Homicidal or Harm OCD?

[chero]

I need help with something I'm struggling to understand. I used to be friends with this kid who I'm going to refer to as X and had to get a restraining order against him about a year and a half ago because he was homicidal and describing very graphic things he wanted to do to people and he said he was afraid he would accidentally hurt me. I talked to him for the first time since the restraining order. It was through our school that we talked (because the school has been involved in this since the beginning) and X told me that he has since been diagnosed with Intrusive Thought OCD and I don't believe that his OCD is how he got homicidal thoughts. When I first got the restraining order I looked up all kinds of stuff about homicidal ideation and things and came across Harm OCD. All of the sites that I looked at explained that in Harm OCD, people have these thoughts and can't control and rarely ever actually want to do these things or act on them. They tend to express a lot of fear around these thoughts too. The only time X expressed fear was when he said he was afraid he might accidentally hurt/kill me. All the others times he would describe to me in graphic detail what he wanted to do to people and he was super nonchalant about it. He even laughed about it. X also told me that he always just says what he needs to say to get by, so when he doesn't want to be in a situation he makes stuff up or goes with what he thinks is the best answer, regardless of what he's actually feeling. He also likes to play the victim in things. I'm confused and need help understanding this. Please help. I'm scared at school because I don't know if he's going to hurt me or someone else. Thank you. 

[jt07]

We are not doctors and cannot diagnose people much less do it third hand. It is possible that he has harm OCD but there is no way for us to know. I wish we could be of more help because I know you are scared but there really isn't much we can do as a peer support site except support you.

[Lexie]

Odd as it may sound, I think it's possible to have both homicidal desires and harm OCD.

OCD isn't terribly rational, and if you perceive something as bad or a threat for basically any reason, even just some of the time, it can potentially fuel OCD.

I say this because, uh... personal experience. With both. Overlapping.

edit: To clarify, this was because the reason behind my harm OCD wasn't "harming people is bad," but more specific to the form of harm and what it implied about me as a person. Basically, there were reasons I should not take certain harmful actions or think certain thoughts about harm. But I still wanted to harm people, I just had to do it in very specific ways or it'd violate the rules laid out for proper behaviour as dictated by my obsession.

Edited May 23, 2016 by Lexie