Real Events OCD (RE-OCD*): a subtype of OCD where one’s obsessions center around an actual event in someone’s past. People with this subtype have intrusive thoughts and guilt about something they did in the past that is very disproportional to the event and highly distressing to the person with RE-OCD. The events obsessed over are usually relatively benign events that those without the disorder would consider honest mistakes and forgive themselves for, such as making fun of a classmate in elementary school, leaving a bad review of a business and it shutting down, raising your voice at your friend, being rude to a sibling while growing up, or lifting chips from a gas station when you were 13. However, some people with this subtype obsess over more substantial mistakes but still blow them way out of proportion and feel constant guilt and self-hatred that impacts their life and self-esteem immensely. People with RE-OCD have a false emotional narrative of these events and feel that their actions are unforgivable and heinous crimes and that they are responsible for serious harm when this is not the case. RE-OCD has some similarities to False Memory OCD/FM-OCD; I have both. However, with RE-OCD the obsessive events actually happened in some way (even if the narrative is heavily warped), while with False Memory OCD it is unclear whether the events happened or not due to the cycle of OCD confusing and warping memory (although in most cases of FM-OCD the event did not actually happen).
Colors are my personal representation of “nostalgia” and the FM-OCD teal.
Learn more about Real Events OCD.
*RE-OCD is a shorthand to go along with the other subtypes that have one.