Am I alone in this? Has anyone else experienced this (or something similar)?

[obsessinganne]

So basically, when I was 14/15 I was really struggling with intrusive thoughts regarding animals. I was worried that I would be the type of person who was attracted to them or wanted to do sexual things with them.

Well, one day I just got fed up with the thoughts. I had just gotten done giving one of my dogs a bath and I had a thought while drying him off, “Well I guess I’ll do it.” so I closed my eyes and slid my hand down his stomach (I was holding him up). But before I could reach his privates, I stopped and let him go.

I did not think on this situation until it randomly popped into memory a couple weeks later. Now I’m worried that I had repressed this situation and that I could potentially have repressed me acting out on thoughts before.

Not only that, but I’m worried that I don’t have OCD because I thought people with OCD never act on their thoughts. Am I truly alone in this? I feel like a monster and this doesn’t help with the fact that I have false memories of doing stuff & I feel like this might mean it’s real.

Please offer some insight if you can.

[obsessinganne]

Anyone?

[MothFir]

"I’m worried that I don’t have OCD because I thought people with OCD never act on their thoughts."

And you didn't act on them, as you remember it. You stopped before doing anything. Now your OCD is filling in memory gaps and making you question what's real and what's not, which is what OCD does. It's also making you question whether you even have OCD, which is also what OCD does. I don't have the "animal theme," but I have experienced similar scenarios with scrupulosity, contamination, checking, and a lot of the other old standbys.

Do you have an OCD therapist that you can talk to about this? From what you've written, it sounds like you're suffering from a fairly common OCD theme, and a therapist could help treat it. Feel better soon!

[alexandraisobsessed IOCDF Advocate]

Hey there obsessinganne,

I'm sorry you're struggling with these thoughts. I can imagine that you care for your dog very much which is why OCD would latch onto him.

When I was young, I had similar thoughts about the family pet and it scared me so much. I was worried about what kind of person it made me and I hid that fear for a very long time.

It takes a lot of bravery for you to reach out and ask this question. I hate that you're suffering. Do you have an OCD specialist you see? Mine has been very helpful in helping me deal with my taboo obsessions.

[Hidden]

I just created a profile to reply to this post specifically. I want you to know you are not alone. I am a therapist and I have seen and treated patients with very similar stories to yours. You are not a monster. Having a thought is not the same as wanting the thought or acting it out. Being tormented by a thought is not the same as being sexually aroused by the thought. Touching a dog penis/vagina when giving a dog a bath/drying it off is not the same as wanting to have or having sexual contact with the animal (although it sounds like you actually stopped yourself from touching it, but are fearful of the fact that you might have moved to touch it intentionally). People with OCD actually do perform "testing" or "checking" rituals quite frequently--that is, they engage in behaviors to see if they are aroused by them or horrified by them or something in between. This can be confusing because physiological arousal is not very nuanced--it's either on or off. Whether it is "positive" (approach) or "negative" (avoid) is all a product of our interpretations and thoughts about the experience. (Think about two people standing in line to ride a roller coaster: one person really excited, one person terrified. The physiological experience is the same: arousal. The thought process is very different: one person is thinking "This is going to be so amazing!" the other is thinking "OMG, I'm going to die!") Sexual arousal is particularly tricky (especially during adolescence, when it's fairly new and fairly easy to become aroused at almost anything). Worrying about your memories and the possibility of having forgotten some important information that will allow you to decide whether or not you are "a monster" is also pretty classic of OCD. It's a trick OCD plays to keep you caught up in uncertainty. Try not to fall for it! Please try to find a specialist who treats OCD to work through this.

[obsessinganne in reply to Hidden]

Hi! Thank you for your reply. Basically, I was drying him off after his bath and I started having thoughts about touching him, so I thought to myself “I guess I’ll do it now” and slowly slid my hand down his stomach, but I remember letting him go because that was as far as I could go. It felt like this situation had completely left my memory until I randomly remembered it a couple weeks ago. And that’s not normal for me because I usually obsess over things from the jump.

I don’t know, it just really boggles my mind that I had a moment where I technically gave into my thoughts and let myself act on it. I do wonder if me stopping was because I couldn’t let myself touch him, or if I didn’t really care if my hand reached that point when I started doing it.

I hope this made sense, and again, thank you for taking the time to respond.

[Hidden]

It's impossible to know what was going on for sure. Perhaps you were basically trying to do a high level ERP without realizing it (I had a patient who was afraid of certain foods, including lactose, and she finally ate a piece of chocolate and laid down in bed, convinced she was killing herself by doing so, but just couldn't live with the torment and fear any longer. You situation could have been like that.) You might also look into False Memory OCD. I've heard of patients having this kind of experience (suddenly remembering something they said/did out of character) that they later realized was a false memory. Importantly, it sounds like your fear (of the possibility of being sexually attracted to animals or of repressing memories) is the common theme, and the compulsive "figuring it out" is the highly problematic behavior. The key is to start with the problem in front of you and not the one that your anxiety/OCD fears is lurking in a repressed memory.

[obsessinganne in reply to Hidden]

Yeah, I’ve talked to a few OCD specialists and the gist was that my behavior was me “checking” and “testing” myself. According to them, my OCD had exaggerated the feeling that I was actually going to act out on the thought. And since I did stop myself, it was just me testing thought to see if I could actually do it.

But I find it very hard to subscribe to that way of thinking because I genuinely don’t hear anyone else giving stories of themselves acting on a thought. And if I actually cared about not doing it, then why would I close my eyes and allow myself to be in a position where I could?

I know 100% that this wasn’t a false memory, but I do struggle with that theme in regards to other things. Especially due to the fact that I’ve had moments where I actually felt like I was recalling my false memory & was having “flashbacks” which isn’t something I see described in forums either.

It’s definitely been a long and bumpy road with all of this, and I genuinely appreciate the added help of trying to sort through it. Especially since I recently stopped seeing my OCD specialist.

[fredastaire in reply to obsessinganne]

Hi, It was a checking ritual. It means nothing. The reason you don't hear other people tlking about it, is because they are too embarrassed and haven't heard other people talking about it. By you speaking up, you are helping other people.👍