Real Event OCD
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27-11-2023 2:46pm#1
Hi, I'm not sure if this is the right place to post, but I feel I'm running out of options, so here goes.
I've been dealing with OCD for about 25 years. Over the years, it has manifested itself in lots of different ways - OCD about contamination and germs, HIV, 'hit and run' OCD which nearly made it impossible for me to keep driving, false memory OCD, scrupulosity and religious OCD. However in recent years, Real Event OCD has become the main concern. At the time, I didn't realise that it was such a thing - after all I'm obsessing about real events that have actually happened, and not some hypothetical scenario that is so central to most people's idea of OCD.
My real event OCD seems to be classic textbook - as a person in their 40's, I'm now obsessing over events from childhood/adolescence, that at the time, were no cause for concern (in fact the two events that I will outline both occurred before any formal diagnosis of OCD). But now years later, I'm wondering the what if..... What is there were bigger, more dire consequences to these events. I know that one should not seek reassurance as it only feeds the OCD in the long run, but I feel its important for me to detail the two events below, so that people can see where I am coming from.
The first relates to a school tour when I was may be 11 or 12. We went to a water park with all the slides, tunnels etc. I can remember waiting at the top of one of the slides (those long enclosed tunnel ones) waiting for the attendant to say that I could go. As I raced down and was approaching the end, I realized that the person who had gone down before me had not yet exited and crash, I went straight into her, feet first. This girl was not from my school and so I didn't know her. I only remember seeing her later on that day, with one of her teachers, seemingly sore from our earlier collision. Now, almost 30 years on, I wonder what happened. Was she seriously injured? Did something catastrophic happen? As usual with OCD, I'm thinking worst case scenario - did she end up paralyzed, in a wheelchair, unable to do anything for herself? Of course, I have no way of knowing, and that is what my OCD latches onto the most - the uncertainty and the fact that I will never know what, if anything, happened.
The second relates to when I had a summer job, early teens, with a family member who had a garage. I remember one day fitting new tires for a customer and having not used enough lubricant on the tire fitter, managed to make a small cut/tear into the inner edge of one of the new tires. I didn't think it was significant at the time, it was only a nick and I still managed to fit the tire, inflate it and get it to hold air. I do remember thinking that I'd be in trouble if my boss knew I hadn't used enough lubricant but it never crossed my mind that this could have been significantly damaged. Again, having not thought about this for almost 20 years, it one day came flooding back, triggered by something insignificant. Again, the catastrophic thinking starts - always worst case scenario - what if this caused a blowout and the driver crashed? What if the driver crashed and was killed? What if there were more passengers and they where all killed? I have nothing to go on to think that any of this happened. There was never reports that the customer had had an accident and that the tire fitting was at fault. Of course, I will think, maybe this was just someone passing through, maybe the accident happened in another part of the country and so I wouldn't have heard about it. However, while my mind has somewhat worn out this memory over the years due to excess recall, I am fairly sure that the customer was local. Again, as with the previous event, its the uncertainty that is the worst - I don't know what, if anything, ever happened. I spoke to my old boss (now long retired) and he tried to assure me that the worst case scenario would have been a slow leak resulting in a flat tire. Nothing more. My GP has said to me that if anything had of happened, crash team investigators would have found the cause and it would have been brought to the companies attention (having had experience of working in this area). But nothing, in all these years, has ever happened to cause me concern, however, the guilt is unbearable. The guilt I feel comes and goes and changes in severity, and there are times where I can function ok, but lately, it's been hell. My mind is consumed every day by the 'what if'. I have thought about going to the police and confessing - but confess what? There's no evidence to say that my actions caused any harm? Still, I feel the need to be punished. I don't feel as if I should be allowed to live and enjoy life.
The hardest thing is trying to interact with others - friends, colleagues - who have no idea about the terrible person that you really are and have no idea of the terrible things that you have done. I feel that I should be confessing the above two events to anyone I meet, so that they can make up their own minds as to whether they wish to associate with me or not.
I don't know what I am hoping this post will achieve - like i say, OCD is not new to me. About 18 months ago, these issues caused me huge distress and I was out of work for 3 months. I returned to taking medication at the time (60mg prozac/day) and have been on this ever since. Maybe someone else has been or is going through something similar and can offer me some hope. Thank you
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Comments
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OCD Ireland runs support groups https://ocdireland.org/ - you might find answers there? Also OCD Action and OCDUK might be useful to you?
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Thanks for your reply. I've been looking at the forums on OCDUK - lots on insight on real event OCD alright. I've contacted OCD Ireland recently about their support groups so that might be an avenue to explore.
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Hi Stonework89. I hope you are getting some patches of relief from the intrusive thoughts, as they are so unpleasant and horrible. I also have OCD. When I was in my twenties it manifested in obsessions about my appearance (which began after someone pointed out some flaws in my appearance - these I now know are minor/minimal flaws but I became obsessed because my faulty logic was "if someone said it to me, it must be really really bad". It caused me to fail a year at college because I couldn't think about anything but my appearance). My early thirties I was able to manage intrusive thoughts a little better. Now in my late thirties, it seems to be a bigger challenge to manage them. I suffered from real-event OCD last year, whereby for an extended period of time I couldn't stop thinking about a situation at work a few years prior where I didn't handle a situation with a difficult teenager (I am a teacher) very well. My brain suddenly came up with and latched on to the idea that my handling of the situation could have caused the child mental distress that is ongoing for them. Even though my brain knows this is fairly unlikely, the lack of certainty means that you keep going over and over the situation seeking some sort of answer. However, I think what we need to do is learn to live with a little uncertainty, even though this is very hard. I had a traumatic event happen to me during the summer this year, and it seems to have set off "false memory ocd" for the past five months. It started with "Hit and Run OCD", but now I even get nervious that I've hurt people walking by them on the footpath or that I've accidentally injured someone with a shopping bag on the bus, which is very debilitating. I have to walk quite slowly or else I get nervous and tense. I am trying to stop myself from looking back to "check" I have hurt people, since this is a compulsion. But, it is so hard when your body is so tense and your brain so scrambled. I am now doing acupuncture weekly where I get her to focus in on the points that are really tense (my chest and shoulders). I attend counselling every three weeks. I tell some friends about my thoughts which I find helps. You have nothing to be ashamed of. They are just thoughts and you are not a bad person. I write the thoughts down on paper which sometimes helps to slightly remove their power over me. There are some great podcasts out there as well which show us we are not alone in our suffering. I recommend "The OCD Stories" and "Purely OCD". I hope we can both find some peace and calm within ourselves over the coming weeks. We need to say to ourselves that we are enough, we are not bad, we are just humans trying to make our way in this world, and our brains are playing tricks on us!
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Hi OP, I just came across your post but realise it's a few weeks old I hope you feel a little better, especially after the Christmas period it was definitely tough for me around my ocd..
I have much the same types of ocd as you, contamination has always been my main one but also religious, intrusive thoughts, I can't say mine have been hugely focused around childhood events but I suppose they are all linked to the intrusive thoughts.
I know there is no 'advice' to give really, medication helps but ocd never really goes away, you are not alone though, I usually hate discussing anything around my ocd but I am open to chat if you need help in any way 👍
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