I did so confusing and debilitating

[Norma42]

 Can intrusive thoughts cause Groinal response? I remember holding my baby and she fell asleep on my chest . I was so worried with intrusive thoughts about not getting a “feeling” or Groinal. Then I got an intrusive thought like “oh just get a feeling” which is not my desire at all! But I got a Groinal response , it wasn’t pleasurable but it freaked me out and put me in the mental hospital. Do you all feel like I acted on a thought? Or if I did something what did I do? I just feel like because the intrusive thought was “just let yourself feel something” and then I felt something. I acted on it. Although it wasn’t a pleasurable feeling. Has anyone done this or had similar experiences?

[sedulous]

I remember reading a book on OCD that mentioned that this was possible - specifically that it's not uncommon to get a spontaneous "groinal feeling" (I can't remember the exact language) when that is exactly what the obsessing individual is so desperately trying to avoid. It seems that a mind intensely focused on a specific part of the body and the sensations arising from it can generate de novo sensations without need of external stimulation. It's unclear to me how far from the cortex the nervous impulse is being generated under these circumstances, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was outside of the brain. On a personal note, I once had an obsession centered around the back of my throat. After days of some intense OCD around this part of my body I actually developed a sore throat, it hurt to swallow and for the life of me I could not tell the difference between that pain and the pain I would have expected from the sore throat of an upper respiratory infection. Of course, I wondered if I had indeed contracted an infection, but other facts of the case argue against this interpretation. I suffered no other viral symptoms and when the OCD abruptly cleared in a couple days, so did my sore throat.

[MothFir]

OCD often causes us to think we experience the very things we fear experiencing. My health anxiety has sometimes caused me to develop the symptoms I was worried about -- very similar to your own situation. It's all OCD messing with your head and nothing more.

[Norma42 in reply to MothFir]

The thing is this happened a long time ago. Like 11 years ago. I had recovered realizing it was my ocd and then out of the blue it just popped back on me!

[MothFir in reply to Norma42]

I think that's pretty common for OCD. You think things are going fine, and then it dredges up some old memory and makes you wonder if you really ever resolved it and what horrible thing it might mean. I hope you're able to starve it of the attention it wants and get past it 🙂

[Norma42 in reply to MothFir]

Thank you for your time to respond