OCD - cannot stop counting

[skybluee]

Over April my OCD has gotten worse to the point it's every waking moment. I'm counting in sets and multiples and (very subtly) tapping things before I touch them set numbers of times. Any time I move or want to do anything normal this happens and its frightening me. It happens touching anything, anything in shops, before I do anything. It is horrendous.

I've sought professional help from my GP and started on a medication but it's wait and see and really, really do not want to go to CMHT (due to very negative experience in the past that cost me my job, cannot get into that but please, please respect my wishes and don't suggest this, thank you).

I'm looking for suggestions I can do at home - just anything really as I'm at my wits end. I feel so frightened. It's that certain numbers are associated with bad outcomes and it scares me. I get so scared to not do it. I can cope with hand washing and so on but it's the counting which is driving me to my wits end. I just don't know what to do.

It has been like this for about three weeks and it's unbearable.

If anyone has been through similar or has any ideas I wouild truly love to hear them. I don;t want to feel this frightened. I am also in a lot of pain. I just feel scared a lot of the time and this has never really left me. Have gone from a capable, kind person I liked to feeling housebound and scared.

I do that. It is much worse when I’m stressed and not occupied, not working for instance. I also pray silently in my head several thousand times a day. The joke is, I’m an atheist and don’t even believe in God, so fuck knows who I’m praying to 😂. But I am compelled to do it and feel anxious if I try to stop doing it.

OCD is hard. I think most people have it to a very minor degree, but for others it’s worse.

What’s going on with your life at the moment?

Have they started you at a low dose? Dd needed to double the dose in order to start getting counting/tapping under control. Depends what you are taking, but if it has been over a week on medication, let your doc know.

I've been under quite a large amount of stress but thought I was handling it. It just feels like fear and my brain's way of handling it and trying to feel safe or OK but the problem is it is just too much. I get scared I look like a complete freak in shops but it's probably unnoticeable. It's the frustration and being scared if I do some of these things wrong I'll die or it'll lead to other things. I hate it. If I don't do them it's frightening.

I'm really sorry to hear you've been through similar. Are there things that lead to it improving?

50shadesofgreyrock - I'd started on a low dose but saw the GP on Friday and she increased it.

I just keep reasoning with myself that it’s all nonsense. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t.

It helps to be busy, though. I work full-time and run a business as well. And have 2 kids. So not much time for naval-gazing which I believe helps.

Anxiety uk (I think) offer cbt to members if you have I think it's £40 spare? Or if you're better off could you go private?

I've not found cbt helpful but it works for some.

I'm currently housebound - virtually bedbound by contamination ocd I'm having a hellish time. Counting is part of it for me too but insofar as I have to do each ritual X amount of times. So I sympathise greatly.

Does anything else help you relax/feel less anxious?

I'm so sorry Graphista. That sounds terrible. I very much hope you're getting help.

I used to find distraction helped. So e.g. playing a game. But then the things and order started happening online in various ways of having to open/close windows etc and go back and edit and it got too much. It's never been this bad though. I just so badly want to do normal things. To go to the park, a walk down the road, anything normal without the counting. I don't want to be this frightened. I'm so scared of 'consequences'.

Am considering private therapy definitely.

I would just like to go for a walk without feeling frightened.

Last year on the 5th of May I was locked in a house and I thought I was going to die. It was like I knew I was going to die, that my life had come to that, I did not think I'd see the sun again, I had all kinds of thoughts, it is too difficult to explain. I feel guilty that I'm not happy, I should be celebrating. I don't think the fear has ever left but it has transferred to other things and got worse and worse and worse. I didn't think I'd talk about that but I don't know if it's all from that/everything preceeding that and it just never went back to normal. I did have OCD before going back a long way but it was always mild. Now I'm scared to move and scared of everything. I don't want to be scared. I was happy and capable and free. I want that back so very very much. Sorry. This month has just been awful. It is driving me beserk and I'm trying to deal with it 100% alone. Am not in a good place but want to keep trying and trying.

Have you had therapy linked to ptsd? The anniversary will be a significant trigger - it may lessen a little once the anniversary is past?
Dd would wake in the night and her counting was triggered if the time when she looked at the clock wasn’t divisible by 3. This lasted most of the night. She’s been seeing a psych and a counsellor for about 18 months now. The psych decides prescription. They do know what the initial trigger for dd’s OCD was, but dd doesn’t want to share (and unlike yours, it isn’t meaningful in terms of rationalizing).

This is a website I stumbled upon looking up PTSD for a friend - she had OCD like symptoms too. I hope it helps to point you in a direction where you can find some relief.
www.verywellmind.com/ocd-related-conditions-4157236

I haven't had any therapy, genuinely thought I was coping and just viewed it as a nightmarish time in my life that was over, which looking at that now, seems a bit ridiculous. I just viewed it all as over and moving on with my life, I've been OK. I mean I really felt OK most of the time, I didn't think about any of this at all.

I wonder if it getting this bad is also linked to diet bc due to the stress I've been living on diet cokes and chocolate bars - from this morning I'm going to be eating proper normal foods.

I hope your daughter is doing better now 50., that sounds like she was in a lot of pain.

Thank you for the link Crusty I'll have a look.

I felt guilty about posting that when I got up this morning but in some ways I think I realised maybe I shouldn't feel ashamed, I do, like i've done something bad saying anything. It's like if I talk about anything I feel like I'm doing something completely wrong, which is maybe part of why I haven't gone to any therapy. I also felt very strongly like I wouldn't be believed bc when I told someone (a professional) they asked a lot of questions about when the door was locked, was it right after I went into the house or later on etc which made me feel (which may be more to do with me than anything else) that I could have prevented it. Or like it was my fault for not reacting as soon as I realised the door was locked. Which I didn't do. I didn't do anything.

I think a lot of damage was done by those comments. And maybe I didn't react in a typical way by how I told people but I can't undo that. I couldn't cope.

The OCD started getting really bad when the first bank holiday came up, I don't know if it just reminded me, the weather changing, whether it was the stress as well, everything, I don't know. All I know is I want it to stop.

i'm going to try to use this as a support thread, i hope that's OK. if not someone please say and i'll stop posting on it.

i've stopped drinking diet coke. i was consuming a large amount of it and want to see if that helps, stopping it. not sure if i'm going to have a bad headache or how bad it's going to be but aside from anything else they're 85p each which is a rip off and it's not like a i have one!

i hope there's time to turn this around, i've been feeling bad - like this - since the end of March so it hasn't been that long.