So today my daughter came home from school very upset, she'd had a fall out with her boyfriend. I tried texting and ringing her a few times while I was at work to see how she was, she didn't reply so I started thinking "what if she's committed suicide?" Then imagining how she'd done it. I can't say I was running around frantic as one part of me was saying she wouldn't have but it still played on my mind until I heard from her. Then a customer came into the shop and I thought he looked the type to attack me, then another customer came in and I thought he might stab me. I wasn't terrified but I was still imagining it. A few times today I've felt as though I can't swallow properly and as though someone had their hands around my neck, a pressure like it's harder to breathe. I've been having this feeling daily for a couple of weeks now. Then I heard someone I used to be friendly with was having an upsetting time and I was pleased. My son has gone to the local pub and before he left I told him not to drink too much incase he chokes on his vomit. I've just put some chicken in the oven for my partners tea, the use by date is today but it's playing on my mind he'll get food poisoning. I didn't have time to make our bed before leaving for work this morning and I've had to make it now, making sure the pillows are straight, there's not a ripple in the duvet even though we'll be getting in it in a couple of hours. I've just put clean towels away, rotating the pile from last washed to just washed with the colours going from dark to light. I've probably done and thought many more things that "normal" people wouldn't think or do also but these are ones I can remember at the moment ☹
I don't want to think these things!: So today my... - OCD Support
OCD Support
I don't want to think these things!
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Hi 100hope, I read your entry and it sounded like me. Not so much the tidying bit though as my OCD doesn't express itself that way, but the THINKING. Like you, I go straight to 'worst case scenario' and imagine my children dead if they are a few minutes late from school. I will be phoning friends and the police and the images in my head...then I feel like a mad person because they turn up. At the same tie I know bad things happen and my thoughts are very convincing. I also imagine people are tricking me or are going to trick me or that certain parts of my life are an elaborate hoax. At the same time I manage to get through my days impersonating a 'well' human and am relied upon by many others due to being considered stable and sane. The irony. I don't have the answer, but I can say that you are not alone. I imagine the throttling feeling was about you being in fight or flight mode and getting panicky due to multiple negative automatic thoughts that were flooding in and out. Anything you can do to calm your body, even when your mind is going off on one, would be useful. Breathing, no stimulants such as coffee or Monster! and know you are not alone,as I said. Warm regards.
Thank you so much for your reply, I can't tell you how good it was to read that someone actually understands, really understands what it's like to have OCD. People can smile and nod their head when you tell them your thoughts but it's almost frustrating because you know that they don't really know how you feel. Like you, nobody knows what goes through my head, they think I'm normal. X
Part of it is to do with being a parent! I haven't got kids myself, but I remember how my mother was with wanting to know I was all right!
Having OCD often means that you feel you have to do things in a certain way. It can, but doesn't always, take the form of obsessive ordering or neatness, like you with the duvet cover and pillows, or sorting the towels. It can help to break up the routine, or do things just slightly differently. So after straightening the pillows, leave them and don't go back, even if you think they aren't properly straight, or putting the towels away in a slightly different order. If it feels uncomfortable, let the feeling swell and subside, making sure you give it a chance to do so.
Manufacturers' dates on food are very generous, if only to cover themselves from prosecution! So though I wouldn't risk eating out of date chicken, on its use by date there should be no problem.
Lots of different weird and random thoughts enter our minds, whether we have OCD or not. It's having OCD that makes us label them as weird and wrong, and makes us hold onto them where with 'normal' people these thoughts just float in and out. So try not to worry about what thoughts you have about customers in your shop!
Thank you so much for taking the time to comment on my post. When I read things like that it gives me relief but unfortunately it doesn't stop me from having these thoughts x
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