OCD Thoughts - Advice Please

[oliviamuir]

Hi all.

I am 25 weeks pregnant with a planned pregnancy and deeply love my baby.

Around 3 years ago, a close friend committed suicide. I woke up the day after and had spiralled into anxiety and depression. This changed me as a person and scared me but I challenged myself to just live life as normal and it passed.

I have a fear of people committing suicide because I don’t understand it. It frightens me. I have pretty good at dealing with my thoughts etc over the years and have brushed them off and lived a pretty happy normal life.

The other week, a guy from where we live killed himself and something inside me just snapped. I feel like I’ve lived the past week in such an anxious state. I wonder whether I would ever get that low I would kill myself? Most of my day is now filled with ‘why wouldn’t you do it etc etc’ and it is driving me crazy, it mainly really distresses and upsets me. I have been reading into it a lot (OCD) and I think that’s making it worse. I need to step away from it and just live a normal life. I’ve done it before and will do it again.

However, my biggest issue is I’m frightened that if I just accept these thoughts as just thoughts, will I start believing them!? It’s a vicious cycle. I worry that if I just let them be, will I go crazy? Etc etc. I know it sounds silly.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am feeling really low and would love to just go back to enjoying my life and pregnancy without these horrible thoughts all day.

Sending you hugs, that sounds really hard. I would really recommend you speak to the midwifery team your care is under, as well as your GP. Pre-natal anxiety, which can include unwanted and intrusive thoughts, especially if you have as you say existing MH issues, can be really debilitating and take away the joy of what should be such a special time. You can be referred to the perinatal mental health team who will support you.

Sorry you’re having such a rough time, and so sorry to hear about your friend.

You’re right about the OCD hook - to manage intrusive thoughts the aim is to not respond to the thoughts in anyway (including pushing them away). Because the thoughts are so abhorrent and opposite to personal values they produce a strong emotional reaction, which can be comforting as a sign they would never be acted on. However it’s then difficult to not react, as does that mean the thoughts are real and wanted? So it continues. It’s a vicious cycle as you say.

You don’t need to tackle this alone - please see your GP or your midwife for help. There are effective treatments for OCD - CBT and medication. Perinatal teams are great too.

I have OCD which worsened in pregnancy - I was under the care of a psychiatric team who were brilliant. I was on meds too from 20 weeks in my first pregnancy and 12 weeks in my second.

Wishing you all the best.