I have OCD, AMA.

[MifaoCD]

Not sure it would be of interest but just in case, am bit bored/lonely this evening.

Is there anything that helped? My youngest has been completely incapacitated since Feb. Waiting for EDMR and a meds review. I have to take care of all his physical needs and tearing my hair out.

Youve got all my sympathises, it looks like it utterly sucks.

Hi Op.
what symptoms/ behaviours led to your diagnosis?
are you medicated and has it helped ?

What is the focus of your intrusive thoughts/images. What internal or external compulsions do you have?

What support have you had? If you’ve had therapy what has helped and what hasn’t?

A few questions there - hope that’s OK?!

I'm due to start some OCD focused therapy in a few months but I've actually found that since starting medication for ADHD my OCD symptoms have calmed a little, it's early days but they seem to take that razor sharp edge off. But I don't think they prescribed for it, just a happy coincidence.

My symptoms go back about 20 years to after I had children and worsened when they started in school.

I couldn't bare to leave them at school as I thought something bad would happen to them. I would watch them go into the class room and I would walk away and then go back to the window to check they were there. Walk away and go back again to check. I used to do this about 10 times until they had settled into carpet time and them sitting down in one place helped me visualise they really were there and so I could leave.
It was actually worse picking them up as every day I assumed they wouldn't be there.
Eventually after a few years I stopped doing the school run as it was causing me too much distress.

That was the very start of it and when I went to the GP they diagnosed me with anxiety and depression.

I am not medicated for OCD but have recently been prescribed Elvanse for ADHD and I feel it helps a little for OCD.

TRIGGER WARNING FOR UPSETTING CONTENT

My thoughts centre around my childrens safety mostly.
When they were younger the focus was on kidnapping and drowning.

Now they are older it is about things like random stabbings or RTAs.

I don't want to get too graphic but I have graphic intrusive thoughts everyday about finding my children in horrible situations passed away, mostly through suicide. My brain anticipates the scene and shows me photo mock ups of it. It happens every time I open a door into another room.

I have magical thinking. The outcome of the silliest things feel absolutely dire and real to me. Dropping something and it landing the wrong way up feels like an omen for death.

To counteract bad things I have to write them (with my finger) onto my thumb then rub them out to make sure they don't happen.

When I wash my hands I have the compulsion to burn them.

I burn my head with the hairdryer.

And then theres the normal lock checking, gas checking, window checking

I've had no specific support so far though I am due to start OCD therapy soon.

Please get as much help as you can OP, as well as you suffering so much your OCD will be having a huge impact on your children.

Are you married? How does your husband cope with it? It must be very difficult for him too.

I have immense sympathy for you @MifaoCD, the mind can be a terrible bully. What you describe is a very common theme. That’s not to dismiss how difficult that must be, but the very powerful sense of responsibility for preventing harm is very common and intrusions relating to children are an obvious and very understandable form. The mind dishes up the worst possible images, thoughts and doubts, the ones that go against what is most important to us. Very quickly thoughts, images, doubts become facts in our minds. Pretty much every human being has catastrophic, frightening, alarming intrusions at some point and the difference between having OCD and not having OCD isn’t the presence of thoughts, it’s the way someone engages and then attempts to manage thoughts.

I always bang on about the book Break Free from OCD which is a CBT based book by a group of Oxford CBT clinicians including Professor Paul Salkovkis. It’s very clear and straightforward. CBT is the best evidenced approach for OCD and EMDR is also very useful, especially where trauma exists. Essentially recovery lies in understanding the process not the contents and learning to see the problem as one of anxiety and tackling the anxiety rather than seeing the problem as danger and responding to that through checking, rituals, thought stopping (whatever form the attempt to stop or manage the thoughts/images/doubts takes).

I really really wish you the best and I hope your therapy is helpful. People can recover, I’ve seen it happen. 💐