False memory OCD

[charlamagner0]

Anyone else experienced anything like this?

I remembered a dream I had about a year or two ago where I cheated on my partner. I suddenly thought ‘what if this was not a dream but an actual memory’. Then I started thinking it could have been a memory from a drunken night at a party 5 years ago. The thought/image kept replaying in my head to a point where it felt part of the memory of the party. I’ve never had the worry that I cheated at this specific event until now, 5 years later. Does this genuinely sound like OCD or no? I’m not formally diagnosed so I feel like I’m using potential OCD as an excuse

[Hidden]

I don't really know, but I think that if someone told me that your memory recall thing was OCD, I would probably believe them.

I read that at first with the understanding that you had already known that you had OCD, and was just looking for some kind of help or second thoughts. Knowing that, your description matched very well with a long time ago when I started pondering these philosophical thoughts, and then the pondering just grew... and grew... and grew, until I really wanted to stop thinking about it, but really just couldn't. What if the world was fake? What if we were in a matrix?

What if, I'm walking along outside on the street, but the sky that I'm looking at, is not real? Hey, what if there's a tear in the sky? What if it's pixelated or digitized and I just need to LOOK at it, look harder? And this kind of weird dumb thing in my head just kept going I guess. Until I was afraid I would actually think reality was not real. Or actually see a rip in the fabric of reality. And I did start to feel as if reality were fake.

What happened? Somewhat difficult to recall everything right now, but I recall coming to the conclusion (aided by other people also telling me the same) that I needed to just somehow push this crap out of my head (this was before I ever knew about OCD), or I would actually lose it. So I did. Obviously OCD stayed around in some form or another.

Do you actually have OCD? No clue. Maybe.

.

Are you stressed? (right now) (you don't have to answer). Does this thing seem... more or less weird to you? A pretty good test for myself I've found is if this doesn't make any sense, or is ridiculous somehow, then I can generally tell that it's OCD. Yeah do you, feel stressed by these thoughts or ruminations? If you feel stressed and like it's weird, and you kind of know it doesn't make sense and it probably isn't true, BUT, despite the knowledge it probably isn't true you still feel the need to "just be a little bit more certain" and "think about it just a little bit more", then I would say, that that fits classic OCD. For me anyways.

.

Man, that was longwinded.

[charlamagner0 in reply to Hidden]

Thank you soo much for taking the time to respond, I completely relate to this!! This helped me gain some clarity, much appreciated 🙏🏼