afterforever
Active member
I wanted to run this one by you guys. I don't really need to go into describing the intrusive thoughts because you all have done a good job in other threads of describing them. What I am wondering, though, is do the intrusive thoughts have to be directly linked to the compulsions in order to classify something as OCD? For example, I'm a compulsive handwasher in certain situations that will trigger that action, but the whole thing about the weird and screwed up thoughts aren't really connected to it. What I'm saying, basically, is performing the compulsions doesn't really get rid of the intrusive thoughts, it only gets rid of the urgency to wash after touching something unclean. I have pretty well no escape from these thoughts, they just have their way with me until they recede and back off for a period. Do these thoughts HAVE to correlate directly, or are they one of those "bonuses" that come along with it? I've kind of wondered about that one. I hope this post made at least a little bit of sense.