“Virtual” OCD - just in the mind - not physical?

66Mustang

I am going to hopefully keep this as brief as I can as I could write loads but want to make it as general and inclusive as possible as possible to try to get others’ experiences

I have this problem where if I get any sort of negative thought - could be anything, like “did I drive out of that junction wrong” or “what if I never find a partner” or “did that person think I was rude”

Then I can’t settle until I have successfully dispelled this thought so I will sit there spending ages convincing myself - i.e. that I didn’t do anything wrong while driving, that I can find a partner, or that I wasn’t rude

It is almost like I can’t let the thoughts stay in my mind, I can't accept any sort of negative or even “grey area” thoughts in my mind and everything has to be positive, otherwise my mind feels “contaminated”

I literally have to spend ages just sitting there “tidying up” my thoughts so that everything in my mind is in some sort of order

I probably spend maybe 2-3 hours a day, to an observer - doing nothing at all, but it’s mentally exhausting

If anyone wants more details I am happy to provide but just interested to know if anyone can relate?

66Mustang

I should add, because it might relevant, that the start of this correlates with me cutting down my alcohol intake, around 5-6 weeks ago. Perhaps I have always had the inclination to do this but the alcohol was "numbing" my mind so the overthinking wasn't as acute?

Albus_Scope

I'm like @Biblioklept and a dopamine chaser!

I used to struggle with the issues you've spoken about @66Mustang and it was linked to my autism/adhd apparently.  It's very common to get caught in a kind of "thought feedback loop" and you just can't get anything done until you've processed that pesky thought, which can take ages and just when you think it's gone, nope, it's back again with more scenarios! I found music with no lyrics has helped me process things so far. Plus years of training my mind to think a bit more analytically has really helped.

  It's very possible that you were unconsciously using booze to numb things like that without really realising. 

Jimm_Alumni

I believe it's called "mental rumination", at least that's what my current therapist called it. We can obsess over thoughts again and again but also, our brains work to try and 'protect' us from bad feelings. But... sometimes this can lead to a negative feedback loop. It tries so hard protecting us from the bad feelings that it can cause habits that aren't great. 

For example when I had very poor finances in my late teens the thought of checking my bank account would spike my anxiety and stress. So my brain would 'protect' me by... avoiding it. This of course just led to the issue worsening. 

My partner does have OCD so I wonder if she has anything similar to this, I'll ask

bookrabbit

I overthink everything too. I can only sleep by playing an audiobook and hooking my thoughts on to that instead. It has to be there playing while I sleep so I can distract myself with it again as soon as I wake up, which I do frequently during the night. 
My brain most often feels like a pinball game with my head bouncing from one forbidden thought to the next because there are so many trains of thought that can drag me down into the abyss.
With day to day things I have to be able to work out exactly what to do and how to frame it so it feels 'right'. If I can't I entirely fall apart. On Wednesday I couldn't and spent the entire day crying with my phone switched off and gave myself a flaming stress headache complete with hyperacusis because I didn't manage to convince the job centre that a phone call isn't a reasonable adjustment for someone who can't use a telephone and because I didn't know if we would have to move from our emergency housing and because the GP hadn't given me another fit note despite my asking a few days earlier. I imagined all sorts of ways it was revenge for me being a bad patient or because my sister had been telling lies about me or because they wanted to drop me as a patient because our emergency housing is out of their area. I just couldn't cope so I shut down and my head just spiraled all day. As a result I upset several other people by not responding to them when they tried to contact me:(

Human brains are unpleasant places to have to live!!

I would much rather be a tree.

66Mustang

Hey just to say I am not ignoring this just need to be in the right frame of mind to reply properly but the responses are very intriguing ... especially the suggestions about ADHD.

chiarieds

As I was reading this I thought about 'rumination' as Jimm has said. It does seem that you're trying to think 'positively,' but this can be difficult.

I was actually looking for a link I remembered explaining how the mind experiences pain, when I also stumbled across the 2nd link below. I saved it to watch, but before I did, my thoughts had run to perhaps saying to yourself, I'll spend 5-10 mins writing down was there anything I could possibly have done better for each instance; the short answer probably being, 'No,' & is there anything I can learn from this?

Now, perhaps after writing down these instances, you can then cross each one out, as you know you did the best that you could, or tear them up & throw them away, as they're finished with. If there are any uncertainties, such as you might have been unintentionally rude, then pay that person, or another, a small compliment when next you meet negating any perceived negative.

Perhaps after crossing out or throwing away such instances, please try the diaphragmatic breathing I very boringly keep mentioning; it does help me to stop thinking about things when I hope to relax: https://www.cheshire-epaige.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Diaphragmatic-breathing-techniques.pdf

With using excess alcohol, I think that your mind/body still has the same difficulties which need to be processed, as they're still there, whether it's physical pain, or any mental anguish.

Anyway, here's that link I found interesting about negative thoughts, which is just 10 mins long: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XFLTDQ4JMk

66Mustang

Hi @chiarieds

Sorry for taking so long to respond and that this isn't a full response yet, but thank you for the comments and suggestions.

I am in the process of writing back to everyone's post one at a time, but still am not really in the right frame of mind to think properly at the moment, but there are some things mentioned by people here that I can really relate to which I found quite comforting

Hannah_Alumni

Take your time @66Mustang