To ask what your perception of OCD is?

[littlemisssunny]

Following on from the other thread about OCD I just wondered if you would mind telling me what your perception of OCD is?

I have suffered with it for over 20 years now, and think it is more common than people realise, I know a fair few people with it, who I think only admitted it after they found out I suffer with it.

It is a very taboo subject and I think the more people talk about it the better understanding there is.

I feel for me there is no cure, but I learn how to deal with things so it's more bearable. It gets worse when I am anxious though.

I am happy to answer any questions, and if others would like to input their personal experiences then please do.

I do think it is somewhat trivialized by people saying they are a bit OCD trust me if you have it you know about it, but I know they aren't doing it to offend anyone, just that they don't fully understand it.

My DD has it and it manifests as intrusive thoughts, mainly to do with slitting wrists or throats. She's very scared of blood.

Although debilitating or the sufferer, how does your family cope? My DH had an employee whose wife made him derobe at the front door for fear of contaminating the house when he entered. He was under enormous stress and tbh, I dont know how he coped.

My friend suffers with it, though she has it fairly under control at the moment.

I wish people would realise that OCD didn't mean that they like things neat, and that it is a debilitating and terrifying illness.

In our house its a lot of counting and knowing how far, how many, where, to keep control, followed by checking (did I lock up, close the garage etc) and some fear of germs, but not too bad and manageable.
For Ds it is washing, and food. But he's pretty much got it all under control stress makes it worse for both Dh and Ds. Oh and both are socially different. Hard to explain, but they can be hard work.

I like to think it doesn't affect my family to much, I try not to make them do things I would consider unreasonable, but I have to tell my husband off when he doesn't wash his hands after going to the toilet cos that's just wrong!!

I do think there needs to be more awareness as much as anything do that the family understand it too and can have support.

cocolepew that must be scary for your and your dd. hugs.

I've had it since I was 12 - so a whole 22 years of living with it.

I mostly have it under control, but when I am under stress it tends to come out and I find myself ritualising more. I also have issues with cleanliness. I've come up with workarounds for most things, and done quite a lot of work to reduce my compulsions. Now I'm pretty much down to one ritual, and issues with toilets/handwashing, and raw chicken preparation. (Well it can cause salmonella! Lol!)

I am pretty open about it, and able to appreciate just how irrational it is, I can even laugh at myself (as long as nothing stops me from carrying out my compulsion - then I just panic).

Despite being so open most people don't even notice that I have it. When I have told people I tend to get a "have you? I'd never noticed!" response. I've had it so long now and from such a young age that in some ways it's become my norm and for a long time I did hide it in case people thought I was weird. I suppose I can live with it, but occasionally it will really flare up and then it's hard. I do get annoyed at the time it can take up as well - but the thought of just stopping and not giving into the compulsion....well it's just unthinkable.

www.channel4.com/mad has a fabulous animation ref OCD that you watch with headphones. It gives a really good insight into how a person with OCD thinks and feels.

One thing I always remember - people with OCD tend to be of above average intelligence - oh yes!!

My sister has it, and my mum to some extent. Although my sister didn't live at home, her behaviour very much impacted on us all. She had to make sure things were switched off etc: "checking". It was so debilitating. She had counselling and is now (almost) fine. OP, you can overcome it, although I think its always there in the background. 5 years after getting treatment she's starting to drive again so it's a long process, but it is achievable. DM is a hoarder and checker as well. She has always considered this normal but is starting to see this as abnormal behaviour now and is also getting counselling.

I also get a bit when people tell me they have OCD because they enjoy housework etc.

Ds1s dad suffers with OCD, I didn't know while we were together but 10 years later he spoke to me about it when he started to get intrusive thoughts ( I was training as a mental health nurse at the time) he had an aversion to odd numbers. He counted everything and became very agitated if things were odd numbers or not symmetrical. He couldn't buy a car unless the number plate was ok. It really started to take over his life.

My cousin also has ocd, he developed ticks. Has in the past had compulsions to blow on people's food, touch their heads, open and close doors a certain number of times and many other things.

Both me and my nana had intrusive thoughts when we were younger, where we had to count things or repeat words in our heads, as if we didn't something bad would happen ( we thought)

Was going to name change but what the heck.

I have it, mostly the obsessive side with a few compulsions thrown in for good measure. Mine is generally obsessing about health issues, looking for lumps all the time, googling symptoms, harassing my doctor, I go through phases where I'm convinced I have breast cancer, then a few weeks later it will change to a brain tumour, them lymphoma, etc etc currently its ovarian cancer/brain tumour. Sometimes its not cancer but maybe a DVT, but generally life threatening stuff. Have dashed to a and e before proclaiming that I'm having a heart attack.

My compulsions part is mostly to do with crumbs, can't bloody stand them. Have to check all chairs before I sit down and brush off the (invisible) crumbs. Plus rituals around fizzy drinks. This stuff is all a bit comical/easily dealt with the obsessive side is harder as are the intrusive thoughts, which involve sex with pretty much everyone and stabbing people (mostly my kids ).

I take medication but have to up it every so often then I come off it and go full circle and go back on it, these days I just take it and don't question it.

Anxiety makes it worse, my anxiety is very sadly made worse by alcohol consumption.

Know what you mean Trazzletoes - I definitely have OCD, but I don't actually like housework at all!

I still tend to repeat words or sentences in my head a certain number of times when I'm stressed or anxious. It has to be 4 times in blocks of 4

I think that like many conditions there are "shades" of it, its kinda like a sliding scale ( so I kinda see what some people mean when they say they have it "little) and I think everyone has something they "must" do to the same way / time / worry about even if its such a simple thing as ironing a shirt exactly the same way and not feeling quite right if its done differently.

It is only when this begins to take precedence over other things / pleasurable thoughts and become intrusive on "normal" functions that I think we can say that OCD as a condition exisits.

Three members of my family have OCD manifesting in different ways ..... DD1 has quite mild issues although does like things done certain ways or she gets stressed and it was a factor in her divorce. DH has been very "ordered" and neat throughout his life, the (possibly sterotypical) doing a few things to perfection but ignoring other stuff and having rituals for say locking up that go on for longer than is logically necessary.

DD3 most severely affected with lots of instrusive thought that she caused bad things to happen as well as a great fear of germs to the point of, for example, insisting that everything I purchased from shops had to be from the back of the shelves so least touched by people and cleaned once home. Also bleached the washing machine before putting clothes in to wash .......as well as bleaching her own hands ( harming them to the point of bleeding) She had to give up college because of it.

I am not a sufferer, and as far as I'm aware no- one in my close family is, but I have been a teacher for a long time, and have met a number of students with varying degrees of OCD. I'm sure it is increasingly common.

I think the general perception of OCD trivialises it into "being a neat freak", and it annoys me when people say "so and so is a bit OCD". This bears no relation to the debilitating anxiety, fears and rituals which I have seen young people dealing with. I think teenagers today are subject to far greater pressures than we were, and that conditions like OCD will become more prevalent in society, and that everyone should be educated to have greater empathy and understanding of it and similar conditions.

I am really conscious of speaking on this thread about OCD when I am not a sufferer, but I wondered if you had any advice about working with young people with the condition? What would have helped you?

I believe more people experience it than those who don't.

My OCD began at 8, diagnosed at 17. Back at time of diagnosis (20 yrs ago) OCD was not a "fashionable" illness to suffer from or tolerate. It pains me sometimes that people have absolutely no idea what living with OCD REALLY means. My OCD involved checking, over and over, despite KNOWING that I had done something (locked door, turned off gas, checked windows, done mt rituals properly). I was washing my hands up to 120 times a day, hated touching taps, door handles, money, people, animals, anything i felt was "contaminated", my life was truly hellish
i would get off a bus and walk 6 miles home to check i had locked front door and panic if someone interrupted my counting rituals. I could count only in multiples of 4, but not if that multiple could be divided by 6. I spent my life counting and touching things a certain amount of times. I cleaned and cleaned till my hands bled, then would wash them whilst counting. And all the while i held down good jobs and hid it from the majority of those close to me. i am better now with the cleaning and checking, but still find myself counting in times of stress, without even being totally conscious of it at times. It took three life changing events, very close to each other for me to finally realise i had very little control over events such as death etc, and WILL myself to stop. It was one of the hardest battles i have ever fought. No dramatics, it was truly a battle, panic attacks, insomnia, etc. I still can't cope with toilets etc, and use tissue to flush my own loo, raise seat, but i consider myself better. I carry hand gel and hate my hands being "soiled", strangely, having a child helped me improve, i could not bear the thought of my child living the way i did. That is my experience of OCD. HTH, it can be improved.

My experience (and it is limited and so I may be wrong) of knowing a few people with OCD is that it doesn't seem to have much impact on how the person relates to other people; I think that is fairly unusual in terms of mental health - things like depression, some personality disorders and so on have a huge impact on how people relate to others.

I think that may make it easier for people to not really think too much about how big the impact is on the person who has it.

adverse I can imagen that was hard as a child, most of my repeating and counting when I was a child used to happen at night. I've always been a poor sleeper. Thinking about it I used to pull out my hair as well and that was always in number patterns.

I've never had cbt, although I've thought about it in the past when my anxiety has been bad. I've been prescribed ssri's in the past which helped.

Also after I've given birth I tend to get worse and have also suffered from intrusive thoughts.

I have ocd and when i have explained this to people (because frankly i am very open about it when asked i dont go randomly shouting it at people in the street or anything like that i promise :) ) the reaction i get is that people ask why i dont wash my hands or tidy up and when i explain thats not just what ocd is

I hate having to feel like i need to defend my ocd just because im not washing my hands and switching lights on and off which is what my manager expected from me after 5 years of working for her she only "just" discovered it

lizzy anyone is welcome to post whether they suffer or not.

The advice I think I would give is just try to be understanding and not to judge (not saying for a second that you do). When I was first told I was 11 and had to see a physiatrist and was made to feel like I was a mental case, sorry for the wording don't know how else to describe it, thankfully now there seems to be more awareness and more is known about it though there is still a long way to go. My thing back then was hand washing (still is a major part now) and my mum shut me in my room and told me I wasn't allowed out to wash my hands, I was in tears thinking I had done something really wrong. I know now she was doing it because she thought it would help, but I still feel like she thinks I should just snap out of it, if only it was that easy.

If you can just be there for them of they want it, and not ask questions every time you see them doing something, I hate it when people notice and ask questions I get so embarrassed and understand they can't just snap out of it.

I think it's lovely that you are asking for advice and want to help, that is partly the aim of the thread, to create awareness and for people to ask questions.

If I can help one person understand then it's worth it, mental health needs to be talked about, not shyed away from.

I have OCD. For me it is neatness, but to a point where it interferes with my life. I cannot have anything out at all. Dd is not able to have toys downstairs and anything she plays with has to be tidied away immediately. I cannot have anything 'extra' anywhere. I cannot have visitors as they add clutter - coats, shoes, even extra bodies in the room causes a panic attack. I am constantly utterly horrified by the mess I live in.
I clean my desk at work everyday and have nothing on it by the end of each day.
People just laugh at me and tell me I am lucky. I don't feel it.

Lizzie - personally, i would try to understand\ascertain if there was a trigger for this type of display. I am sure you are aware that sometimes, actions speak louder than words with young children. I am not implying that there is always an underlying issue with OCD displays, it can sometimes strike anyone down, but in my case i believe there was a need for control in an otherwise unstable environment (not always apparent to others)that was displayed in my OCD tendencies. If a case of OCD was confirmed in my experience, only a feeling of security, (absolution of blame?)
or immense desire to overcome the condition can (possibly) help?

Can I ask how it is properly diagnosed?

Is it by a standard gp, or more in depth with a psychiatrist?

And what is the treatment plan?

I have OCD. It's words. For some unknown reason a word will suddenly 'become attractive' to me (no other way of describing it sorry) and I will say that word over and over, maybe hundreds of times. I regularly get comments like 'Are you talking to yourself?' or 'Did you say something?' Sometimes I can stop doing it when I realise and say 'Stop It' very loudly, but usually not. It's irritating, embarrassing and infuriating. Funny thing is, it stopped when I got PND and took Prozac. One of the uses of the drug is the treatment of OCD, and do you know - I never noticed I'd stopped until I stopped taking it and it started again!