Living with harm ocd

Welcome to the forums @Mummaoats ! Thank you for sharing what is happening in your life. I hope members will be able to share their insights with you 🙂

Welcome to the forums @Mummaoats.

Wow you have a lot going on. I actually didn’t know what harm ocd was so I just googled it. It sounds incredibly tough.

Thank you for sharing.

I hope you find support on these forums.

Hey @Mummaoats ,

Are you currently engaged and any talking therapy they may help you with managing harm OCD?

It's so important you feel connected with people and hence, less alone.

For the benefit of other forum members: harm ocd is a subset of obsessive compulsive disorder. It involves aggressive intrusive thoughts which are violent in nature, i.e thoughts of harming yourself and/or thoughts of harming others. The intrusive thoughts are distressing and trigger compulsive actions.

The intrusive thoughts someone with harm ocd experience are not in anyway a reflection of how they actually feel, but they feel very real in the moment, which is very scary.

Yes. I have had weekly therapy since being diagnosed. I guess the aloneness comes from the fact that my therapist doesn't experience harm ocd, so they dont 'get it'. I would love to hear other people's stories, but its really hard to talk about.

Hey @Mummaoats ,

I can somewhat resonate with what you are saying. I do not have harm ocd, but I have BPD. With this BPD comes a continual flow of suicidal thoughts.

i have absolutely no intent on acting on these thoughts, but they are always there.

I used to be so distressed at having these thoughts and was continually pushed them away. They were scary, intrusive, distressing….Until I learnt that a thought is a thought. Thoughts come and go. The more we try not to think about them, we actually think about them more.

Nowsdays, I still have suicidal thoughts all the time. That is, thoughts of harming myself to end my life. Howevet, they have become background ‘noise’ and are no longer at the forefront of my thinking.

Do you think it is similar with what you are experiencing?

Oh, I am on meds to help with this, but ultimately, it was psychotherapy that made a difference.

Thank you for sharing your struggles with bpd and suicide ideation. It is very similar for me with the harm ocd. The thoughts or to be more accurate 'flashes' are always there. And i know they are just thoughts. Understanding that they don't have weight unless i give them weight has really helped. But even mental reassurances can become compulsions, so its a tricky balance.

I have a type of harm ocd which makes other people really uncomfortable. My intrusive thoughts involve violence toward my child.

I’m hearing you @Mummaoats . If I tell phone lines or people that I have thoughts of suicide with plan and all, people go into panic mode and contact emergency services or something…

Hence I’ve learnt… I only tell people what they need to know. I don’t even flash my diagnosis to anyone. Rather, I talk about how I’m feeling and work through those emotions. I don’t tell people I’m having pervasive suicidal thoughts.

Its prob similar to thoughts of violence against your child - people go into a child protection mode if they hear it…

So yes, allowing thoughts to be thoughts and to stay as thoughts has really helped. I remember my psychologist saying, “if you don’t treat them as just thoughts, you’ll end up thinking about all the thoughts you don’t want to think about. The more you actively ‘not think’ them, the more you are actually thinking about them.”

I don’t believe your thoughts define you… rather, it’s your actions/behaviour?

I hope my experience of chronic suicidal ideation helps you feel less alone in having unhelpful thoughts.

Please tag me to your responses/posts so I don’t miss them! I really want to be able to connect with you. You can do this by typing @ in front of my name like this @BPDSurvivor

i hope to hear from you soon!

@BPDSurvivor i really appreciate you being so open about your own struggles. I definitely feel less alone. If i tell people that i have these 'flashes' where i imagine myself unaliving my child, they jump straight to thinking im delusional or experiencing psychosis. It couldn't be further than the truth and i wish that there wasnt so much stigma about mental illness.

Hearing you @Mummaoats - it's so true.

So do you think it's about sharing on a 'needs to know' basis? Do you think that will help?

In the meanwhile, it's good to be able to work with a therapist to help you develop strategies to cope with having these chronic thoughts. This may not necessarily TAKE the thoughts away (just like it hasn't taken my chronic suicidal ideation away), however, it helps you better cope with them.

Soon, you may be able to also treat them like 'background noise'! It's totally possible!