# Anxiety Disorders > Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) >  >  Does anyone else argue with others in their head?

## compulsive

I often have impulsive thoughts, usually social problems which make me anxious, and I automatically start imagining the feared scenario and start playing it in my head, usually involving arguing with someone. These daydreams are often painful and make me feel worse, but temporarily decrease anxiety. 

This can be differentiated from simply maladaptive daydreaming because rather than dreaming about things and creating a story, I am trying to figure out what the other person will say to me. I test out what to say to them and try to prepare for what they will say to me. The situation repeats over and over and over. 

Kind of like if I were a murder suspect and I practiced what to answer to questions, so that if I get asked, I will get away with the murder. In the same respect, I wish to be able to answer appropriately in a social situation or people will figure out that i'm not very social. 

Like OCD, doing it does not solve any problem, and makes me more anxious.  I often try to solve problems in my head by trying to check things in the past or trying to predict things. It is often the case where I do not know that I am doing it until I have done it for 5 minutes. 

I feel like if I don't prepare for the situation really bad things will happen.

Has anyone else had this kind of OCD?

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## kc1895

> I often have impulsive thoughts, usually social problems which make me anxious, and I automatically start imagining the feared scenario and start playing it in my head, usually involving arguing with someone. These daydreams are often painful and make me feel worse, but temporarily decrease anxiety. 
> 
> This can be differentiated from simply maladaptive daydreaming because rather than dreaming about things and creating a story, I am trying to figure out what the other person will say to me. I test out what to say to them and try to prepare for what they will say to me. The situation repeats over and over and over. 
> 
> Kind of like if I were a murder suspect and I practiced what to answer to questions, so that if I get asked, I will get away with the murder. In the same respect, I wish to be able to answer appropriately in a social situation or people will figure out that i'm not very social. 
> 
> Like OCD, doing it does not solve any problem, and makes me more anxious.  I often try to solve problems in my head by trying to check things in the past or trying to predict things. It is often the case where I do not know that I am doing it until I have done it for 5 minutes. 
> 
> I feel like if I don't prepare for the situation really bad things will happen.
> ...



I can understand what you're going through.  My therapist told me that one of the biggest issues that drives OCD is the fear of uncertainty.  We tend to predict and over analyze an upcoming situation which we have no control over, so playing a false scenario inside our minds is one way the mind "tricks" itself into calming itself over the fear of uncertainty.  

I think normally people might do this with anxiety over a job interview so they want to be prepared with what questions might get asked.  But as you already know, its rather productive to be anxious over these things than otherwise mundane situations that don't have the same significance value in your life.  I know its easier said than done, but someone always told me to not focus on things that you have no control over.  Also, is it really a deliberate choice when you try to play these scenarios inside your head or predicting things until you've analyzed it to death?

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## compulsive

Yeah I know what you mean but, the problem is that the perspective of the person not currently having an OCD episode and the person having one is completely different. I don't understand why someone would preform a compulsion if they knew what they were doing was sily. The reason the compulsion is preformed is to try to prevent bad things from occurring because we cannot handle the perceived event from happening.  If someone thought what im doing is illogical and what im doing wont help me, would they do it? No they would not. 

Hence, the problem is not that we consciously choose to try to control something we know we can't. The problem lies in the fact that we believe we have control over the situation, that the compulsion will or could help us, and that we could not cope with the perceived situation actually happening. 

My fears are all possible , and many are quite possible. Some have happened. They feel completely justified and very significant.  Unless I were to ask advise for every thought I had, how would I know that it was unreasonable?

Is it sigificant, is it false,  is it helpful? We have no way of answering this. Simply using past information and saying OCD was wrong isn't helpful unless the scenario is the exact same each time. Ie door checking compulsion

I end up checking the door many times and going back to check because I fear being robbed. I could say OCD was wrong because my home wasn't robbed when I didnt do the compulsion. I could also say that it didnt happen because I happened to have locked the door that time. However other times I may not check the door is locked and get robbed. The OCD insures I wont get robbed. While the alternative ( no ocd checking) I have chosen is a dice roll.  In the assumption that if I lock the door, I wont get robbed, I have complete control of being robbed. 

So the premium solution that I came up with was if I had doubts to check once, and say ive checked. Than I would fight urges to check by saying no I know ive checked. 

Social situations, however are very complex and its quite impossible to find such a solution. 

Putting all I have said into perspective , Im just not sure that trying to accept uncertainty or ignoring the ocd is a viable solution anymore. It doesn't solve anything or get rid of the anxiety.

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## Misssy

well, I often open doors with a paper towel at work, I am sure that some people think I have OCD... people really do have dirty hands though. The thing about fearing the possible threat of being robbed is that one still only needs to lock the door once because it doesn't become un-locked by itself.---I have pretend conversations with people in my head, sometimes I even talk out loud to another pretend person who isn't even there. Shrug...it's probably just regular old psychosis. LOL

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