'All your thoughts become hostile' - Our experience of OCD

Posted on 2026-04-16 by [lily]

A peer at my residential program said: "when you have OCD, all your thoughts become hostile" and that rang so true for me.

It made me want to write out my OCD experience and how it affects us to this day.

A girl lost in thought

My earliest memories are of being anxious.

I remember not being able to sleep at night because I knew if I closed my eyes I would fall asleep and never wake up because I would die of carbon monoxide poisoning. A loose toy in the heating vents would melt and catch fire and fill my room with carbon monoxide and I would die in my sleep

I was sure of it.

So every night, I would turn the lights on and stare into the heating vent in my room over and over and over and over. Going to bed, feeling anxious, then getting back up to check again.

I don't know how I fell asleep, but it was in a state of anxiety I'm sure.

Night after night, that was my life.

A learned behavior

A friend of mine once said "no outside pants on my bed".

That made a lot of sense, sitting in public transit or auditorium chairs or resturant seats was dirty, and pants were dirty once you sat on them.

I quickly followed suit, a rule of "no outside pants on my bed".

However that wasn't the end of it.

I knew that anything that touched anything that was dirty would be dirty too.

In the same way, I knew that anything that touched anything that touched anything that was dirty would be dirty too.

So soon my couch became contaminated, my chair became contaminated, my entire apartment became contaminated with the evils of the outside world.

On bad days, I would have multiple pants around the apartment for sitting on different surfaces in different levels of cleanliness.

There were two safe havens, my bed (specifically the pillow area, the foot area was dirty) and the shower (everything was cleaned off in the shower).

Soon I realized that this was a problem, but I couldn't stop.

I knew that if I didn't keep my bed clean then my pillows would get dirty. If my pillows got dirty my eyes would get infected and I would get pink-eye.

I knew that would happen.

I knew it.

Lost deeper

I don't know when it started, but at some point I was convinced I was a bad person.

Perhaps it was when my autism led me to be rejected by my peers.

When I began to think that it was my fault that I didn't have any friends at my new school.

That it was my fault that I got laughed at by my peers.

I thought that I was bad.

I knew that I was a bad person.

And the only way I knew how to be a better person was to make sure that I didn't do anything wrong ever. The only way to do that was to learn from all my mistakes and never repeat a mistake.

So began my time spent lost in thought.

Every day, every moment, my mind was stuck in loops. Loops thinking about everything I did wrong. Everything that I had said that could've been misinterpreted. Any looks that I might've missed in the moment.

Anything and everything.

I would think and think and think. Think through every possible situation that might happen. Think about everything I had said that day. Think about every mistake I had made.

Over and over and over.

Moral attacks

It's normal to be afraid of being a bad person. To be afraid that you're racist, you're a pedophile, that you're a monster in some way.

That's normal.

I knew that was normal and I knew that I didn't want to be one of those monsters.

So I knew that I had to do everything I could to not become one of those people.

I knew.

So I obsessed over it, making sure that nothing I did was ever racist, never looked at children for too long.

But when I made a mistake, thought of someone of a different race differently, it was over for me.

I knew that I had become a racist.

My thoughts began to obsess over the idea that I was a racist, that I was going to shout the N-word with a hard R to every black person I ever met.

And thinking these thoughts just confirmed my fate.

I was a terrible person.

I was a racist.

I knew it.

I knew it.

I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it.

Just in the same way, I knew I wanted to kick dogs because dogs scared me. I knew I was a pedophile because I stared at little boys and girls for a little too long.

I knew it.

And once I knew it, my thoughts became completely hostile to me. I was a terrible person

I was a terrible person and I knew it. I should just die.

I should just die.

. . .

Things get better

Things did eventually get better.

I did eventually get to the point where the thoughts became quiet. It was a combination of therapy and medication that worked that got me there.

Things got better.

I managed to stop the thoughts. Stop doing the compulsions and not panic. Until one day I sat down in my bed without thinking with my outside pants and didn't have a panic attack. Until one day I had a conversation and was able to continue on with my day without having to analyze it.

One day, bit by bit, things got better.

If you struggle with the same things I did, let me promise you this.

Things will get better.

I know it.

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