Stress Center Peer Support

Greetings everyone,

My name is Jeff and I have just recentley joined this group in order to help myself with my many obsessive and scary thoughts. These thoughts are starting to ruin my life and they make me so depressed and down but the funny part about it is only a few people know that I am having them due to the fact that I am an actor and a very vibrent outgoing person. Over the past 7 months I have had many different obsessive thoughts that break my heart that I know I would never do. The worst one has occured off and on during this time and it is the fear of killing or harming my girlfriend who is the love of my life. That thought absolutely destroys me but I am definitley working through it after finding out that it is the most common of all of the obsessive and scary thoughts.

Quite recentley I was having a wonderful anxiety free day with my girlfiend and we started making love when all of a sudden I envisioned her as my mother and it absolutely grossed me out and turned me off and has been bothering me ever since. Now I am dwelling on this thought so intensiley that it is actually making me envision whenever I touch my girlfriend that it is my mother and it is absolutely making me sick to my stomach because I know its not my mother at all and I know how attracted to my girlfriend I am but these thoughts just weird me out and ruin her beautiful looks for me. It also is making me feel awkward talking to my mother as well because she is usually the one that helps me with these problems but this one I refuse to bring up to her. I hate this it is really making me depressed and I wish I could just stop obsessing over this and envisioning these gross things. The problem with me is whenever I have a scary though I chase it down so much in my mind and test it in my mind over and over again to see if it is real and I hate it because I know that its so insignificant! Please someone give me feedback! I just want this to end!

Jeff

Hey thank you so much Emma!

Yes my girlfriend is absolutely amazing and I often find myself feeling that I do not deserve her. When These thoughts start they absolutely drive me insane becuse I want so badly for them to go away. I also do not want to be weirded out by my wonderful mother as well so its a lose lose scituation for me but I am sure in time this thought will just be replaced with some other weird scary thought. I absolutely hate this but if I work on myself and stay positive I am sure I will be ok someday.

Jeff

OH man that is so weird jeffrey. I have had those exact same thoughts. I love my boyfriend and he is kind and great to me and i would think those scary thoughts about killing him and it scared the s*** out of me and i obsessed about it constantly. why am i thinking this? whats wrong with me? and you obviously can't talk to your gf about it right? cause you feel like she may not understand. I have also had what if i like this person or what of im sexually attracted to so and so (someone who i am not at all attracted to nor like, in fact dont like at all and find repulsive) and it drives me nuts.its good talking about it and writing about it and hearing that youre not a crazy person and that ALOT of people get those ugly scary thoughts. hey, its good it scares you!

Jeff-
There is nothing at ALL wrong with you first and foremost.
You are completely normal. Every single person has had a thought like that (Even one's that do not have anxiety to the extent that we do).
Hope you find some comfort in that.

I have struggled for about three years with OST's (MY abbreviation for Obsessive Scary Thoughts) =)
They were about anything and everything
ex: Hurting somone (mom, bf, dog, baby neice, etc.) ALl the people I truly love and KNOW I could NEVER EVER hurt!!
Hurting myself or killing myself - what if I got so down that I did n't want to live (Yet never ever was suicidal!)
Scared that I would GO crazy one day
S cared that I would hear voices, scared I had any mental illness there is, scared I had any physical illness for that matter too!
My point is- I'm still here and have never done any of those things.
The problem isn't the thought- It's our reaction to the thoughts that keeps them coming back and gives them power to STICK LIKE GLUE.
They will POP up at the most inappropriate times (like when having sex), and then we are completely and utterly obsessed with them- therefore giving them that power once AGAIN!
Its a vicous cycle that CAN be stopped.
DOn't get me wrong it takes TONS and TONS of Practice and patience. But you must start to say to yourself
"these are just silly thoughts- they have no power over me and they certainly aren't TRUE!"
I know that I found tons of comfort (too much comfort, which is a habit I now am trying to break) in telling my mother or bf about the thoughts.
They laughed at me and it does deflate the fear of it however do not use it too much as I did and become dependant on their reassurance.
That is where I am now. Trying to be able to trust my own self talk and get my own reassurance0 but I know it can be conquered I feel SO CLOSE to it and i know that this is just my resistance to change that is holding me back!
Here is a very helpful article that I turn to from time to time when I find myself obsessing.
Hope it helps!
Take Care,
Lisa
<A HREF="http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-elimin ... &id=231502" TARGET=_blank>http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-elimin ... =231502</A>

Jeff,

You are NOT alone in this, I can promise you that. When my scary thoughts were at their worst, I had the same exact thought pop into my head when I was being intimate with my boyfriend, obviously not about my mom, but my dad. Oh god, it seriously had me sick for weeks. That's the point, though. We are NOT sick people for having these thoughts, because we HATE them. We find them to be absolutely horrible. What I honestly believe is that people with anxiety have VERY active imaginations. We are good at coming up with many, many types of thought, good, bad, STRANGE, etc. Just because you schemed that thought up, doesn't qualify you for being insane, sick in the head, or anything like that. We also allow these thoughts to ruin many enjoyable things for us, and you may want to look into the reasons behind your anxiety. Some people feel they do not deserve happiness, so you distract and disrupt the possibility of you being happy, with thoughts that counteract it. Here is what you need to do, touch your girlfriend, hold her, make love to her, adore her and do it with an attitude in mind that says "whatever, anxiety, I'm doing it anyways" don't allow those thoughts to hold you back. It's when we lose the fear of them, that their power diminishes. Also, realistically, you do know that you your girlfriend isn't your mother and that you are doing absolutely nothing wrong by making love to your girlfriend. All it is is a thought. Allow it to be there, let yourself think it. That seems like strange advice, but you have to stop fearing it. Trust me, I have had so many scary thoughts, you could name something and I've had it. I promise. You're going to be fine!

Jeff - The website Lisa has recommended will be very helpful for you.

Another word to use when unwanted, disgusting thoughts come up is simply to say WHATEVER to all your thoughts. The problem is not the thought. It's your reaction to it that keeps it coming back. If you didn't care one way or the other if you had the thoughts they would cease. Stop resisting. I know it's challenging but practice allowing the thoughts to come and go. The thoughts in and of themselves are insignificant so don't bother to give them any energy. Why do you have them? Simply because you were born predisposed to this disorder and with this disorder comes weird (really weird and disgusting) thoughts. The explanation is that simple. Don't go digging deeper. It won't change the situation. Stay present and work with: WHATEVER when the need arises. Even people who are not phobic have wierd and crazy thoughts. They just simply don't give them any energy.

I absolutely Love and adore every one of you guys!! thanx so much believe it or not you guys are helping and making a total difference!

Jeff

Jeffrey,

I am so sorry about you having these obsessions. My good friend went through the same kind of thought you had about your girlfriend regarding his wife. Monday is their anniversary and he has never acted on the thoughts. Here is a link from a thread in the OCD section I did regarding this.

<A HREF="http://bbs.stresscenter.com/eve/forums/ ... 056423/p/1" TARGET=_blank>http://bbs.stresscenter.com/eve/forums/ ... 423/p/1</A>

In the link below read the third paragraph and replace Bob with your mother.

<A HREF="http://www.ocdonline.com/articlephillipson1.php" TARGET=_blank>http://www.ocdonline.com/articlephillipson1.php</A>

It is the same thing. In this story, the man is disgusted at his homosexual thought. You are disgusted with your incestous thought. Sexually related thoughts (gay, incest, molestation, etc.) which repulse and cause us distress are other another form of scary obsessive thoughts. It's just that stinkin' ocd anxiety.