Postpartum Ocd - Need Support and Venting

This is going to be a long post.
Warning : It could give you new obsession, if you are easy to triggered I suggest you not to read my story.
I have OCD since ever, but I didn’t know it until 4 months ago. It was health anxiety ( I thought it was just hypochondriac) but when I got pregnant in second trimester it got worser my anxiety with Health. Then my daughter born 8 months ago, I started to have dark thoughts about Harming her. I was freaked out. But then I forgot about it. after 3 months, I watched a movie about a mother who didn’t take care her daughter so good and end up her daughter got sick. After this, I started again had intrusive harming thoughts. Scenario of WHAT IF running on my head like horror movies.
I was so scared that I was going to lose my mind. Why the hell a mother has this horrible thoughts? Then I googled it and found out about Postpartum OCD. Thank God it has a name ( at least ). I then read stories online about people with OCD, it was bad idea coz then It gave me new obsession. from Sexually abuse to baby, then lately I got new obsession that my daughter is an evil. I know it sounds ridiculous, I know she doesn’t but the idea doesn’t get out from the brain, the fears. You have no idea how much compulsion I did, spent time just for checking Ultrasound I did last year, and of course I saw somehow weird there!!! OCD WIN HELL YEAH. I know everytime I do compulsion it will only lead to another compulsion and makes my OCD worser but I do it anyway coz my brain is just sick and stupid sending me false message. It is so hard everyday battling with this monster. I have a very beautiful daughter and I think the opposite, it hurts me so bad to see her smiling it makes me feel so awful and ashamed to have this brain and dark thoughts about her

I am so desperate.. Thank you for reading my story

Hello, and welcome!

I've heard that a lot of times Postpartum depression will include thoughts of harming the child- it's not uncommon, from what I understand.

I've had harm OCD for several decades. The most common themes of non-postpartum harm thoughts are loved ones and pet. I would be okay for long periods of time, then have episodes of having to perform compulsions over thoughts of killing a pet, a partner, parents, and the like.

What helped me the most was partly just time- After a few decades of these thoughts coming and going, I realised if I was going to kill someone close to me, I'd have done it! I'm not writing this from prison, so..... what makes me think I'm really going to?

So that was my basis. I began to force myself to not worry about having the thoughts. It's not enough to be like well I'm not going to do it- because then your brain will come up with all sorts of excuses why you will do it. I'd do it in my sleep. Or... I'll just not be able to control myself; etc. It doesn't help I might have a dissociative disorder- so there's that thrown in my face, too.

But all these years, and I haven't. There might be a case of someone with bonafide OCD intrusive harm thoughts that's acted on them; but I don't know about it. People with OCD harming fears are some of the least likely people to ever do anything violent, from what I understand.

So... I force myself to not give the thoughts any regard. You can't NOT think the thoughts- trying not to think something means you're going to think it. You have to learn to both ignore it, and remind yourself that you are in control, not these intrusive thoughts. I stopped doing compulsions- such as making sure I couldn't get to anything that might be a weapon, etc. And I force myself to do nothing to counter the thought. And I force myself to not care that the thought is there. And I force myself to decide that I'll worry about it, when it happens- not before. I'll worry about harming someone or something, when I've done it- that's the time to panic. Not before. OCD is all about what ifs, as you said. Putting the cart before the horse.

I do the same thing with sexual abuse intrusive thoughts- a lot of people here have them and for short it's called POCD for pedophile related intrusive thoughts. I nip it in the bud. I'll worry about it when I've done it- not before.

There's nothing magical to any of this. It just takes the nerve to start doing it, and it's very hard at first. But you keep at it, and it gets easier. The whole time I've been writing this post, my OCD has tried to get me to worry about harming. Pets, partner. But no. I know what to do- what I just wrote you. And... even though it's hammering me right now, I know that five minutes after I'm done with this post, I'll have completely forgotten about it.

It just takes practice- nothing special, just the determination to stick with it, decide to give the thoughts the respect they deserve- which is none. And delay worry until there's really something to worry about.

With OCD, all these thoughts are what they call ego-dystonic. That's a term I bring up a lot, because I like it. I understand it to mean they're thoughts that aren't a part of You, your core being, beliefs and motivations. They're contrary to those things. And that's why the thoughts don't deserve a moment's worry over them- they're not me.

If it makes you feel any better, everyone gets violent harm thoughts. Even people who don't have OCD- and what do they do? They don't take the thoughts seriously, which is the healthy thing to do. Instead, people like us obsess over them and make ourselves miserable thinking we're some kind of monster, because we confuse having the ability to have such thoughts, with really wanting to do them. When it's not at all the case with harm OCD thoughts. I've been around long enough, if I'm thinking that I'd like to hurt someone, I can tell if it's intrusive harm thought and when it's not. And my intrusive thoughts only have the power over me, that I let them have.

I found when I began to do what I've described above, that the harmful thoughts got much less frequent, and much less powerful in their ability to spike my anxiety. They don't go away- OCD simply doesn't go away, I'm convinced. No, it'll lay dormant then it'll test you again. I still get the harm thoughts. But they're so much easier to deal with, once I began to do what I do. I just don't let them get a foothold, and they go away as quickly as they come.

Thank you!!! Yes you re right, the thought has no longer power once someone tells me that it is only
illusion, It happened when I had this harming & sexual abusive thought and I went to therapist and he told me that it is all Ilussion. The Obsession suddenly gone. But then my regret I read somewhere about a woman who obsessed that her daughter maybe an evil, then My obsession changed into it, this OCD is so monster, To admit I have this brain disorder it is still hard for me. I still cant believe it is OCD. I thought I only have general anxiety that with mindfulness could be cured. But It is OCD.

It is also helpful to think that way like you wrote: If it happened I ll worry later but not before it.
But sometimes this monster attacks with so much power that All I could do is again and again feeding them with doing compulsion that lead to another compulsion and finally found something to be worry about again.

It is like a rabbit hole.
I am so exhausted with this, couple of times I had suicidal thoughts.