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Originally Posted by Miswimmy1
OCD thoughts are distorted thoughts related to anxiety but cognitive distortions apply more to how you perceive a situation due to biasing factors or thought patterns. I don't know if that makes sense.
It is really hard to know what techniques might help when the social, personal, and environmental factors can vary so much from person to person. I completely understand what you are saying and I respect your desire to keep your own obsessions private. I am just not sure how to answer your question. I guess the real question is whether whatever technique you choose to use causes more stress or not and in what regard. Would affirming the thought cause distress because it acknowledges something that is morally wrong and reflects badly on you? Or would affirming the thought cause you distress because it is going against what the OCD is telling you is true (and therefore you must be wrong)? Does it really matter in the end? Because even if your OCD is trying to tell you that you did something or thought something that is socially or morally wrong, the odds are that whatever it is doesn't apply to you anyways. So what do you have to lose by flipping the nagging voice in your head around and asking the OCD 'So what if I am ____?' I'm sorry if I'm not helping; it's hard in such general terms to answer your question.
It sounds like you have a complicated case. My best suggestion would be to find a therapist who can help you work through this stuff. He or she would not only be able to help you with exposure and thought challenging techniques but also be able to help you acquire other tools to use in instances such as when you try to challenge the thoughts and the anxiety only increases - stuff like deep breathing, mindfulness, muscle relaxation exercises, etc. In my experience, treating OCD requires action on all fronts. It usually isn't just self help, or therapy, or medication. It's a combination of a lot of different interventions all working at once.
Have you considered medication?
And also - I did not think that you were a rapist or were even implying such. I understood that you were just giving an example.
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I've been on medication for a while now. I do see you're point with the acceptance thing, what's the worst that can happen if I were to accept any intrusive thoughts as being factual although I'm afraid of them getting worst by doing that. Another problem is it can really suck the passion or enjoyment I have with a hobby or something similar like that, perhaps a book or a character in a book, something that is tainted with intrusive thoughts can potentially knock any enjoyment I have with anything to the point where I can no longer bare to do whatever it is. It can and has I find permanently messed up how I view certain things now to a point where I find it difficult to connect to something like I would have prior to the intrusive thoughts coming, If I were to give up the fight and say okay I'm just going to consciously stop fighting them and instead just accept the possibility of their truth of what they're saying to me, accepting it as a truth which is what I fear thus giving me less anxiety and need to constantly keep an eye on thoughts and moniter them. I feel like I would be letting these thoughts take away the rest of what little I have left to which I feel passionately about.
I've tried focusing on other things but that doesn't work, they always come back, I find trying to focus away from the thoughts just makes it worst as they will persist harder as soon as I'm aware I'm resisting them to focus on something else. I do want a head on approach against them to overcome their control and power they have over me.
Perhaps I'm viewing this acceptance the wrong way, the way I see it, it would involve purposefully thinking the thoughts I fear and saying they're true or something which would cause a lot of anxiety I would imagine, to say these things or whenever these intrusive thoughts come up I would do the above and by doing so I would know there wouldn't be any safety behaviour I could possibly do thus reducing the mental strain/effort that goes into defending myself from the thoughts. But maybe reinforcing the intrusive and negative thoughts/beliefs that aren't true to begin with.