How my interpretation of my emotions maintained my OCD
Sorry if my post is not clear, English is not my native language !
For some time, I noticed a mechanism that I had put in place at the beginning of my OCD and that I only realized recently. First of all, I present an Harm-OCD combined with a Real Event OCD and a False Memories OCD, which leads me to have mainly compulsions around the verification of memories and confession.
Basically, I realized that I misinterpretate my emotions : When a memory or a false memory would give me anxiety, I interpreted my anxiety as an intuition. As if it were a signal of "yes you’re right, you did something wrong, you should worry about this memory". Which made me feel like I was completely lying to myself when I didn’t check my memories or confession to someone. Conversely, I interpreted joy, happiness or any positive emotion as a lie, as if it was not normal for me to feel these emotions and that I was wrong to let myself feel them.
This way of interpreting my emotions, and especially anxiety, has been a pillar for my OCD, allowing the disorder to persist over time and destroying my confidence in my judgments.
But accepting that my emotions are not clues about how I should interpret my memories has really been a great source of improvement.
Have any of you ever noticed this kind of mechanism in your company? And who could have worsened or maintained their OCD?