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Intrusive thoughts are a true pain in the ass. I keep having them I am a long time ocd/health anxiety sufferer I keep having horrible scary thoughts. Like planning my kids funeral if they get sick. Thats 1 example I will take any ideas or advice

Hi,I'm a volunteer at an animal shelter and a big animal lover. About a month ago, a staff member at the shelter found a frog in there, and she invited me to come with her as she went outside to release the frog. She put the frog near a puddle and went back inside the shelter, but since I have OCD, I felt like I had to stay there a few more moments to make sure the frog was okay. After staring at the frog for a few moments, I started walking back to the shelter, but I kept looking back at the puddle, just to be absolutely sure.At some point when I looked back the frog wasn't there anymore. I went back to puddle to take a closer look, but the frog was nowhere to be seen, so I just went back to the shelter.Even though I can tell with almost 100% certainty that the frog simply jumped into the puddle when I didn't look, I still can't get over the idea that I accidentally stepped on the frog when I went back to puddle to take a closer look. This idea makes no sense because the closest I got to where we put the frog was a few meters away from that spot, and also, if a frog had been crashed under my foot, I would have surely noticed.Unfortunately, I cannot reason with my OCD, and even though I keep telling myself how irrational my worries are, they just don't go away.Any advice on how to deal with this trouble?

Hi everyone ( i have written this article in another ocd forum as well , so i just wanted to share it here , so everyone take benefits from it ) I'm a person who had ocd for more than 1 YEAR and to say that it had been more than 1 month that i'm ocd free , with no more intrusive thoughts nor anxiety , is like a miracle , so i'd like to share with all of you , the steps that i have done that made me overcome Pure OCD / Intrusive thoughts .I have already wrote an article about my personal successful story of how i overcame pure o , but in this one i'll share details about the instructions to do in order to get rid of Pure O/Intrusive Thoughts. Please reall all the article , although you may have tried everything and know alot about ocd , but just read it , it may let you get rid of ocd once for all . 1 ) DON'T FIGHT YOUR BRAIN Dont try to force yourself to delete a thought from your brain.Dont avoid or escape a thought.I know it sounds stupid for someone who want to get rid of a thought, but trust me during my ocd , i was for 9 months trying to forget and escape a thought , and never did i ever forgot it , instead , the thought haunted me for 9 months. Why ? because " The more you try to not think about something , paradoxicaly , the more you'll think about it " For example : if i tell you " Dont think about bananas , like really DONT ! " , i'm sure you'll think about them more, each time you remind yourself to not think about bananas. Avoidance and Escape are also the main reasons why you cant forget a thought , because by avoiding something, YOU ARE SENDING THE MESSAGE TO YOUR CONSCIOUS AND NONCONSCIOUS MIND that BECAUSE YOU FEAR THIS STUFF , YOU WILL AVOID IT , and what does your mind do ? It will Remember that your fear this thing . Avoidance/Escape are mental compulsions that your brain notice . You brain is smart and knows eachtime you're occupying yourself with another activity , it is not because you like the activity but because you're trying to escape the thought . IMAGINE , it took me 9 Months to discorver that Avoidance / Escaping / Forcing yourself to not think about something : will only make the thought all the time in your head , SO TRUST ME , DONT DO THE SAME FAULT I DID ( im sharing with you a summary of how i overcame ocd ) 2) Getting rid of anxiety Exposure myself was the best way of how i got rid of anxiety . Exposure Therapy is exposing your self to the things that make you anxious and it is how your anxiety will decrease A LOT ! and eventually disapears after a time. Exposure Therapy is the most effective way to get rid of ocd or any other Anxiety disorder. And this is what happened in my case, it was really hard for me because each time i tried it and it didnt help that much , i was in an endless circle and felt like there is no escape of anxiety but anxiety decreased after SO MUCH time exposing myself to the thought that made anxious as hell and i was able to get rid of anxiety at the end . I was once in your case ,so trust me , after a long period of exposure that has to be done effectively, you'll be able to do it just like i did . Search about Exposure Therapy of OCD , in order to apply it the proper way. 3 ) You may have read that your ocd is caused by a chemical imbalance in your brain but that's not true ! I myself , believed this too , but i found out that it wasnt the case. For instance , if you search about the cause of depression , you'll find everywhere that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in your brain , a Serotonin imbalance caused your depressive mood . But wait a second If someone is depressed because he lost his mother , was it because of his loss of his mother that he is now depressed or was it the " chimical imbalance " that caused his depression ? Similar example , when you think about very sad events and get depressed , is the low serotonine in your brain THE CAUSE behind your depressed mood , or is the low serotonin A REACTION since you were thinking about sad events. You can search about " Myths of serotonin defency " " Myths of brain chimical imbalance " " the reality of psychiatry " , many articles on the internet and some psychiatrics themselves talking about these lies such as Thomas Szaz who decided to destroy his career to reveal to people the truth about psychiatry .And im an example myself , when i searched about ocd , i found out that i should take a certain serotonin antidepressant for many years and in some cases , patients should take it for the rest of their lifes. During my hole OCD HELL, i took one pill of an antidepressant , and then decided to throw the hole medicine wehn i found out about the truth about these drugs Trust me , because here i am , i'm an example of a person who overcame Pure OCD without any of these drugs. 4 ) MOST IMORTANT ELEMENT ACCEPTANCE I didnt put it in the first place , because it is very hard to just accept your anxiety provoking thoughts , but indeed ACCEPTANCE is the most imporant element.Fighting back your toughts by trying not to think about them , will only re-enforce them , and you'll think about them MORE . So by acceptance , you just let the thoughts in your head , you welcome them ! you say to yourself " im gonna give you space in mind , i can think about you anytime i want " your mind will know that you accept the thoughts and YOU WILL BE SURPRISED ABOUT HOW much the thought will diminish to the point where they will no longer be in your head . How ? Because as i said earlier " by avoiding something, YOU ARE SENDING THE MESSAGE TO YOUR CONSCIOUS AND NONCONSCIOUS MIND that BECAUSE YOU FEAR THIS STUFF , YOU WILL AVOID IT , and what does your mind do ? It will Remember that your fear this thing " . So in the opposite when you welcome the thought , when you give it space , when you can think about it whenever you want , your mind won't remind you each time about it. 5 ) After exposing yourself to the anxiety and after stopping fighting your brain by trying to stop the anxiety provoking thought , . Now comes an essentiel element wich is knowing that the thought that made you so anxious is absurd and doesnt mean anythingUse logic and think if what you're anxious about does really make sense ! Take a deep time , a deep reflexion and see the things clearly . What made you the first time have this anxiety towards this thought ? Does it make sense ? and so on , to the point where you'll know that is absurd and you'll move on . Use logic only after exposing yourself and having almost no more anxiety. because if you use logic to fight your anxiety thought , you'll know that the thought doesnt make sense BUT you'll always feel anxious , you won't get rid of anxiety , so first you need to get rid of anxiety by exposing yourself , and then after being sure there is no more anxiety then you can use your logic . I hope that you will overcome your OCD just like i did , it is all behavioral. I want you to know that is possible , im an example of someone who overcame pure ocd. And Please share it with other people who stuggle from Ocd /Intrusive Thoughts .

Hi I am actually new here I've been experiencing intrusive thoughts lately like a month already, it's so random that it appears whether I'm busy or not. I haven't seen a psychiatrist or a psychologist because I'm kind of scared of what people may think of me, because here in the Philippines, people have placed a stigma on persons with mental disorders. These thoughts by the way are so disturbing, these are images of myself hurting me, or my loved ones. What I do have are only thoughts, so far I believe I don't have repetitive behaviors but what concerns me the most are the bad thoughts it is so shameful to share this to someone else, I just really couldn't sleep now because of these thoughts again, i have tried breathing exercises and nothing seems to relieve my mind from these thoughts. I only discovered that I am experiencing symptoms of OCD through websites such as psychcentral etc. So I am asking for help if someone could somehow shed some light about what I am experiencing, and your replies would really help me.