To wish for a cure for OCD

[Tunnocks34]

Just ranting I guess. I’ve got OCD which presents as intrusive thoughts but also health anxiety focusing on my children.

Currently today I’ve had a panic attack after making a cup of tea because I imagined pouring the freshly boiled kettle on top of my 5 month olds head (please let me stress I would never, ever, ever do it - it’s just like I panic because I could do it?). My middle son has a cold, his second one in the last month so now I have spent 8 hours googling leukaemia symptoms in children. Someone asked me how I was today and I said ‘yeah I am thanks’ and I have spent two hours worrying about how much of a dick they think I am - to the point I considered messaging them to explain I should have said ‘I’m find thanks’ but logically I know not too.

I just can’t seem to enjoy my children. I’m constantly worrying they are dying. Or that I’m dying. Or imagining the various ways I could kill them if I ever wanted too. I’ve planned their funerals, planned my funeral.

AIBU to think that it’s just exhausting. Mental health issues are the worst.

Sorry to double post but I just thought of something kind of funny related to my OCD a few years back.

I was teaching in a small school with a big ‘staff room’ culture. I’m also a huge tea fiend and always looked forward to a cuppa and a complimentary biscuit. For about 6 months my obsessive thought was... what would happen if, completely deadpan, I was to tip my cup of tea over my head in front of all of my colleagues? What would they do?! I’d play out their scattering reactions in my head and have to thoroughly resist this urge every day! Luckily I found it funny.

( I also had to re-boil and clean the this very same tea making urn more than once as I was convinced I’d spiked the water with some unknown substance. I hadn’t even used any cleaning product or anything in it, just filled and boiled it ahead of break for my colleagues (like a nice person!).

I strongly recommend medication. I used to worry that my toddler who could barely walk was going to come around the corner, through the kitchen, and then somehow propel herself into the oven when I opened it to take something in or out. It only took 25 mg of sertraline to make me stop creating ridiculous scenarios like that. My anxiety wasn’t gone, but it wasn’t destroying me any more.

faith I have also had funny thoughts - they don’t bother me as much. Such as (during a lesson observation) ‘I wonder what would happen if I called this pupil a cunt now whilst I’m being observed?’ ‘On a scale of 1-10 how
Fired would I be if I slapped my head teacher’ (who is really fantastic and lovely)

OCD is so hard. I have OCD. Too mine is constantly wanting to clean stuff. Hoover 3 or more times a day. Everything I eat off or with has to go in the dishwasher.
Love to organise. Can't watch television on an odd number or eat an odd number of biscuits ect. I can't cook things that will make my hands smell afterwards Eg: potatoes. Flour. Hate touching things that are grainy like oxo, and loads of other things,
I think it presents itself in many forms and can be very exhausting. X

I cope are great. X

Funny intrusive thoughts are probably quiet common im sure ive had a few. My dp has serious traits of ocd and adhd but wont get tested (bloody man). But todays intrusive thought from him had me in stitches even he laughed. Before he went to work he asked me to do some washing so i agreed. Then he asked me to double check our cats were not in the washing machine before i turned it on as he was very concerned i might accidently wash our cats to death.

Wow!! Me too - exactly the same type of things. And in whole staff meetings too... oh the things you could do!

This thread isn’t about me, and I really hope that you get the help and support that you need. But thank you for making me feel that I’m not alone, and don’t give up. You WILL feel better, something that one of these lovely ladies had suggested will get you on your way. ......

I would highly recommend the Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma at Kings College Hospital if you are in the South East. I had a two year battle to get referred but after just 6 sessions, I no longer worry that I may lose control and harm my DC. My life was a living horror movie (in my head) and there were many times I thought that suicide was my only option to keep my DC safe. I actually begged my GP to lock me up in at one point! I also had it since childhood I know now but wasn’t diagnosed until age 38 when it finally got too much to cope with and I decided telling my GP and being locked up would be better than continuing as I was. GP laughed and told me I wasn’t going to be locked up. I had the visions of pouring the kettle over DCs head as well. I got into a routine of emptying it down the sink as soon as I put what I needed into a cup, shooing DC out of kitchen before it boiled. Also when taking pots of boiled potatoes, pasta etc to the sink to drain etc. Chopping veg as well. Why I didn’t just buy ready meals I don’t know! Horrific.

You have to have exhausted all avenues in your local area before you can get referred by your GP even if you are outside of London. They don’t take private referrals. The OCD Action support forum suggested it to me as they had had many success stories of people treated there.

Something you may want to look into and definitely worth it if you do.

I still suffer from anxiety, over worry about DC health and the house being clean but it doesn’t control me 24/7 like it did and I can recognise that other stressors in the background are fuelling it so know that I have to deal with them and then it will subside. I’ll always be vigilant and ‘aware’ but I see that as a good thing now.

Exercise helps as well. A good sweat and some weightlifting for strength (which strengthens the mind as well as the body). You can spot me at the gym scrubbing down all the equipment with the anti bac wipes before I touch it. I’m sure the staff mutter about having to refill the dispensers after I’ve been in! but I manage to get there nearly everyday and considering I could hardly leave the house except for essential school and supermarket runs two years ago, I don’t care.

Mine was trauma based due to childhood and exacerbated by the stillbirth of DC2 and it was helpful unpicking all that in therapy so I could see my triggers, then the Anxiety Centre in London topped it off.

Good luck.

Oh I also had to quit a very good job because I was so worried that I would fart loudly and stink out the room in meetings, or pee myself.

Also used to worry I’d run someone over if I went over a pothole.

I can laugh about it now but it was a living hell

Escitalopram is the only thing the keeps my OCD under control - have been a sufferer since I was 17 - am 57 now & have lost far too many years and very nearly my marriage to the bastard condition.

Best wishes OP 💐

The fear of shouting randomly ‘bunch of fucking cunts’ while waiting at the school gates was excruciating too .

Lisag,

Some but not all of what you describe might be OCD.

• Wanting to clean stuff is only OCD if not doing it makes you absolutely overwhelmingly distressed and anxious. Most people with contamination OCD actually cannot clean because they are so terrified of coming into contact with contaminants (whether that's germs or chemicals) and cleaning involves coming into contact with the thing that needs cleaning/is germy.

• Love to organise- is not OCD, anything that you 'love to do' is not OCD. OCD is where you feel so overwhelmingly distressed that you have a compulsion to do something to remove the distress.

• I can't watch TV on odd numbers- this is more of a personal preference unless you think that something bad will happen if you keep the TV on odd numbers.

• I hate touching grainy things- is again just a normal preference unless you become deeply distressed if made to cook potatoes.

It's perfectly possible that you do have OCD but the symptoms above are not really OCD symptoms.

Hi Nume2020,

That's great that CADAT helped you so much! I went to the ADRU (the residential unit of the Maudsley) and did get some benefit from it but still working on things now.

My sons shins are covered in bruises at the moment. Realistically, I know they're from his scooter but it hasn't stopped me googling leukaemia and deciding that he has all the symptoms. He doesn't but I can't stop thinking about it.
Everytime I drive home alone in the dark, I create complete scenarios in my head about what would happen if I saw a dead body laying on the side of the road.
Intrusive thoughts are awful and I completely understand where you're coming from. You're not alone.
The most difficult thing for me right now is numbers. I can't stop bloody counting and its driving my (literally) insane. There is a mum and the school gates that goes on and on about being "so OCD" and it annoys the hell out me how much she brands it about. She put up a photo of her clean kitchen today with the catch "clean kitchen is making the OCD in me happy." Also worth noting, that I have outright asked if she has been diagnosed because being diagnosed myself, if was genuinely curious to hear more. She hasn't. It is frustrating when it is something you battle with every day and people trivilise it. I hate asking people over to my house because I think they will assume it's absolutely spotless because I have OCD. It's the complete opposite when I'm having a particularly rough time.

Hang in there OP. Good days are coming, so I am told.

OP have you tried Sertraline? Please trust me it will change your life.

Hi Lifeasweknow,

My kitchen is currently in a real state because of my contamination OCD. The washing machine leaked over a week ago- since then I've felt the kitchen floor is contaminated. This means that any time anyone drops anything (e.g. a spoon, a bowl, some paper to mop something up) it is now 'contaminated' too. As a result the floor is covered in items that are too contaminated to pick up. This is the reality of contamination OCD for me and a lot of other sufferers.

Fieldofgreycorn- have you tried other SSRIs? is sertraline the best in your opinion?

Thats exactly it @Elle7rose. The way OCD is portrayed is completely misleading. I don't doubt that for some people, the need for everything to be spotless is a real struggle but its such a tiny part of OCD.
I really struggle with taking medication. I stopped taking my fluoxetine a little while ago and I know I need to speak to the doctor about it but the thought of being on medication long term really bothers me. The thought of missing one is worse for me than not taking it at all for some reason.

I’ve tried Prozac as well. My GP put me on Sertraline because I had really bad health anxiety. She’s had a lot of experience using it for that with pts. She was right.
It’s also made me more sociable, less depressed (which I didn’t realise I was) and reduced the other ocd elements.

Just reading this has brought back all the horrible thoughts I had when I had my DS two years ago. I had 3 children before him and had no funny or weird thoughts with any of them. When I brought my son home, I couldn’t light the fire as I kept having thoughts about walking up to the fire or past the fire and somehow, he would magically fall in?! I hated thinking these things and the panic that these thoughts brought on where terrible. It made me a very over protective person of him for the first year, even though the thoughts went away after about four months. I never even told my partner about it and still haven’t. I wish you all the best and hope you get some help to make things better.💐

That sounds awful Princessbanana- I think the intrusive thoughts that new Mums experience are exactly like OCD but just can be more short lived- it's that feeling of terror that you experience with the thoughts that sort of defines OCD.

I wish the public perception of tidying and organising being 'so OCD' didn't exist. It's a disorder, which causes 'disorder' not cleanliness and organization!

cbt4panic.org

Absolutely fantastic (free!) online resource for CBT, both written and videos.

A lot on intrusive thoughts on there.

Oh thank you for this thread. I get intrusive thoughts all the time and they are terrifying. I worry I’m an awful person. I have to remember i am not my thoughts, they are just noise and I can give them energy by focusing on them or ignoring them and moving on.

My anxiety is getting so bad now I feel I can’t see friends any more as I’m so wrapped up worrying about what they are thinking of me that I don’t enjoy myself.

Not read all the responses here but fluoxetine is used to treat ocd amongst other things and I recommend it!

I’ve had OCD all my life but round hypnotherapy (started aged 31) very helpful.