Compulsive hiding to reassurance seeking...

Wondering if anyone has any advice on this.

For most of my life, I hid all of my obsessions because I was really ashamed of them. A few years ago, I had a complete breakdown and couldn't stand to deal with my thoughts alone anymore, so I opened up about them and I felt so much better after getting things off of my chest. It helped a lot because I have a lot of harm obsessions and hearing that I had never hurt anyone was so good to hear and helped me feel like I could get therapy.

The issue is that since then, I've started relying way too much on talking about things, to the point that I'll ask the same people over and over again if I'm a bad person, if I have ever or could ever hurt someone, etc. I don't want to go back to compulsively hiding my symptoms because that was unhealthy, but asking people the same questions multiple times a day during bad episodes isn't healthy either.

I have harm OCD.

You have to have a little faith that you hadn't done anything terrible, sweetie. I have never acted on intrusive harm thoughts, despite getting them on and off since the 1970s. I have never been hunted down for running over anyone. I have never done any of the horrible things I can, if I let myself, imagine having done/will do.

If you'd hurt someone, you'd know it. If you were going to intentionally hurt someone, you'd have done it.

I try to keep my... reassurance to a bare minimum- I never have shared the intrusive thoughts (of doing bad things), and the rest of it, such as 'was that bump a person' I will.... ask sparingly and only if I just can't stand it. You don't want to wear people out with it.

Thank you! I appreciate it. It can be very difficult for me to seperate my feelings from actual memories sometimes, even though everyone has told me I never did anything to harm them.

Yes, I definitely don't want to wear people out. I have a few people who are very understanding of my OCD, which I think can encourage me to reassurance seek because I know they won't get annoyed. I've asked people not to reassure me when I ask so hopefully that will help!