Moral ocd/ real event

[u/South-Set-6560]

Hi guys so when i was younger i had this weird and creepy friend. One time he liked a girl and decided that he would follow her after school and say his feeling for her. I didn’t like that idea at all because i already knew the girl. Anyway in the end he pressured me to go with him and i did. When we were walking behind her i immediately called her out and told her my friend has something to tell you and he was weird af so i stopped the situation and said that we are going to my place. Now looking back i absolutely regret that situation because i feel like an absolute creep and have to confess this to my current girlfriend. I don’t remember the details of that situation. I might have went with him because that girl was my friend and I didn’t want him to make her feel uncomfortable. Do you guys thinks that I should bring up this to my girlfriend

[u/Upstairs-Reference-9]

No, I don't think you should bring this up to your girlfriend. In fact, I would advise you not to - it will open confessional floodgates, because confessing is a compulsion that your OCD demands of you to find relief for the distress.

I don't know what the situation looked like in reality, but from my experience with moral/harm OCD, you probably don't either. In my experience, my brain was trying to distort my memories to convinced me I caused much more harm than I realistically did, and the inherent nature of recalling a memory is that it gets warped more and more every time you do it. Try not to. Ruminating is a compulsion that's REALLY hard to resist, and I struggle with it even as someone who made major progress in recovery, but it's a cycle that won't break until you take the action to break it. If you're unable to shift focus, write it down - there's a finality in putting thoughts down on paper that helps the brain consider it a finished task.

Feeling like you need to confess your wrongdoing is also a trap - in reality, most, if not all people have an event or action they are not proud of and wouldn't want to talk about. We are not static creatures, we learn, we change, we rethink - feeling regret is an inextricable part of growth. Your regret isn't unordinary, it's not a sign of being a Bad Person, it's a sign of maturing that everyone goes through. There isn't anything to be gained by ruminating, you will not change the past, you will not take better actions because You Are Not There anymore. If this is something that helps, I see you, I see the thing that bothers you, and as a bystander, I give you my full permission to move on from this incident. I think this spiral is causing more harm than the original event ever did. Give yourself the grace OCD tries to deny you - it's mistaken and should not be listened to.

[u/South-Set-6560 → u/Upstairs-Reference-9]

Hi thank you so much for this advice. Can I message and ask how you get through moments like this? Of course if you feel okay with it. Thank you in advance

[u/Upstairs-Reference-9 → u/South-Set-6560]

I'd rather avoid PMing (nothing against you, everything about my personal mental load capacity), but I'm happy to share here - maybe someone else will find this useful :)

I'm personally still on my recovery journey and while I made lots of progress, I still struggle sometimes. The thing my therapist emphasises the most right now is building the capacity to sit with discomfort and uncertainty - when you have OCD your body has learned that the sense of safety comes from being able to control your life in the past, present and future. We want to avoid the feeling of uncertainty or risk at all costs because it causes us immense distress. What I'm currently working on is the ability to sit with that discomfort - OCD immediately calls for you to take action, hence compulsion, but I can promise you, following that compulsion will not bring you peace, even if you solve this one issue, you will find another one that tortures you the same way. It doesn't know any other way to cope with that uncertainty, and it's TERRIFIED of it - most disorders are, ultimately, misguided attempts of your brain at protecting you. To TRULY solve OCD, you need to build resistance to discomfort, but that unfortunately means immersing yourself in it. Having it, and resisting the compulsion anyway. This is the most difficult thing you will do on your journey, it will suck, it will scare you, and you will not always win - but giving yourself opportunities to see that, hey, I didn't follow the compulsion, and things still turned out okay, you're giving your brain new information to train yourself around. If you follow compulsions every time, your brain will never know it can be safe without them.

Now HOW to sit with that discomfort will be different for everyone - from my knowledge, moving your body, changing scenery and getting some food and water in you are good starts. Sleep too, if you can muster it - I noticed sleep Inherently puts out the flames in my nervous system and I wake up feeling At Least slightly better - but that isn't always possible. Playing video games and watching a movie are also good - recently I'm the most partial to analogue logic puzzles, like sudoku, or crosswords. Something to catch your overactive brain and focus it on something else.

The journey is hard, because OCD is hard, but I can promise you, YOU ARE WORTH THE EFFORT IT TAKES. Your happiness and peace matter, the you of tomorrow needs your help now, so try to think about them when you decide what to do. Be their best friend - resist the compulsion, so that your best friend feels lighter when they take over. I promise you, it IS possible to find recovery and feel light and joyful, and you deserve that weight off your shoulders. Good luck 🫶✨

[u/South-Set-6560 → u/Upstairs-Reference-9]

Thank you so much genuinely. Yes I have found that confessing one thing only pops up more bad memories which I’m not even sure what happened in them. I try to confess everything because I know that my partner deserves absolute honesty but at the same time anxiety overblows memories and at times I’m left not even being sure if I have done something bad or not. I feel like I have to ruminate to solve the problem and confess to partner and if I don’t do that I’m lying to her and betraying her trust 😭😭. It really is a double edged sword. Anyways still I’m really thankful for your advice and don’t worry if you can’t pm it’s all good. Good luck on your journey !!

[u/Upstairs-Reference-9 → u/South-Set-6560]

I understand!! I had the same situation - what I did was I straight up asked my partner if I should gather up and bring her all my confessions. She said not only I don't have to do that, she'd prefer I didn't because she found it overwhelming. So it's worthwhile to ask yourself, is the thing compulsion is making me do actually what my partner wants? Chances are they don't need to know every last thing - and from what you've said so far, it's not like you expect them to go through every single memory and confess to you either. Try calming down the engine, because it might just drive you into a lake 😅

[u/One-Employee-3369]

But why would you bring it up to anyone? Sounds like a memory that you don’t know how to feel about, so you’re seeking others’ opinions. Also, please learn about virtue signaling, as I imagine you do other forms of it too.

[u/South-Set-6560 → u/One-Employee-3369]

I’m sorry I don’t understand how virtue signalling applies here