Aa
Aa
A
A
A
Close
Avatar universal

OCD and Managing bad thoughts

Hello!

I've been suffering from OCD for many years. It doesn't affect me all the time, though. I can have many months without thinking about it, until something triggers it.

Basically, my fear is to catch HIV by "accident", like eating contaminated food, etc.

Last monday I was waiting in a line at a grocery store and felt something "bumping" on my t-shirt from behind. I looked up to check if it was a drip, but I didn't see anything. There was an old lady behind me that was holding a box of medicaments (I don't know if this is the right definition in english) and some cash and nothing else. Maybe she touched my t-shirt by accident, or maybe it was a drop of water coming from the air conditioner (it was right in my direction).

My mind immediately started to think "what if I this woman attacked me with a syringe with contaminated blood and I didn't feel anything?". To make things clear: of course I know that this thought doesn't make any sense, for a lot of reasons. Of course I know I would feel the pain, I would see other people reacting to the situation, I would fight with her, etc. Even knowing all of this, the thought continues to bother me.

What's the best way to deal with these thoughts? Initially I was doing the whole OCD routine (remembering all the details, checking, etc). Now I'm not doing this anymore, but I still "feel" the thought. It normally disappears with time, but I would like to learn how to "kill" these thoughts as fast as possible.
1 Responses
Sort by: Helpful Oldest Newest
Avatar universal
Again, folks, this isn't OCD.  The more people call things OCD that aren't you are liable when you seek treatment to get stuff you don't want or don't need.  This is a phobia about getting HIV.  There are ways to disrupt thoughts temporarily -- deep breathing, focusing on something else, meditation, exercise, singing la la la la la over and over.  But phobias are hard to overcome, and therapy is a good place to get help on fixing this.
Helpful - 0
7 Comments
Well, when I said I have OCD, it wasn't made up. I was officially diagnosed with this. The situation I've described in this post was just one of the many situations involving many different scenarios I've been facing over the years. It wasn't even the weiderst one, so excuse me, but it is, in fact, OCD.
Absolutely Scott.  We're not here to argue with your diagnosis but rather to help you with support.  Since you have the OCD diagnosis and that has been determined by your health care providers, what do you do to treat that?  It's a disorder that does have treatment guidelines.  
Here's a help guide.  Read through it and give me your thoughts. https://www.helpguide.org/articles/anxiety/obssessive-compulsive-disorder-ocd.htm
I've learned a lot about CBT and I know how the OCD cycle works. It's just that sometimes it doesn't work so well. Like I said, there are some triggers that start the OCD cycle in my brain. It can be a real (but harmless) thing or something completely unrealistic, like the story I've described here. Sometimes I can forget about it in a few minutes, sometimes it takes a day, two, a week, ten days...you got the point.

Is it common having this weird sensation caused by the same intrusive thought for many days? I don't feed the thought, but I can "feel" it for a long time.
Anyway, I'm reading the help guide you posted here and there are some techniques that I haven't tried yet. Thanks!
CBT is very hard to do.  Don't give up quickly.  Therapy only works %30 of the time according to a couple of studies of CBT on the NIH website, but that doesn't account for the reality that there are a lot of different therapists and techniques out there.  But it does take a lot of hard work.  If focus hard on the OCD thing because CBT for it is quite different than CBT for other forms of anxiety, and so if someone diagnoses us with it -- I've been around a long time and psychiatrists particularly are constantly trying to convince us we have OCD or bipolar, I don't know why but some of them are as obsessed with this as we are with our disorders -- but sometimes it's just best to not label yourself and just say, okay, I'm having chronic anxious thoughts and life is no fun that way.  Call them intrusive thoughts if you want, but all thoughts are "intrusive" even good ones in the sense we have no idea where they come from, they just come.  Creative thoughts just appear as if they were whispered in our ears.  It's how the brain works.  It's only when the noise is constantly self-destructive and making us miserable that it's a problem.  If you perform the rituals most associated historically with OCD, you can work on those, but it's really hard to do, by forcing yourself to perform them over and over until they just don't bother you anymore and hopefully they go away, after you learn some techniques for calming your mind as you do this.  But if it's just thoughts without ritual actions, you can't attack it that way, you have to attack the way you're thinking.  Which is how you attack all cases of depression and anxiety.  So call it anything you want, but don't let the name of it imprison you.  Any form of anxiety is no fun, and it is caused by the way we think, and if you can learn to change the way you think you can get better.  Peace.
I shouldn't have used the word attack there -- it's really more accepting than attacking.  Demystifying.  Some of us just don't do well at this, but it is the only way to fix it, so give it a try and if it doesn't work give it another try.  Peace.
Have an Answer?

You are reading content posted in the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Community

Top Personality Disorder Answerers
1699033 tn?1514113133
Somewhere in, MD
Learn About Top Answerers
Didn't find the answer you were looking for?
Ask a question
Popular Resources
A list of national and international resources and hotlines to help connect you to needed health and medical services.
Herpes sores blister, then burst, scab and heal.
Herpes spreads by oral, vaginal and anal sex.
STIs are the most common cause of genital sores.
Condoms are the most effective way to prevent HIV and STDs.
PrEP is used by people with high risk to prevent HIV infection.