OCD & memory

[Sounhappyallthetime]

Hi,

ive recently been diagnosed with postnatal OCD but I’m starting to think I’ve had this since I was a child. When I was younger I used to pray a lot with a list of my worries and I had certain words I had to say at the end of my prayers to make sure they was safe. My themes have changed a lot over the last few months and it’s just been absolute hell really.

I have always been overly concerned with not doing anything wrong but I am really struggling with memory at the moment, I feel like I need to remember every little thing that’s ever happened in my life to make sure I’ve always acted like a good person/ I’m obsessed about the world being good. I feel like I can’t raise my baby properly unless I know I’ve always been good and that the world will be good, I’ve been having a lot of intrusive thoughts around memories and the future. I feel like I’m explaining this poorly but has anyone else ever felt like this? The pressure is immense and I feel like I can’t concentrate on conversations/ work/ life because I always need to be thinking, analysing and checking. I feel my memory has gone so fuzzy I literally can’t tell what’s real and what’s an intrusive thought any more. I Don’t know what I’m hoping for i just wanted to know if anyone has ever been the same and any advice? I’m having therapy and the answer seems to be all the time for ocd that you have to learn to accept uncertainty but I just can’t seem to do that.

I have a similar OCD too and understand ehat you’re saying.

I’m having therapy and the answer seems to be all the time for ocd that you have to learn to accept uncertainty but I just can’t seem to do that.
I’m having therapy and this isn’t the focus during mine at all, it was mentioned briefly and very quickly moved on to better things. For example we’re working out why OCD happens (the very specific, for me, reasons not just the wider research), how to manage the OCD thoughts and behaviours, and exposure therapy. So far it’s been a really good approach for me, I’m finding it helpful.

The reason I said that is because if your therapist is focussing too much on something that’s not helping you then have you (or can you) tell them that part isn’t working for you and ask what other approaches you can try together?

Hi, thanks for messaging back. My therapy has mainly been perinatal CBT so i haven’t really touched on what’s causing the ocd at all it’s just more focusing on what to do when you have intrusive thoughts/ intrusive thoughts are normal etc. I don’t feel like it’s been very helpful to be honest but it’s still early days I suppose. I just really don’t know how I can cope at the minute I feel this dread on me every day like I’m forgetting something really important/ intrusive thoughts of bad things and then ruminating or trying to disprove the thoughts. I would just love to go back to before this theme started, I was obsessed with health before this and now I don’t give health a second thought as this theme feels so much worse to me.

Hi. I know EXACTLY what you are talking about. I've had OCD for about 30 years. I have periods like atm where its really bad and I'm scared to even leave the house and periods where it's very minimal.
Driving used to be a massive issue for me. When I drove somewhere if something caught the corner of my eye or i couldn't recall part of the journey i would worry i had run someone over and just not realised it. I've done this also when out walking. If i take the dog out I'm hyper aware of where I'm walking, what's around me etc. Even where the grass changes shades or thickness I will look hard at it. If I don't make totally sure I will go home and start thinking I've harmed someone in some way even though I have no details such as was it a man/woman. I've even got into a bad habit of photographing the path I'm walking on with my phone to prove no one is there.

There's loads of other stuff/themes but I'd be here all day.
As I say I'm having a bad spell atm and most of the time have thoughts in my head about whether I've harmed someone in some way and various scenarios play out.
Re treatment it sounds like your therapist is going down the CBT with exposure response prevention route. This is supposed to be the gold standard treatment for OCD.
@Comff is your therapist going more for the challenging thoughts route? So you have a thought then challenge the facts. So for example if you were worried you'd harmed someone you would challenge the thought with 'was it a man/woman, what were they wearing, etc.
@Sounhappyallthetime re memory I don't think theres anything wrong with our memory but i think we are just not confident about our memory.
I'm struggling with a particular thing atm where I'm worried i may have harmed someone in a particular place. I have no memory of doing so and a 'normal ' person would just shrug it off. But i think if i cant remember details is that because the bad thing happened but I've just not got any recall. It sounds so irrational and it is but the anxiety and fear we feel is very real.
I came across an article a few years ago by a journalist called Bryony Gordon about her experiences with OCD. I then bought her memoir 'Mad girl' and it was like reading my life. If nothing else I found comfort in it just knowing someone else thinks in the way I do.

@Comff is your therapist going more for the challenging thoughts route? So you have a thought then challenge the facts. So for example if you were worried you'd harmed someone you would challenge the thought with 'was it a man/woman, what were they wearing, etc.
No, we’re doing the safe exposure route.
But before that we spent a long long time looking at what experiences etc led my brain to have OCD.

So for example:
If your intrusive thought is that you hurt someone when driving then you’d know that your brain made that leap because eg you feel overly responsible for people’s well being. And you’d know that the reason you feel overly responsible for everything is because of X Y Z life experiences and A B C other things.
Which means when I have the intrusive thought and want to do the checking behaviours (eg going over and over in my memory what happened or looking for reassurance) then I can say to myself “it’s not real, my brain is thinking X because of Y”.

I’m not explaining it very well. But what I’m saying is it feels grounding, reassuring in a way. Similarly to how you said you find comfort in knowing other people think the same way you do; it’s a thing some people’s brains do.

@Sounhappyallthetime mine is antenatal if that helps. Anxiety is a feeling like nothing else isn’t it, like you say that dread, it’s consuming.

it’s just more focusing on what to do when you have intrusive thoughts
Do you mean so if your intrusive thought made you want to do a certain behaviour then your therapist is helping you know how to stop doing the behaviour? eg if your thought was linked to health anxiety you might seek reassurance by googling about it a lot? So the task from the therapist would be not to google?

@Ilovedogs1 thanks for your reply it’s comforting to know people are going through the same, feel like I’ve been going mad. How do you eventually get over it when you’re worried you’ve cause someone harm? I really struggle because when I get an intrusive thought about the past/ future it just becomes 100% true to me and then I think about it that much that it becomes real in my memory. I find it really difficult even holding conversations because I’m just so focused on having to think. & @Comff yeah it’s really really horrible I wouldn’t wish this on anyone i feel like it’s robbed so much of my life, would love even just a days break from it.

@Sounhappyallthetime unfortunately I still haven't figured out how to get over the fear of thinking something bad happened. As hard as it is to implement when I do manage to put the ERP into practice I do eventually seem to feel better. I've had a lot of stress and change this year which I think has kicked off a bad episode for me.
Last couple of days have been terrible and I've ended up just lying in bed thinking and crying. Determined to have a better day today.
Hope your doing ok. X

Perinatal OCD here, although once I had the diagnosis I could absolutely see the roots of it as you describe. I had the same behaviours as a child.

I have benefitted from understanding the why as @Ilovedogs1 has said. I think of it as looking under the bonnet, having had a hugely smart sister who failed her driving test 6 times until eventually my dad explained to her what each bit of the engine did. I know that I have an overactive responsibility bit, and an enlarged guilt bit, and a massively wonky protect my kids bit that is linked to both of them. The whole system is off because of it.

I got better at facing fears head on once I understood the causal factors and eventually it does recede, as your children grow and you add up the days where they have been safe. Sending you solidarity 💓

Hello! I had terrible OCD from about age 17-27. Now I still have some intrusive thoughts (everyone does) but I recognise them as such and can spot that if one is recurring daily it's a sign I'm stressed.
My advice:

1. Therapy takes time to work. Keep at it even if it feels like it's doing nothing.
2. If you're in a really bad spot then consider medication alongside the therapy, it can make the therapy easier to access. The thoughts are less intense.

3.i have had CBT and traditional counselling. These both got me out of bad spots, but the best counselling I ever got was ACT. There is a book based on this method called the happiness trap which gives you solid techniques for how to take the power out of the thoughts. E.g. Imagine the scenario you're fearing on a TV and then zoom out of it, sing the thought to the tune of happy birthday etc. There's also a meditation called the leaves on a stream meditation which you can Google. Gets you used to acknowledging and releasing thoughts.

@Sounhappyallthetime another thing I've noticed I'm doing atm is trying to remember exactly where I've been and what I was doing at certain times. Obviously I can't remember everything, which is normal I suppose but if I cant remember what I was doing at a certain day or time then my mind says 'what if you were doing something bad'. Its totally exhausting because you end up trying to recall everything . I did start a journal and was recording each day but I suppose that comes under 'compulsion'.

Ah thank you so much for your replies I’ve found them really helpful! Hope you’re doing okay @Ilovedogs1. I feel like this theme started with a heavy feeling one day that I’ve done something wrong so my brain starts looking for possibilities and then gave me intrusive thoughts that feel like flashbacks as if it’s trying to test me to see if they feel real, then I think about the thoughts that much to see if they feel real that I start to feel like they are true and I can no longer distinguish if they are true memories or intrusive thoughts. Does this sound familiar to yourselves? Then because I have no way of proving if it’s true or false I treat it as it being true and get incredibly depressed. My brain really likes to torment me at the moment. Wondering if this feels the same for others or can you recognise it as an intrusive thought straight away?

This then produces all kinds of linked intrusive thoughts and worst case scenarios until I feel utterly terrified to get through the day/ keep thinking something bad will happen to myself/ family causing compulsions etc. Very very tiring just trying to get through every day life.

@Sounhappyallthetime totally know what you mean. My intrusive thoughts also play out in my head like a little movie so when I have an intrusive thought it plays out in my mind which then makes it feel like a memory. This is where we fall into the trap of thinking/analysing trying to prove or disprove the thing. The more you think it through the more doubtful you are but at the same time it feels like it's to important to just 'take the risk' it's an OCD thought , which is what the ERP therapy does.
Don't know about you but even though somewhere deep down I know its OCD the thoughts make me feel guilty as if I'm responsible for doing the 'bad' thing.
Its absolutely terrifying and exhausting. X

Yeah that’s how I feel too like a little movie, it’s so so hard because I know how much I worry about literally everything and I always have been a major worrier so I think to myself if this was a true thought you would have been worrying non-stop since it happened, it wouldn’t just randomly pop into your head months/years/ weeks later. But that still doesn’t help and I find myself spending days reviewing because I need to be 100% sure or I just can’t carry on with life but I never manage to get certainty so I just feel stuck at the moment as like you say it feels too big not to know. I’ll have to speak to my therapist about ERP X

@Sounhappyallthetime how are you doing?

Not so good the last few days @Ilovedogs1. I have a lot of changes going on the last few weeks so I feel like it’s really set me off. Feel like I have to be hyper-vigilant otherwise something bad is going to happen to my baby/myself/family so i just feel exhausted all the time.

My obsessions change constantly so the last day or two I’ve been super focused on other people being a danger and how I can prevent bad things from happening. For example we’re moving house and I chose the house so now I can’t stop thinking that If anything happens to my baby when we move it’ll be my fault. I know that’s not rational but I keep getting intrusive thoughts of all the bad things that could happen because of my choice and I can’t stop crying. My brain always get like this when anything positive is happening, how have you been doing?

Hi. Had a better day yesterday, felt quite determined to not let it beat me and went out for lunch with my son. Unfortunately having a bad day today. I get intrusive thoughts of 'what if I've done something bad in the past' and my mind plays out potential scenarios then I get doubtful about whether it's an intrusive thought or a memory. My DH says if it starts with 'what if' its OCD. Probably right but easier said than done. X

How are you doing ladies?

I’ve been a little better this weekend been trying to keep as busy as possible to distract myself, trying to avoid anything that might trigger me to panic (which so far has been successful). How have you been feeling are you doing okay? @Ilovedogs1 X

@Sounhappyallthetime bit of a mixed bag atm. Sometimes feeling really anxious/desperate, sometimes quite numb and sometimes determined this won't beat me. Finding trusting my own mind hard. X

@Ilovedogs1 im the same I was really good this weekend and then this afternoon my anxiety has kicked in full force like It’s making up for me having a good weekend and my brain has been in overdrive. Feel free to message me if you’re ever struggling, I know how it feels x

@Sounhappyallthetime how's things with you now?

Hi, I’ve been struggling quite a bit today there have been quite a lot of things triggering me. Keep getting a lot of ‘what ifs’. I don’t know if it’s the same for you but my OCD gets stronger when life is going well, I keep thinking something terrible is going to happen. Im back to work and I feel like I’m coming across as very high functioning and getting on with things but I feel like I’m having internal panic attacks all day I just don’t feel safe to be honest, just really want to feel safe and know my family are safe for 5 minutes but if I stop worrying I know that’s when something bad is going to happen because I’m not prepared for it/ haven’t stopped it and the guilt if I stop ruminating is intense. I don’t really think my family understand how I feel so they think I’m just down and keep pushing me to do things so I have a social day planned with friends on the weekend and I feel sick thinking about it. I’m absolutely dreading it I just know somethings going to panic me, just can’t enjoy life. How are you feeling?

@Sounhappyallthetime also pretty crap tbh. Like you said in your op everything is all fuzzy in my mind and can't think what is a thought what is a memory. I'm trying really hard to do the accepting uncertainty thing as from previous therapy and all the OCD books that seems to be the recommendation but it's really hard.
I'm also back at work but that coupled with the anxiety is absolutely exhausting.

I think it’s really hard to accept uncertainty because the majority of my intrusive thoughts revolve around my life being ruined/ losing people I love etc. It’s so much easier said than done. I’ve been watching a few YouTube videos about false memory/ responsibility ocd that I’ve found helpful and I’ve been trying to spend my time looking into how the brain works/ creates memories and intrusive thoughts ( I feel like this is turning into a compulsion though sometimes as it feels like reassurance seeking) to try and understand that it’s my mind playing tricks with intrusive thoughts and filling in gaps. It helps for a while but then I get caught back up in a thought and back to square one.

@Sounhappyallthetime I totally relate. I suffer terribly with the false memory thing. I get thoughts and images in my head of doing things I know I wouldn't do then the doubt kicks in and I think was that a memory of something that happened or is it just a thought.
I do find though that if I properly think about it the intrusive thoughts tend to increase when there is change or stress happening in life so I think this is how our anxiety/stress must manifest. Still pretty shit though.