OCD what helped you?

[Ocdhell]

I have OCD and it’s starting to really piss me off. Does anyone have any advice or tips.

Some more info:

• It started mildly years ago although I didn’t know it was called OCD back then (probably in my teens with checking etc)

-it got terrible after the birth of my first baby. I suffer from intrusive thoughts. Mainly surrounding harm. I was absolutely horrified about the thoughts! I have a classic case: having the thought, obsessing over it, checking behaviours/avoiding

-driving is one issue I’ve had for years. I think I could hit people in my car, the thought disturbs me, I then did behaviours like circling back to check. Now I just don’t drive.

-I avoid cooking (in case I make people sick), driving, being alone. I’m slow at work due to checking stuff. I check doors and switches. It’s bloody exhausting.

-I have had CBT which I know does help. I will try to dig out my notes from my previous sessions.

-I have several self help books

-it came back after birth of subsequent kids... but I kept it fairly under control.

-I have just had a terrible episode of it last week, I had a brief thought of “this could happen” completely out of the blue, in terms of harming strangers. Then that was it, I’m on day 6 of believing I’m a terrible person, trying to remember exactly what happened when I had the thought, I can’t remember so I maybe think I’ve done the terrible thing and blocked it out, vivid thoughts of me going to prison, a sense of doom, like it’s the last few days I have at home with my kids, wishing I could just die so the feeling could go, I want to badly go back and check etc etc.

What is next? Has anyone successfully gotten rid of OCD forever?

Has anyone had success with medication? I’m also scared of medicine and rarely take it as I always think of worst case scenario... what if I drop it and kids eat it etc etc. How ironic!

My family don’t get it. They think ocd is cleaning

My husband is great and he’s been wonderful at supporting me.

My plan is:
-self help and looking after myself more
-go to gp
-get booked on for refresher course for CBT

I know I need help! I’m just after any positive stories or advice to help me before I get the help I need.

I’ve just properly realised that I’ve been hiding ocd for that long! I think people might just think I’m odd, grumpy or “stressed” because I’ve hidden it that well. I guess I’m fairly normal when I’m around others. Because being around others is in itself a form of checking so I can behave normally. What a terrible way to live.

Don't blame yourself for this. It's really flipping hard.
I'm doing pretty well day to day yet this morning my son managed to put his leg in the toilet during a tantrum. I was trembling at the thought of having to sort it all.
You'll get through this

I’ve tried hard not to check ANYTHING today. I’ve done pretty well. So far. I’ve resisted the urges. I’ve not done it! Small victory. Just plucking up courage to leave house with kids. Without checking door or any switches.

I found an anxiety curve thing I did in CBT really worked for me. One of my obsessions was making everything straight, straight curtains, perfect gap between the candles etc. My therapist explained how not doing it made me anxious and what would happen to the anxiety if I didn’t straighten everything continuously. She told me my anxiety would go up and up but would then go down where as I thought it would go up and up an up and up. My homework was to not straighten some stuff and see what happened and she was right , the compulsion was so strong but did eventually get less when I realised the anxiety wasn’t going to get so great I exploded.
My therapist said to me it’s just a thought and I am in charge of my thoughts and something just clicked. I thought I can do this.

I look forward to trying some of your techniques. I just left the house without checking anything. Even the door. I even accidentally left the tv on by mistake! And NOTHING happened. I didn’t use my phone to record things as a form of checking. I even spoke to a couple of strangers including a postman and didn’t feel a wave of anxiety and kept any intrusive thoughts on the low as they should be, just thoughts!

See I can do it if I try really hard. I know it’s only a baby step but actually that is a huge deal for me. I think the checking of switches and doors etc will be fairly easy to drop because I mean what is the worst that can happen?!

The other darker intrusive thoughts are not going to be so fun to tackle.

Well done!!
I found with the checking that once you stop its quite empowering.
The intrusive thoughts were and are the bit I just find horrible.

Remember though, the key with intrusive thoughts are that they're just thoughts.
When you have OCD you believe them and believe they shape you as a person and reflect your beliefs.
They don't. Everyone has scary thoughts, doesn't mean they're a bad person.

I have had to really challenge my anxiety - almost like come on then, do your worst! Once I was brave enough to challenge it a few times and nothing awful happened, it did get easier to do

I did have trauma, not everyone does but there will be a trigger. Likely something happened to you, or you saw something that started it off. A very scary news event as a child you didn’t understand, an ill grandparent, a house move. Or as an adult, isolation or an event that really affected you.

I saw something as a child about hypnotism. I became very afraid of being accidentally hypnotised. We had a long dangling light pull in our bathroom and I was so afraid of it. I would tie it up, hang it outside the door, everything to try to not be hypnotised by this thing. It seemed so real

CBT taught me a lot about distraction to be honest. I now use mindless games like candy crush to take my mind off things. Some people ping elastic bands. I used to read books to take my mind off of

To anyone with children who have OCD and anxiety the most best thing to do for them is cuddle them. Literally physical touch can make you feel better. Also don’t tell them it is silly

Sertraline is your friend. Complete game changer.

Citalopram helps me. And distraction, doing puzzles, reading etc.

I am really struggling as well op. For me it is decisions. I am too scared to make decisions as I'm terrified I will make the wrong decision and harm someone. Exposure therapy is definitely good. But hard! I'm a teacher and marking is totally triggering for me. I used to take 10 hours per class to mark and re-mark a set of books over and over! I hate that OCD is used as a kind of slang shorthand for being tidy and clean. I live in a total hovel because I am far too busy obsessing over making the right decisions to ever to any cleaning!!

I have also panicked over HIV. It started after reading an article about how it doesn’t show symptoms for years. I was convinced I’d caught HIV through my ex boyfriend.
I began trying to figure out who his sexual partners before me were, working out their probability for having HIV. When his ex girlfriend had a baby to come one else I was convinced that the reason she was bottle feeding was because she had HIV and couldn’t. If I have a headache I am convinced it’s a tumour. I have requested mammograms because I had a blocked milk duct - I logically knew it was a blocked milk duct but became absolutely convinced I had cancer. This was further amplified when I woke with back ache and I was convinced it had spread to my spine. Nothing to do with the fact I was a new mum and carrying a massive car seat daily obviously.

My son hurt his leg falling over and I was convinced his limp was from an undiagnosed brain tumour. I was actually hysterical over that one.

You’re not alone. CBT helps me massively.

I can second the not cleaning thing! Ironically my house could be cleaner too but that would involve using chemicals and that can be a bit of a trigger for my dark thoughts. So I avoid them.

I'll come back to this later as I have basically 30 years of OCD ruining my life but eye movement therapy @Ocdhell is EMDR - and can be really beneficial if your OCD is related to a trauma (however minor) in your life that started the OCD - for instance I had huge anxiety aged around 4/5 about my dad dying after he went abroad for 3 weeks just after Lockerbie happened - EMDR helped me 'process' the memory.

My OCD comes about from trying to control the anxious thought.

Have also panicked about HIV
But when you put it into perspective are you my generation? I was born in the 80’s when famous pop stars were dying of the disease, it was all over the news, Princess Diana was pictured in Africa, comic relief and live aid... - it’s been everywhere for people of our ages, and it WAS scary! My DC would not be afraid (award yes) of it now, because medical science has moved on and it’s not such a ‘crisis’

Aware* that should say

@NigesFakeWalkingStick

This is a good point, I was also making it. We grew up in the 80’s and 90’s during a turbulent time news wise and it certainly did affect us as children. IRA, Lockerbie, school shootings, the Gulf war, AIDS epidemic, African poverty etc

There was no CBBC, the grown ups put the TV was on and the news would flash by, no adult to explain something gently or rationally

Honestly what helped me was months and years of expensive cbt. Mine was very severe.
I now take a small dose of SSRI and it doesn’t bother me, though I’ll always be anxious.
Because of the therapy, I am able to recognise it’s tricks when they rear up, and generally just naming the ocd for what it is shuts it up at this stage of recovery.
You’ll probably never be rid of it completely, it’s just how our brains work. But it can go convincingly into remission.

That is interesting about growing up in turbulent times. I was an 80s kid too.

I don’t have any trauma that I recall. An absent father from a young age I guess. And my mum is quite a worrier/checker too. She is ultra protective and sees the worst case scenario in absolutely everything. Even positive stuff she will plant seeds of doubt and think of the “what if” even if there’s 1% chance she will urge me to consider it might happen. She encourages me to research everything before I commit or buy. She has extremely high standards and has told me before that I’m a disappointment. She really cares about what others think so for example if I told her about this episode, she would say “don’t tell anyone in case they think badly of you” she thinks my lack of driving is a “phobia” that I can overcome.

Another hurdle down for today, I just made lunch with no checks or thoughts that were weird. I know it sounds ridiculous but one of my issues was preparing food. So I’d be worried I could subconsciously poison it somehow with cleaning product etc. So to get round that I tend to let Dh do bulk of cooking. If I have to prep food, I would record the steps on my phone. I’m ashamed to even type that.

Well for the first time in quite a while, I made food alone and did no weird behaviours!

It really is quite empowering to be free of some of the burden of checking.

Honestly? Citalopram max dose of 40mg. I’ve recently halved my dose and the OCD is creeping back in. I’m going to go back up. The tiredness from the medication is easier to cope with than the intrusive thoughts

That certainly sounds like it could be the root of the OCD.

I have issues with food too. I struggle with contamination both ways. So wont cook with raw chicken because of getting ill and wont use bleach because of getting ill. Its knackering.

And yes, live in a mess here too. It's too hard work to use cleaning products and stress myself out so I end up doing what I can and living in safe areas at my worst.

Having a worrying parent can induce worry into the child

I now worry about house security and fires - I don’t double check anything but I check it is secure. When I started closing the kitchen door at night because I read it’s a good idea for fire safety, my DD (also has GAD) said ‘why are you closing it? Is there something dangerous?’ Now I have planted the seed in her head that something might happen. Easily done