Recognizing the Habit

For as long as I can remember I've had what I often refer to as flashes in my mind of doing harm to someone. Before I go any further, I want to make it clear that I DO NOT have any desires to go out and kill anyone or do anyone any harm at all. I don't have it in me to do things like that. I am not a violent person. I never have been. Which is why it was so confusing to me as to why I would even entertain a thought like that. Of course I now know that this is just another one of those unwanted thoughts brought on by my OCD.

Let me give you an example of  what I'm talking about. There have been times where I may have been going to get a knife to cut something. Some chicken or a vegetable or whatever and a person would be with me and for a split second I would have a terrible thought of stabbing them which would totally devastate me especially if it were someone whom I am very close to. I KNOW THAT I WOULD NEVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THIS TO ANYONE IN MY RIGHT MIND! I don't want to do something like that. I mean if my home were being invaded or I was being robbed or in some sort of dangerous situation where I had to defend myself or be killed then that's a different story but for me to just stab or cut or hurt someone physically out of the blue for no reason at all is totally nuts!! I absolutely hate having these thoughts! I don't want them. They are uninvited thoughts. Unwanted thoughts. OCD thoughts. And anytime I have one of these thoughts I dismiss it from my mind right away. I don't dwell on it or try to analyze it. I just take it out of mind as quickly as I can and that is why I know that I can beat this OCD. If I can stop the unwanted thought in a matter of seconds, ( which is what I always do when I encounter this situation ) then I should be able to apply the same pattern of thought to all of my other unwanted thoughts, right?
Well.....for some reason it's not that easy for me. I think because of the fact that I have such a high regard for life itself and totally loathe the thought of losing people whom I care for deeply and even seeing any person die that that is why it is so much more easier for me to disconnect the thought and remove it from my mind so quickly. I know it is a bad thought. I know it is wrong. I know it is something that I would never ever want to carry out. 


A lot of my other unwanted thoughts harbor a huge amount of fear. You see I don't fear that I am going to kill or hurt anyone because I know I could never do that. But the other unwanted thoughts are more deep seeded and are either connected to things I feel that I have no control over or things that just scare me so bad that they put me in an immediate state of anxiety. Like for instance, I know I have no control over whether or not the man I'm involved with finds another woman attractive. I can't stop that from happening. I also can't stop him from having sex with another woman. See? No control. Coincidences are a part of life. You can't control them. They just happen. That's why they're called coincidences. So again they are something that I have no control over and that bothers me for some reason. It's not really the fact that I have no control over the coincidences. It's the fact that I experience them so often that my mind begins believing that they are happening for some kind of reasons mostly negative or bad. And I know that the mere fact that I notice them on such a regular basis is just my OCD acting up. I can make a coincidence out of some of the most minuscule things! Things most people wouldn't even recognize a correlation between but for some reason I do. Irrational thinking? Of course it is! 


I've been watching some videos made by a man named Derek Soto. He is an ex-OCD sufferer who puts information on the internet to help people who struggle with all forms of OCD. I've learned from him that OCD is just basically a habit. Just like smoking or biting your nails, OCD is something that a person begins habitually doing in their lives. And just like a person can quit smoking or biting their nails, people can overcome OCD and stop having the unwanted thoughts. Of course it's easier said than done because I am still battling this problem but at least I have accepted the fact that I have OCD and am trying to help rid myself of it or kick the habit. If you'd like to view some of Derek's videos you can go either to you tube and key his name in the search bar or you can go to this website , or you can also go  here.  He has a mother lode of information that is very helpful. 
Well, I'm off work today and feeling much better than I have been for the past 2 days. I had an upset stomach accompanied by cold sweats which was not the most pleasant thing. My head was pounding for 2 days straight but now all of that seems to have dissipated thank goodness. Enjoy your day!
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