoy because it is now associated with a day I woke up to a bad thought. I actually wake up now and do rituals immediately and 90% of the time I wake up to a bad thought cause I’ve trained myself to do so by tying not to do so.

Even if I buy something in person or online and I think a bad thought as I confirm the purchase or pay at the counter I have tainted what I was buying and I have to return it or cancel it online before it ships then try again and think of a good thought.

I don’t know. I mean I know I just need to let the thoughts be there and not give them power and eventually I won’t think about it as much but after 26 years of doing this with the same thoughts (literally some thoughts are from things I’ve seen when I was 12) I don’t know how to just stop. It’s almost like my brain needs to be active at all times and it uses this OCD to ensure that. I just want to turn my brain off and relax. And yes I’ve tried Zoloft and it did nothing but turn my emotions down And stop my creativity.


Anyway, Sorry for the long post. I have a tendency to ramble when I’m anxious.