▪Harm OCD▪
Harm OCD focuses on unwanted, intrusive thoughts of a violent or tragic nature. This may include fears related to your harming others or a fear or harming yourself.
Common obsessions in harm OCD include:
-Fear of suddenly snapping and violently attacking another person or yourself
-Fear of harming a dependent or loved one
-Fear of failing to respond to violent thoughts appropriately
-Fear of being overwhelmed by harm thoughts and choosing to act on them to relieve the pressure
-Fear of losing or having lost consciousness somehow and committing violent acts that you won't remember
-Fear of accidentally poisoning someone
-Fear of an inexplicable personality shift resulting in enjoyment of harm thoughts and acting them out
Here are some compulsions typically related to harm OCD:
-Mentally reviewing thoughts and memories of events for the purpose of gaining certainty that you have not harmed or would not harm anyone
-Compulsive flooding: Trying to force yourself to imagine violent acts in an attempt to prove that you are disgusted by them and would not do them
-Thought neutralization: Purposefully forcing yourself to think a positive or otherwise contradictory thought in response to a harm thought
-Compulsive prayer or magical rituals: Repeating prayers or mantras by rote in response to unwanted thoughts
-Repeating behaviors in response to a thought of harming in an attempt to complete them without having the thought
-Researching violent offenders and comparing and contrasting them to yourself
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The car could crash and kill us both. Diana would actually lose her father for real this time. Adam's eyes drifted over to the next lane as Lawrence drove on, the car filled with the quiet sound of whatever music was playing on the radio. That car could come over into our lane and hit us head on. The human head sounds like a thick egg when it cracks. That's probably what it would sound like when we were crushed; that, and the sound of twisting metal. Our bones would be crushed to dust and our organs woul-
"What are you thinking about?" Lawrence suddenly asked, sparing a glance at Adam in the passenger's seat.
"What do you mean?"
"You've got the 'Adam's thinking too much' look going on. So what's bothering you?"
"Nothing. Just thinking about stuff," Adam replied, his eyes flicking between the oncoming car in the lane beside them and the plastic of the their own car's interior.
Can't get hurt if I'm being safe, Adam's mind tried to tell him and his hand drifted down to the lock of the car, flicking it open and closed again. His gaze shifted to the people on the street as they passed quickly by and his hand absentmindedly flicked the lock again. Unlocked, locked. Unlocked, locked. 'We're safe. We're not going to die.'
For once, the anxiety eating him from the inside out seemed relaxed. Yes, he felt absolutely helpless and there was a very real sense of "We're going to die in this car" to him, but he was only mildly bothered by it. His head was always filled with the anxious thoughts - Were they rational or irrational? He'd had them for so long, he wasn't sure - and having them at a lower volume than usual was a relief. They never truly went away, just became less intense at times.
Adam's hand drifted down to the powerlock on the inside of the door and he clicked it multiple times rapidly. Unlock, lock, unlock, lock, unlock, lock. His hand felt against the plastic of the interior up to the individual lock on his door, making sure it hadn't suddenly unlocked itself in the second he had abandoned it.
"Adam, the door's still locked," Lawrence said.
"Uh-huh," Adam lamely replied. Still, his fingers continued to fiddle with the lock.
