ocd anxiety - could do with help seeing wood for trees

[notfeelinghappy]

Following a long period of feeling unhappy, anxious and unable to resolve the things I was concerned about (which was focussing on schooling for my kids) I was recently diagnosed by a psychiatrist with an OCD type thing and am having CBT and am on citralopram. It was almost a relief to be told I was "quite unwell." I have started to feel better but today I am having a really bad day.

I have moved my dcs to a new school. this was a massive thing for me as it has been the focus for my anxiety. In the last few weeks I have felt very positive that it was the right thing and that everything would be fine.

My OCD is purely mental (no over-cleanliness in this house - quite the opposite! ;-) ) so i ruminate, worry, and over-research to try and resolve my worries. It jsut goes round in circles and then I just feel sad because I'm exhausted and still don't know what to do.

So I've just come across a new schools guide website and seen that the results of the new school are really not that great. I can't believe with my over zealous and compulsive streak that I had missed that. Ihave wasted the morning crying and even punching myself for doing the wrong thing and trying to work out how to fix it.

I am so confused about where the line comes being OCD and where being a normal concerned parent so it's difficult to know which negative thoughts to listen to and which to overcome.

When I feel like this I honestly feel it would be easier if I just died! I don't mean I'm suicidal because I'm not but I do feel like my anxieties become so excruciating and I just can't find peace and somehow really bad things feel easier than just every day tricky things. I know this because I have coped with massive stuff before and do so gallantly and very well - apparantly this is common with ocd sufferers - give them a REAL crisis and they're great.

Today I'm working out if I can change schools again, but feel that by doing that my mental health is messing up my children's lives.

don't even know why i'm posting. I guess feeling lonely with my feelings and hoping for wise words out there.

DH, I and various therapists have been working hard on breaking some of his OCD anxiety loops for the last three years. Step 1 was recognising when he was getting into an obsessive loop (in his case about his health). He is absolutely not allowed to talk about it, research it, poke or prod. Each tiny bit of encouragement he fuels within himself creates an exponential to the amount of stress he experiences. Its taken a lot of time for us both to recognise this.

Exercise/ getting physically busy really helps. It needs to be something that gets the adrenaline running. We have a little dog and DH gets booted out the house with the dog to help him get on.

Another thing is keeping his mind very distracted if he's starting to be drawn into a loop. Sudoko worked very well for a while. Avoiding spending time on his own, although he is very vacant when present when he is obsessing.

The current GP ( after years of GP's pandering to him for every cancer, aids, illness test that he'd methodically research and convince them he had) has been good and agreed that he's allowed to prebook an appointment every few months and he needs to save up his anxieties unless its an a & e emergency and discuss them at that appointment. Its now been over 6 months since he's been to the GP. This is significant progress.

One of his therapies involved keeping a self awareness diary. Each day rating your anxiety level and any triggers for anxiety. Sometimes it appears to him that he's had his current concern for months but when we go through his anxiety diary he can see that actually this hasn't had a mention.

Our local GP the first referral is for weekly appointments with a psychiatric nurse. Could this be an option for you so that you can get some pointers and help with initial focus.

Its not an easy journey but you sound like you're making a good start with recognising your anxiety.

Take it one day at a time and good luck.

Thanks very much for replies. Am feeling better tonight after spending time with dcs after school and remembering they are lovely children and everything's alright really.

The rule of not talking about the anxiety or entertaining it in any way is a good one. I used to have the health thing too for years and somehow, without therapy, I just managed to snap myself out of it. I just was too exhausted to carry on with it and just banned myself from googling. I guess it's a bit like those people who stop smoking just like that. I can't bring it on though now my anxiety is focussed on stuff to do with my kids. My anxieties seem to need to take their natural course (I also used to worry for manyyears that my parents would die and would do various checking rituals - just snapped out of that too.)

I think I am quite good at distracting myself but usually it's internet rubbish like facebook and games which means things I should really be doing like washing, clearing up just don't get done or I suddenly realise I'm going to be 45 mins late with dcs dinner or i've forgotten to pay a parking fine etc etc.

This is the first time I've had a bad spell since I've had a family and it makes it so much harder that it affects partner and dcs - previously i could be quite private and isolated in my ruminating and it didn't really affect anyone else.

But yes, recognising I'm doing it is the first step and the help from the psych and cbt person is definitely positive.

But also, what the hell have I done not making sure my dcs got into the best bloody school possible! Then at least you have an external measure to placate some aspects of the anxiety.