I suffer from horrible, terrifying thoughts and they have ruined my life.......

[SickOfBeingSoScared]

The thoughts are that I may lose control, go into some psychotic state and kill my children (no one else just the DCs, not DH surprisingly). There I wrote it and it is horrifying to see it in print.

Of course, I do NOT wish to harm my DCs in any way and that is why these thoughts terrify the hell out of me. I am permanently in a state of terror with all the usual panic attack symptoms and I absolutely HATE being alone with my DCs which I am a lot of the time when DH is at work. My day starts with an enormous sense of fear as I know that DH will soon go off to work and I will be alone with the DCs. The older ones are at school and I rush to get out of the house with them in the morning so I can get them safely to school and 'away from me'. I have a toddler though and as soon as we get back home, I am in constant terror that I may go mad and the fact that I cannot leave him alone on the house as he may hurt himself. I start to feel like I might go mad and may have to run outside to 'protect him from me'. I have an 'escape plan' hatched whereby I will lock him in the house and run outside and call the police to get him if I think I may be close to turning 'psychotic'. The evenings are better because then my older DCs are home and they can look after the toddler if I feel like I need to run off for their own protection. None of this has ever happened. I get through the days relatively normally but suffer constantly for it.

I have had these thoughts for 6 years now and of course, they have never happened. They have become much worse and constant since I had my youngest. I function very well and do all that I need to. I go out as much as I can as I can forget the thoughts while I am out and about. They come back as soon as I get home. I live each day in absolute terror of something that will probably never happen and I know that but these fucking thoughts will not disappear. I even have suicidal thoughts to kill myself to 'protect my DCs' but then I think 'but I need to be here to look after them and keep them safe and eventually these thoughts may go and I actually don't want to bloody die'! It is bloody crazy!!!! The guilt and shame I feel having these thoughts is tremendous. My self esteem is rock bottom.

Before you shout 'go to a&e', 'see your GP immediately', I have done all that (diagnosed with 'obsessive neurosis or 'OCD') and have also been under my local mental health team and a psychiatrist, had CBT, hypnotherapy and am currently having a further bout of private counselling. ADs made the the thoughts constant whereas before I was only having them occasionally. I spent £100s on several panic programs, read all the books but I am still getting nowhere!!

My mind is soiled and scarred by these thoughts. I am tears and full of terror as I write this. I am a broken down woman compared to how I used to be. My DH is well aware of this and I say to him 'how can you leave me alone with the kids knowing this', but he says he knows I will never harm them, I just have to get 'over it'!

Can anyone offer any advice please?

My first thought is that you have done nothing wrong so you have no reason to feel guilty or ashamed. It is not you thinking these thoughts, you do not want them, they are put in your head by the OCD.

I have to dash out but I'll be back.

Thanks AlexanderS. My rational side knows that and no, I definately don't want them. Why oh why can I not control my frigging mind!!

Oh love you are going through hell and I am so sorry that this is happening to you.

The main thing that strikes me from your post is what a good mother you are. Your fears are precisely because you love those children so much - the nature of OCD and anxiety is that your brain finds the very thing to hit you the hardest with - in your case that you could hurt the ones you love the most. These thoughts are your worst nightmare and are the complete opposite of anything you would ever want to do but it becomes a fixation as that's how your illness works.

It sounds like you are receiving help but is their anyone you can speak to immediately when you have these thoughts so they can talk you down and give you the reassurance you need?

Emphaticmaybe. Thank you for replying. I usually call DH when the terror starts to get too much or bundle everyone out the door and go out where I feel safer as there are other people around.

It is the worse kind of pure hell. I often have 'woe is me' moments where I wish I had cancer instead. At least I may get 'cured' from that or otherwise be confined to bed, too weak to harm the DCs. Pathetic is'nt it?

You poor thing. I wish I had some helpful advice to give. I don't, but I hope that just having the chance to communicate your thoughts to lots of people here will show you that despite your fears about yourself we all believe you are a good and safe mother -- and we don't believe that you are at all awful and pathetic to have these thoughts. It is just a nasty cruel illness that you deserve kindness and help with.

Not pathetic at all - to have coped for as long as you have and kept your family functioning you are a bloody hero. Most people struggle with the run of the mill grind of family life anyway but you have been carrying this impossible load as well.

Be kind to yourself - you are not your thoughts, you are not a bad person and you will get better but I think you need daily support if that's possible. Could you set up something with your mental health team where you just phone in each day or at least when the thoughts are particularly bad? Going out with the DCs or talking to DH are good ways to distract yourself but you sound like you need more.

Oh and just to add, my GP thinks I 'don't want to help myself' as I refuse to take ADs. I am afraid of taking mind altering drugs due to my terror of them turning me even more 'loopy'. If they could prescribe something to erase these thoughts, I would jump at the chance.

Oh and my psychiatrist wanted to involve social services as she felt my DCs may be at risk from me. You can imagine how that reinforced that I must be mad! She later called me after speaking to the psychologist that gave me CBT and apologised but I am now very wary of mental health 'professional'!

For what its worth, I have always found that the anti-depressant that I take (citalopram) is actually much better at dealing with the obsessionality of anxious thoughts than dealing with depression! When I am low and not taking pills, I can brood very repetitively on certain worries about my children, and that does lift quite quickly when I start to take citalopram (within a couple of weeks or less).

I know that might not translate into being helpful for you (I'm sure that obsessive anxiety as a feature of depression is very different from actual OCD), but I did want to throw it in for your consideration.

Best wishes, whatever you decide.

OatyBeaty & EmpatheticMaybe .

Hi again.

Another thing that has just struck on re-reading your post is that you have to be careful about private counselling - you need a counsellor that understands OCD. I suffer from OCD myself, my 'obsessions' are a little similar to yours in that I worry I'm going to turn into a horrible person (a racist, for example), and I once saw a Jungian therapist who told me that we all have a dark side and have to embrace it . I spent an exhausting 48 hours trying to convince myself that my obsessions are an extension of my personality (and hating myself) before concluding that that is a load of bull - they are nothing to do with the core of who I am.

I'm surprised CBT didn't work for you. You have a clearly defined obsession and a clearly defined response to the anxiety that that obsession causes you, i.e. avoidance of spending time at home alone with your LO. I take it the therapist tried to get to gradually increase the time you spend at home with your DS in the hope of showing you that the thing you are scared of won't happen and you can cope with it? Also wondering which AD you were on?

I have a book that I've not read yet which you might find helpful, Brain Lock by Jeffrey Schwartz. And I always recommend Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder by Frederick Toates (a psychologist who suffers from OCD himself so knows what he's talking about).

Ahh, you have already had experience of people who don't understand OCD with that psychiatrist (very worrying).

Also, it's good to call people to distract yourself, but not to call them for reassurance, all reassurance does is feed the obsession-anxiety-action-relief cycle (the action can be a ritual, e.g. washing your hands, or, as in your case, avoidance, or reassurance).

Sorry to hear you're struggling. I also have anxiety issues which are different to yours but I also went through a stage when they completely dominated my life. I've just finished a course of CBT which has really helped. Also helpful was the Anxiety UK website, which has a section on postnatal anxiety/OCT here - www.anxietyuk.org.uk/about-anxiety/anxiety-disorders/post-natal-anxiety/ (Sorry not sure how to do links)

Perhaps it would be worth contacting them to see if they can recommend anything else for you to try. Maybe they know somebody who specialises in this area. I understand you not wanting ADs, they didn't agree with me either.

I know what you mean Alexander about the uselessness of reassurance -- you crave it and seek it all the time but it doesn't "stick" at all, it doesn't erode the thoughts and in fact just perpetuates the battle against them.

Sickof, have you ever had the opportunity of a very behaviorally directed kind of therapy, where you gradually expose yourself further and further, in a controlled way and with the therapists support, to the kind of situations that are most threatening for you? That way you are confronting your fears rather than battling unsuccessfully to suppress them. Sometimes the more we try to squash down the fear (e.g. by leaving the house to be among other people whose presence might "protect" your children), the more we are entrenching it.

Sorry if that is not at all relevant/helpful.

Hi! I have had such a similar experience in my life-wish I could give you a hug-I know how all consuming and totally debilitating this is. I,too,had severe anxiety and obsessive thoughts concerning my children.It is good that you realise you do not want to act on these thoughts,but they will still be deeply distressing.I also had real problems with ADS and was terrified of taking them...I have now been taking low dose Sertraline (after trying 3 others) for 10 years and it has helped so much.The way I 'sold it to myself' was that my life as it was felt unbearable and I got to the point where I thought I could not feel any worse. It was a really difficult decision, but about 3 weeks in I could see that it was my illness that had been causing my huge anxiety about the medication. It is so clear that you want to try and 'help yourself', it seems to be about finding the best,gentle way to do this whilst your brain is screaming at you.

Oh, you must be so tired and frightened. It's a horrible disease.

Your thoughts are TYPICAL of OCD. OCD has about five types of awful thoughts - religious ones, the harming ones, the dirt ones and I've forgotten the other two. It's AWFUL isn't it - but you aren't going to hurt anyone.

To set the record straight in your poor knackered state:

No OCD sufferer ever killed anyone. (trust me, I've asked top docs about this. I had a burst of violent ones. You are not going to harm or kill anyone).

OCD sufferers don't go psychotic either, as it happens. (ditto).

It's rubbish to say OCD is part of your personality - it's a disease, poss genetic hiccough - not directly hereditary tho'. Everyone gets random thoughts by the way - most people just ignore them. That's what therapists mean by embracing them - really they mean you just learn to ignore them rather than doing so automatically.

But when you get stuff like that you feel quite sick with horror and of course you can't ignore them, immediately. Then, when the thoughts just come shooting in like shrieking shoppers on day 1 of Harrods sale, you think you're going nuts. You aren't. It's just an invisible, pointless, meaningless thought.

What worked for me: after ages of drug resistance from fear of going barmy, I hoovered Seroxat. Massive improvement in three weeks (showing disease is chemical).

Docs and psychs may also give you sedatives & tranquillisers - don't get the fear about this, even tho some of them are labelled anti-psychotic - anti-psychs. are used for loads of things eg epilepsy and depression, fits, even back pain, they don't mean you are psychotic. You aren't mad.

When mine started I actually thought of ringing the police and turning myself in, cackle. I've had the thing where the doc say are you a danger to anyone etc etc and then look doubtful. I was very indignant even in a broken state and the doc, who looked about 12, apologised. A lot of GPs don't know that the thoughts are a symptom of the disease, which is not helpful because OCD is v common.

I stuck to Seroxat. OCD does actually get better - I don't blame you if you don't believe me, but in the end you will be free of the thoughts.

Following on from what Beatie said, you could always try a sort of therapy, I forget what it's called, which involves calling the OCD's bluff. For example, I read about a case in which this was used with a man who was worried he would sexually assault somebody. The therapist took him out in the street, pointed to a woman and said "Go on, try to assault her". Of course he couldn't/wouldn't, and this helped him to deal with his obsessional thoughts.

I've also read about a man who struggled whenever he went to the cinema or theatre with the thought that a fatal fire could start whilst he was watching the show, and who therefore had to keep getting up to check the foyer for signs of fire. His therapist got him to counteract this obsession not only by not checking but also by sitting there thinking, "There could be a fire. So what? Let's say there is a fire. An inferno is spreading through the foyer right now and in a minute it's going to spread to the theatre and we are all going to die and there's not a thing I can do about it". These thoughts laid bare the ridiculousness of his obsession, and it lost its power over him.

In your case it would mean trying, maybe with the support of a therapist, to go into a psychotic state and seeing what happens.

I appreciate that is probably a frightening prospect.

AlexanderS - I understand what you mean about reassurance becoming part of the cycle but I also think it is very important not to feel isolated and alone with your thoughts when the illness is very severe.

I can only speak for myself but I found CBT once a fortnight of limited help, however a fantastic CPN offering support at anytime combined with Sertraline got me to a stage where life has become live-able again. Now on the very worst days, I am at least able to realize that the thought of mistakenly putting anti -freeze in my loved ones food is just a thought nothing more.

I think for me in the end I had lived with the shame of these thoughts and others for so long that it was such a relief to talk honestly about them. I was then literally bombarded with reassurance daily for four weeks and coupled with sertraline (to me this is literally a miracle drug) I was able to put the thoughts in perspective. I had just lost the ability when I was struggling on my own.

SickofBeingsoScared - I know we all have different responses to different drugs but I think your reluctance to take them due to the fear of losing control even more is just another symptom of your illness. I was very closely monitored in those early weeks - constantly filling in mental state questionnaires and it helped me feel in control about the way my mind was responding to the drug. It is much more likely that the drugs will help you gain perspective than send you over the edge.

Lots of luck.

I have known a lot of people get a lot of benefit from antidepressants, so I think it would be worth going down that route again if you haven't already tried them all. You could do it when your husband was on annual leave, so you wouldn't need to worry about how it might affect you, as he would be there. It would be a terrible shame to miss out on something that might change your life.

Do you separate out the thoughts from the deed?

I mean, you know you haven't done what they suggest for six years, and that you are likely to continue to be reliable and safe around your children. So it's the thoughts, not the genuine possibility of you acting on them, that are the problem to be targeted. (Does that make sense?)

Can you talk back to them (I know that may sound mad, but I think loads of people, not just ones with severe MH issues) have bad chatter in their heads. A friend of mine is brilliant at getting that stuff into perspective. She replies to it in a firm but friendly voice.

You could try saying back, in your head, 'Oh you are noisy today aren't you? You're really doing your best to freak me out. Shut up for now, though, because I just need to put this shopping away. And shut up again for a second while I just check that DC's video is working and give him his juice.'

These thoughts could be trying to be helpful. They're pretty common in new mums: what if I let go of his hand now by this busy road/ What if I let go of the buggy handle on this long escalator?' We think these things while gripping tighter. In a way, you could try to see these thoughts as signs of you being extra protective and careful for his safety. You are imagining the very worst of all scenarios: his main carer turning on him, and solving the problem of how to take care of his safety in that most unlikely of scenarios.

Hope that makes sense. Not sure if it helps though.

Alexander - you don't go 'into a psychotic state' by visualising your thoughts.

But the calling the bluff therapy is standard.

Thank you all so much . You have all been a MASSIVE help. I feel much better after reading all this and having dropped DC4 off at nursery (a massive cost to us for 3 afternoons a week but I need him away from me due to the thoughts that i.e. he's safer at nursery than with me and and enjoys it but I constantly worry if he's OK and am on high alert in case they phone to say he's sick so still can't relax!). My older 3 DC have a/s activities until 4.30 so have another 1 hour and half before I pick them all up and it starts again.

I have just put the beef joint on for pot roast and have been agonising whether to use it as the bbf date on is today! and it has gone slightly lighter pink but smells fine. I wasted 30 mins trying to call DH to ask him if he thinks it would be OK (that reassurance cycle is very true!) but decided to bugger it, it's bloody organic and I can't chuck it! I am a vegetarian (often thought that may be a factor in my mental health) and hate handling meat but everyone else eats it.

I was put on Prozac. The thoughts were not s0 much of a factor back then. I only had them when DH worked away overnight (often) and not in the day just in the wee small hours (what if I sleep walk and wake up to find I've killed the kids) so I never slept! My main problem then was not being able to get round Tescos without my legs turning to jelly and having a urge to dump the trolley and flee screaming out of there (possibly normal) but never did. I told my GP about the thoughts though which took a massive amount of courage and he just tutted and said I should not have let if go for so long.

The Prozac definitely made me happier and more motivated but did not ease the thoughts, it made them more constant. The difference was that the thoughts did not scare me as much and I remember after reading 'Brain Lock' standing in the kitchen ironing while the DC were watching a film in the lounge so with backs to me, I got my biggest kitchen knife and put it on the ironing board next to me trying to will myself to pick it up and go and stab them, of course I did'nt and got bored of it after a while. After 10 weeks on Prozac I found out I was pregnant with DC4 though so immediately stopped taking it. I often call DC4 my Prozac baby as it seems a side effect was that I suddenly decided I was desperate for another baby and DH, after much persuasion agreed to 'one go' at unprotected sex, and viola I got pregnant immediately. Of course it all come back, much worse after DC4 as I was then tied to the house with a baby, so no escape. I can see it now.

I think I was also scared that if the thoughts did not terrify me that I might actually want to do it and I get reassurance from the vicious cycle of terror I am in now - lightbulb moment!

I said to my GP that I would only try another AD if I could be locked up in a mental hospital for a month to make sure it would not make me madder after reading a news item that a man had become homicidal after being put on ADs and had murdered his family, boss and work colleagues (in the US).

I don't know which fear is bigger, being like this for any longer or actually becoming psychotic. I am so tired and I so want to just be 'normal'.

Would practising ignoring the thoughts help?
It may take a few months to perfect.

It should help you also to get rid of the guilt and shame you say you have because the thoughts you have are a bit like rubbish.

I do, depending on my mood, tell the thoughts to 'fuck off you bastard reptilian part of my mind' and lots of other assorted swearwords. I have also talked to 'it' gently saying 'it's OK, you're safe, etc but then I scare myself again by worrying I'm schizophrenic and delusional! Aarrrghh!