Living With OCD: How To Overcome Distress And Intrusive Thoughts

My story

Throughought my childhood and growing up, I’ve had a mental disease named OCD, or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

I used to wash my hands frequently, very frequently even, sometimes washing my hands 10, 20 times in a row, and doing this 10, 20 times a day, or even more. I would spend minutes or even hours of my day in « hygiene », such as washing my computer… with water and washing product. (Stupid). It got to the point my hands felt so unhealthy because of all of the washing products and soap I had on them, I literally smelt like washing products. It wasn’t like a soapy, good odor, it was like the « wipe your computer » toxic product odor, the kind of one that makes your hand crack and your skin unhealthy.

I also used to have intrusive negative thoughts. As I grew up, they got worse and worse. To be totally honest, as I’m writing this article (22nd of August 2024), I still have intrusive and immoral thoughts. And, I can’t so a thing about it except trying to ignore them, because first off everyone has these thoughts, and if everyone doesn’t have these thoughts, well, I have them and I can’t control it, it just pops into my mind and it disgusts me but it won’t go away.

In other words, since my childhood I always had intrusive thoughts, but it got particularly bad these past years, and especially these past weeks. They came back in full fury to haunt me, and they effectively did haunt me, until I researched the subject further and started breaking down things one by one.

This is why I want to help you now, because I’m healing from this, and I want you to start healing too. And, as you can see, even your casual self-improvement guru has problems like this, so you’re not weird.

In fact, 1 in 400 people have OCD, and 1% of the global US population was reported to have OCD (was reported, not has, because I think it’s much more like 10% or even more that has it for real).

So, let’s get started, shall we?

How OCD can hurt you and destroy your life

OCD is one of the most painful mental disorders in the world, in my opinion. It can be very stupid (washing your hands multiple times in a row for no reason), and it can be VERY, VERY dangerous and/or painful (believing you’re homosexual, a pedophile, a racist, an horrible person, a rapist, or that you deserve to die because of your negative thoughts).

Since these are thoughts (and sensations, as you’ll see later), you’ll start to feel lonely, isolated, at least in my case. This is why speaking up about your condition to other people can help. This is why seeking help from therapists can help. This is why seeking help from forums can help.

Anyways, I could lead a thousand horrible things OCD does to you but I’ll only say, it’s PAINFUL, VERY PAINFUL.

Do you have OCD or are you just weird? (Which is by the way, another OCD thought, to believe that you’re weird).

If you have…

-Obsessions about negative and/or horrible and/or immoral thoughts, images, mental videos, and/or subjects THAT DISGUSTS YOU and that are against your values

-Stress and distress and feeling bad concerning these negative and horrible/immoral thoughts

-A fear that you’ll potentially act on these horrible thoughts (OCD might convince you you will, even tho you will never)

-Compulsions around these negative thoughts such as shaking your head in disgust, checking your genitals for any sign of movement, arousal, feeling, checking your heart or your body for any kind of arousal, feeling, washing your hands, cleaning your house, doing a certain ritual such as knocking on the table, anything to get out these mental obsessions, which will give you temporary relief but which will worsen OCD on the long term

-Groinal responses, meaning small movements in the genitals, or even arousal (erections, lubrications), even tho the thoughts disgusts you (it’s a process called non-concordance arousal or it can also be anxiety arousal, where you might be aroused because of anxiety or stress or distress. Also, remember that your brain, if it sees a sexual thought, might actually send blood or lubrication or anything to your genitals. Your brain doesn’t check your values first, it gets pressed to send sexual hormones and stuff so you can get ready for sex, even tho your thought might be immoral. Your body doesn’t care if it’s moral or not, it doesn’t check your values beforehand). It's common for a lot of people having OCD

By the way, many people who have experienced groin responses might actually start feeling « small movements », which are nothing but illusions. Your body moves all day everyday, and you might feel small movements in your genitals for example, not because you’re attracted to this thing, but because you are focusing too much on it. Sometimes it’s a groin response, but it’s also more often than not simply you focusing too much on it. If you focus for an entire minute on feeling a sensation in your hand, you’ll probably feel it. Same goes for your genitals.

If you have all of these things, you probably have OCD.

Seeking help

Seeking help is extremely important. DO NOT STAY LONELY WITH OCD. It’s the worst thing to do. It wants to trap you into your own sadness and fear, instead, open the window, and it’s going to be shitless. You’ll see that everyone has these thoughts, people simply ignore them or dismiss them, whilst you stress and have distress over them.

You need to speak about it to the people around you, that are the closest to you, people you feel secure with. COURAGE! You’ll beat OCD, and you’ll not be alone.

Therapy can be very effective for OCD. Therapy can really cure OCD, and you should definitely seek therapy. It might be scary to speak about your thoughts, because OCD therapy consists of facing your fears (fear of being an homosexual person, fear of being a pedophile, fear of being a violent person, fear of being a rapist, fear of being racist, fear of not washing your hands or being dirty, etc).

Also, seeking out help on forums or communities, or simply watching videos and reading stories and researching the subject could help you understand OCD and overcome it. HOWEVER, do not use this as a compulsion every-time you have a negative thought. Else, it’s going to reinforce OCD.

Just remember that there is ALWAYS HOPE. Hope is everywhere, and you should never feel hopeless. As dark as it may seem, there is HOPE.

Even at the darkest points of my OCD, I managed to regain hope. And now, I’m healing, day by day. Great, no?

Conclusion

As always, thank you for reading, I truly appreciate it. I hope this article was of help to you, and please go and seek professional help, or go and speak about it to others. Don’t stay alone in this fight against your mind.

Also, remember that the best solution and one of the only ways to heal OCD (used by therapists), is to... IGNORE THE THOUGHTS. Basically, the ultimate goal you should have right now is learning to ignore the thoughts and sensations, understanding that they're only what they are (thoughts and sensations), and moving on. It's about IGNORING. It's hard, but it really does work. It's the only way.

I hope this article truly helped you. As always, I’ll see you next time. Bye.

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