monsieurb56
Member
I have been going through some strange and debilitating mental processes throughout the past several years of my life, and specifically right now, that are basically ruining the beginning of this year of college for me. I have been piecing together a lot of things in my life and realize that I have social anxiety, sexual anxiety, and I believe OCD as well.
The thing that has been affecting me lately started back junior year in high school when, triggered by a flash of guilt that is somewhat difficult to explain (and also related to my OCD) I had an unexplainable feeling of tension and stress associated with one band that I listen to. Over the years I've been plagued by this "state of tension" because I ended up willing myself to associate it with certain buildings, classes, movies, etc. I'll get these thoughts that sort of attempt to will me into getting this "state of tension" "permanently" associated with one of these things, and I sort of make up rules to increase my chances of NOT getting it associated with it. There have sort of been rules established in my head as to WHEN it gets associated, usually accompanied by a feeling of strong panic as in "Oh no, THAT feeling is now associated with this thing, now I'll never be able to concentrate in this class or enjoy this movie, etc.). BUT recently these "rules" were slightly rewritten when I ended up getting this "state of tension" associated with two of my college classes WITHOUT the panicked state.
As you can see, I am doing tons of overthinking and neurotic things to avoid this feeling. I think there are some very automatic mental processes that are telling me that this is far worse than it actually is, and because I'm so used to this regimen of thinking (I've been dealing with this more or less for about three years now) that it's hard to escape from. From time to time I DO "break out" of one "association" or another, but I usually panic when I feel an "association" has been made because I tell myself it is nearly hopeless to escape from. For example, I was seeing a psychologist at my school's clinic for some other personal problems in my life but stopped because not only did I feel that he/the clinic was not specialized enough for my needs, but MAINLY because I had several days earlier "associated" and "locked into place" the "fact" that I was now having this "state of tension" in association with the clinic and it would be basically "impossible to escape from."
I'd like to add quickly that I've had some other problems in terms of "willing myself" into certain negative emotions and states of mind in the past: the first time was way back in 4th grade where I went through a period of feeling extremely guilty about various things: I felt guilt about playing a Mature-rated computer game my mom didn't want me playing, for instance. I went through a stage triggered by that not long after where I HAD to tell the truth about EVERYTHING for several months, even to go so far as to tell my dad or mom even if I just merely bumped into them. In sixth grade, I went through a period where I was convinced that I had tried to commit suicide by shaking someone's hand that had something sticky-looking on it (that may sound funny, but I felt extreme guilt that I never thought I'd recover from). Also in sixth grade I went through a period of feeling guilt about everything from refusing to pray for "evil people in the world" to thinking that it could even be possible that I had gone back in time somehow and been responsible for killing people in some way. In other words, these were PURELY IRRATIONAL thoughts obviously but I had extreme guilt from them that basically destroyed my life during the winter/spring of 6th grade for me.
Another strong example, one which emotionally devastated me in multiple ways, was willing myself into feeling guilty for visiting certain sexual websites in high school. There was a series of four different times (one, embarrasingly enough, during senior year in high school) where I actually told my mom what I had done because the guilt was so unbearable. The link this has to OCD is that around 8th and 9th grade I had these recurring thoughts "attempting" to get me to feel guilt about going to these sites since at the time I felt my mom would not have approved of it and guilt, of course, was something I'd been fearful of ever since elementary school, probably greatly due to my previous episodes I just mentioned.
I know this is a lot to read, but I'm wondering if this is OCD, and I'm also wondering if anyone has ever heard of anything like this before. The stuff I mentioned in the first paragraph is basically ruining my life these first couple months of college, and I really need to start combating it. I know a lot of this stuff in the later paragraphs may sound weird, but hopefully someone out there has felt something familiar. So again, if anyone can help let me know if this stuff (ESPECIALLY the more recent symptoms I mention in the second paragraph) sounds like OCD, I'd appreciate it so much if you could let me know. Again thanks to all reading this.
The thing that has been affecting me lately started back junior year in high school when, triggered by a flash of guilt that is somewhat difficult to explain (and also related to my OCD) I had an unexplainable feeling of tension and stress associated with one band that I listen to. Over the years I've been plagued by this "state of tension" because I ended up willing myself to associate it with certain buildings, classes, movies, etc. I'll get these thoughts that sort of attempt to will me into getting this "state of tension" "permanently" associated with one of these things, and I sort of make up rules to increase my chances of NOT getting it associated with it. There have sort of been rules established in my head as to WHEN it gets associated, usually accompanied by a feeling of strong panic as in "Oh no, THAT feeling is now associated with this thing, now I'll never be able to concentrate in this class or enjoy this movie, etc.). BUT recently these "rules" were slightly rewritten when I ended up getting this "state of tension" associated with two of my college classes WITHOUT the panicked state.
As you can see, I am doing tons of overthinking and neurotic things to avoid this feeling. I think there are some very automatic mental processes that are telling me that this is far worse than it actually is, and because I'm so used to this regimen of thinking (I've been dealing with this more or less for about three years now) that it's hard to escape from. From time to time I DO "break out" of one "association" or another, but I usually panic when I feel an "association" has been made because I tell myself it is nearly hopeless to escape from. For example, I was seeing a psychologist at my school's clinic for some other personal problems in my life but stopped because not only did I feel that he/the clinic was not specialized enough for my needs, but MAINLY because I had several days earlier "associated" and "locked into place" the "fact" that I was now having this "state of tension" in association with the clinic and it would be basically "impossible to escape from."
I'd like to add quickly that I've had some other problems in terms of "willing myself" into certain negative emotions and states of mind in the past: the first time was way back in 4th grade where I went through a period of feeling extremely guilty about various things: I felt guilt about playing a Mature-rated computer game my mom didn't want me playing, for instance. I went through a stage triggered by that not long after where I HAD to tell the truth about EVERYTHING for several months, even to go so far as to tell my dad or mom even if I just merely bumped into them. In sixth grade, I went through a period where I was convinced that I had tried to commit suicide by shaking someone's hand that had something sticky-looking on it (that may sound funny, but I felt extreme guilt that I never thought I'd recover from). Also in sixth grade I went through a period of feeling guilt about everything from refusing to pray for "evil people in the world" to thinking that it could even be possible that I had gone back in time somehow and been responsible for killing people in some way. In other words, these were PURELY IRRATIONAL thoughts obviously but I had extreme guilt from them that basically destroyed my life during the winter/spring of 6th grade for me.
Another strong example, one which emotionally devastated me in multiple ways, was willing myself into feeling guilty for visiting certain sexual websites in high school. There was a series of four different times (one, embarrasingly enough, during senior year in high school) where I actually told my mom what I had done because the guilt was so unbearable. The link this has to OCD is that around 8th and 9th grade I had these recurring thoughts "attempting" to get me to feel guilt about going to these sites since at the time I felt my mom would not have approved of it and guilt, of course, was something I'd been fearful of ever since elementary school, probably greatly due to my previous episodes I just mentioned.
I know this is a lot to read, but I'm wondering if this is OCD, and I'm also wondering if anyone has ever heard of anything like this before. The stuff I mentioned in the first paragraph is basically ruining my life these first couple months of college, and I really need to start combating it. I know a lot of this stuff in the later paragraphs may sound weird, but hopefully someone out there has felt something familiar. So again, if anyone can help let me know if this stuff (ESPECIALLY the more recent symptoms I mention in the second paragraph) sounds like OCD, I'd appreciate it so much if you could let me know. Again thanks to all reading this.
