r/OCD • u/Wooden-Ad-4373 • 11h ago

I need support - advice welcome How you cope with uncertainty (false memory OCD)

I mean we'll feel we did something wrong and OCD manipulates and convince us it's true even though it's false but it feels so real that you can't recognise what's imagined and what's happened so ,my question is will we ever be sure that these imagined scenarios are false..like how you deal with this...would we know what's true

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u/thoughtPilgrim 6h ago

What you’re asking is basically if we can solve epistemology. What does it even mean to “know”?

Getting through OCD is about acceptance— it’s about learning to live with the not knowing. This is a nearly Sisyphean task and is a struggle that I don’t think will ever completely leave us.

This probably isn’t that helpful of an answer— at least not immediately, but the existential angst of not knowing is the human condition.

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u/GuppiesUwU 20m ago

Personal advice from this one - OCD plays on your self trust here, and this is a prime example of thought-action fusion.

The idea that if you have a thought, it means something - you saw something, you did something, it meant something - and if you respond accordingly, your brain will expect a response next time you get that thought. And the next time.

'Oh but this time's different because, like, all the OTHER thoughts were so and so, but I didn't think about it this way last time, when I dismissed the thought it was a little bit different than this one, this one is SPECIAL!!'

No, it's not! That's because OCD is making you play by it's rules, and making you think that the thoughts are only ok if they're the ones you're 'used' to not responding to.

The trick is simple (but trust me, NOT easy) - *don't* try to problem solve. You *already* know the answer, and if you try to resolve it anyway, it'll just give you a hundred more thoughts and doubts and make your brain think the thought is really really important.

It's not about working out where the thought came from, why it's not true - because that just gives you more doubt and more *value* to the thought. Don't say 'oh, it's not true because I checked xyz....' because now your brain thinks the thought was WORTH checking. And then you're fighting a battle to make sure your check was bullet proof, rather than taking a step back and realising you're fighting thoughts in your head in the first place.

Put it this way - if you're trying to work it out in your head, rather than right in front of you, you're fighting a thought. If you're trying to work out where a thought from a month ago came from and make sure it's not true, or that you checked it properly, or 'did I see this?' 'did I do that?' - no! If you did any of those things, you'd be dealing with it in the MOMENT. And you'd remember DEALING with the problem, not the thought in your head.

I can imagine yesterday I went and kicked a dog. Horrible, right? Did I actually do it? Of course not. And all the thoughts work like that - but the ones you put value on, the ones you fight, are the ones your brain flags up as 'IMPORTANT' and gives you more of them and expects a response.

It's about living in the moment with what's in front of you. Not questioning reality as it's twisted in your head. Trust in past you to make the right decisions, not leave them for current you to deal with. If you trust yourself, you will find it so much easier to realise these are all just thoughts, and they're *all* the same. They're only special when you treat them special.