Anyone have OCD?

[tammylove]

I have obsessive complusive disorder and im having a rough time with it at the moment.

i am feeling highly stressed and anxious and im feeling low.

Anyone else suffer so we can chat, i really need a friend on some common ground.

I'll catch up with this thread tomorrow. Hope you are all doing OK.

Hi all, havent been around much, feeling deflated a bit.

Ive had OCD since a child, i remeber doing some of the things i still do as young as 5 and im 30 in 3 days time.

I have tried many drugs from prozac, diazapam, triazapam, anti-hystermeans (sp?) to try to calm me and currently paroxatine. I can manage most of my tics, its the pyschological ones i.e death thoughts i find unbearable.
The handwashing and checking i have had forever and just get on with them now.

I do feel sorry for myself sometimes as my husband blows hot and cold with it. I understand its hard for him and i drive him nuts, but its not a picnic for me and how would he like to walk a day in my shoes.

Anyway thanks for the book WWB, started it last night. And as i say im just feeling flat, hoping it passes soon xx

Hi everyone, I hope today has been a good day. I don;t really know what to add, except to say that so much of what has been written hear is true for me too and it's a relief to know that there are others out there. I don't consider that I have OCD really badly, but then I don't have anything to measure it against.

I am interested in how many of you have told others about this, or how many people have guessed. I haven't told anyone and as far as I am aware nobody knows.

Apart from my GP, who I told a couple of months ago, I haven't told anyone, except here - even my dh doesn't know. It's too hard to contemplate explaining - and then how do I tell him I've been hiding it from him for ten years? None of the things I do are physical, they're all in my head, so it's not too difficult to hide them.

Wigwambam, IMHO the feeling that its getting worse is simply your fear of the syndrome and your desire to control it. What happened to me was that eventually I had counselling for depression, and learned that I was in many different ways, always trying to predict and control the future and stop 'bad' things happening. OCD was somply part of this nightmare. Counselling didn't directly confront my OCD at all, but as I relaxed up on myself I began to see it for what it was, iyswim. I gradually started to relax my grip on myself, telling myself it didn't matter if I did a ritual or not. Oddly enough, giving myself p'permission' to do them somehow robbed them of their capacity to terrify me. I haven't explained it very well - does that help?

Forgot to add, WWB and Caribbeanqueen, the greatest relief came from explaining it to dh. Once it was out in the open, again, I felt like less of a prisoner of myself.

i do feel for all of you who suffer and those that care for the sufferes. my 19 son had OCD(He had ADHD as child) at 16 the OCD manifested itself in handwashing, fear of contamination, he wouldnt come out of his room for days he had even started urinating in his room on his clothes so he wouldnt have to come out of his bedroom. Cos he was over 16 GP was reluctant to talk to me about his condition. He refused to take medication and refused to see psychologist. I have never been so terrified in mylife. We all suffered for about 18 months. Then one day he said he wouldnt allow this problem to control his life any longer. and over a few months he seemed to recover. I know my story is a drop in the ocean to what some of you are suffering but thankyou for letting me share with you. it is such a horrible condition.I send you all lots of hugs.

Gilli, thanks for your reply. Mine has definitely escalated over time, but because they are thoughts and not actions, I can't just stop - I say no, but my brain carries on regardless!

I do like what you said about giving yourself "permission" to carry out the ritual, I shall try that and see if it works as well for thoughts as for actions.

what you have said makes lots of sense Gilli - as OCD feeds on stress, so if you accept what you are doing, rather than beating yourself up about it, that removes one source of stress.

CQ - as to who knows -
my mum (and late nan) my stepdad (and probably his sister/mum), my husband, his parents, some of his work colleagues, and some close/trusted friends (say five or six people). and of course various health professionals i have come into contact with, midwives etc... so not quite the world and his wife but coming up close . it was DH that told his work colleagues, not me btw. wasn't close enough to any of my work colleagues to tell them - and not a sympathetic environment to any mental health issues - actually says in the recruitment literature that you should be "resilient". well that was me stuffed

and of course everyone that reads MN(knows!)

Hi guys, had a check in at the GP's today, have up-ed my medication so im hoping i will stop being so erratic.

Feeling gr8 today though. Still got the tics but they arent being so nasty today.

glad you are having a better day today, tammy.

That's great news Tammy

Glad to hear you sounding so positive, tammylove.

WWB - I should have said that most of my OCD was obbsessive thoughts - about death, disease, harm doom and disaster. I used to read obituaries constantly, and live in terror of doing something awful. I could (and still can) get from zero to a funeral in under 5 seconds! What you need to become aware of is the physical sensations you are having when you get those thoughts - dry mouth, raised heartbeat, tummy churning etc. That makes the thoughts a physical problem, and if you wait the symptoms out patiently instead of denying them or trying to divert yourself they eventually start to decline, I found. Try it is all I can say, and good luck : I WISH YOU ALL THE SPPORT IN THE WORLD

Thanks Gilli. I don't particularly have thoughts of awful things happening, and I don't really get too many physical sensations when I do my counting and things. I count letters in words as I read or listen and have to get to an even number of letters in a sentence otherwise I have to carry on, I have to find nine letter words, that sort of thing - I don't feel as some do that anything awful will happen if I don't do it, I just can't stop my brain doing this stuff. Some of the physical things - having to do things equally on each side of my body, always finishing a flight of stairs with the right foot - have been better since I started the ads, but I can't stop the counting, or the tunes that I sing in my head for weeks on end. I have tried to force myself not to count for an entire page, but before I know it I'm reading and re-reading the same paragraph over and over again, still trying to get it to the right amount of letters.

It sounds so stupid and petty, yet it can take over your life.

Having read some of these postings, I realised that I had OCD as a child, I suppose as a way of dealing with my feelings of being unloved (?) The counting, worrying about harm, worrying that I would say something out loud that I didn't mean, hurt someone etc etc. It is such a relief (??!! sounds mad, but true) to have a name to this. I used to worry that I was mad and would end up in an asylum. I still have some problems with things being even and feel contaminated if I read a nasty thing in a book or paper (have to blow my fingers to clear it off me!)

God, I have only just realised that it is all linked to OCD, and it is not me who is mad. It mad my young life hell I can tell you. I'm sure that I would have benefitted from ADs as a child, but they weren't commonly used 20-25 years ago.

WWB - I really don't want to hijack this thread, but you maybe need to consider what you think will happen if you don't perform your rituals - it's there that the fear lies. I would count to 12 repeatedly, have to end on my right foot, couldn't get on a plane unless the steps added to the 'right'number', put clothes on in threes, left followed by right, had to find the letter x in a sentence or a car numberplate etc etc etc. It goes on and on, and the thing is, your obsessions are very common in OCD sufferers, and it does take over our lives without outsiders becoming aware. as I said before, explaining it to dh helped hugely in deflating the rituals' importance: it was as though their very secrecy had given them strength, and discussing them reduced their dominance a little.
The thing I'm not explaining very well is that I lived for years with the rituals remaining secret and without too much anxiety - the sort of state perhaps you are in now - but it escalated and escalated until it was crippling. I realise that many people can't deal with it, or have unsympathetic gps or are afraid to go public because of the stigma that may be attached, but all I know is that OCD can be defeated and there is life after it...
Sorry, promise not to go on any more

Gilli, please post as much as you want. I find it really interesting - and useful - to read about your experiences.

Gilli, please keep posting here - what you have to say is extremely helpful, helpful and I'm sure that other people are finding your words supportive as well.

I share many of your rituals - the car number plates one is one of mine, I find 9 letter words, start with left foot and finish with right - but as I said, I don't have the anxiety, I don't feel anything awful will happen, I just can't fight the compulsion to perform the ritual. It's interesting that you say that you suffered with OCD for years without the anxiety; having had this thing for ten years I assumed that, although it was escalating, the form that it took wouldn't change. It hadn't occured to me that the anxiety was something that could take years to come.

You are right that this needs addressing, and it is reassuring to hear from someone who has been there that this thing can be beaten.

Yes its very important for other suffers to share advise and experiences.

We all have our own tics and rituals and many mentioned on here could be me.
Its so helpful to know your not alone and be able to get support from such wonderful and caring people.

I have only been posting here a couple of weeks and the people have gone out of their way to help me and talk to me.
It means a lot xx

i dont know wether i have ocd but i do have some strange habits which drive dh mad. every night before i go to bed i have a whole list of things i need to do, i mentally tick them off in my head. i start with the front door, windows, lights, heaters, plugs, gas cooker etc and then convince myself that ive either forgotten to do something or havent done it right so i do it all again. i cant just check the door and then not the windows because it all needs to be done in order. then i check it again.....

i also have a thing about my fire alarm and check it every night wether the kids are in bed or not. if i dont check it then i think that the house will burn down and my kids will die, and it would be my fault.

after i go to the loo in the night i have to go into ds1 room to check on him (ds2 is in with us) i check his breathing and that he's warm etc. i actually have to make him stir before i can leave the room and even when ive left the room im stood outside the door wondering if ive done it right and end up going back in to do it all again.

if i dont do all this then i cant sleep. i do sometimes tell myself 'NO' and refuse to do the list but then i just lie awake all night unable to sleep and have to get up again anyway

sorry this is so long and sorry for putting this on your thread tammy. what do you think?

did go and see a councillor who said that it was probably because i had alot on my mind and my brain wasnt able to relax at night

Hi mikeyjon.

Tbh it does sound like you may have OCD - to my mind, the way you have to do things more than once, as you are not convinced that you have done them right, sounds familiar, as does the way you are convinced that something horrible might happen which will all be your fault if you have made a mistake. Though of course, the only person that can make a diagnosis is a ?GP/psychologist/psychiatrist/. Question is of course, even if you do have a mild degree of OCD, does the checking etc bother you?

Personally I have found counsellors as much use as chocolate teapots for OCD! Yes, it's happening because you are stressed/have low self-esteem etc - but I think you need to get at stopping the specific behaviours, such as checking, first, before going down the counselling route of looking at your childhood etc. If it is OCD, the treatment for this is ADs and/or CBT - cognitive behaviour therapy. IMHO CBT is better in the long term.

The good news, as it were, is that if you have mild OCD then there is a lot you can do to try and help yourself - sometimes just reading about, realising that you're not the only one out there doing these things, and that there is a reason for them can be very helpful for startes. There are also some very good self-help books you can get as well on Amazon, and some good web sites that give advice about CBT techniques for stopping the compulsive checking.

There is the no panic web site:-

nopanic

and the obsessive compulsive foundation website:-

ocf

The OCF website also contains some OCD screening questionnaires

Good books are:

Lee Baer - Getting Control
Hyman & Pedrick - OCD Work Book
Ian Osborn - Tormenting thoughts and secret rituals

MTS, your links didn't work.

Try:

OC Foundation
No Panic

darn, thought I had cracked this links lark!

thanks WWB

thanks feastofstevensmom, the checking does bother me, some nights i just want to go to bed and be able to sleep. And on a lighter night its too cold to keep getting out of bed at the moment

i would go to the doctors but am too scared of having it written on my medical records (which is why i have never been about pnd) because im worried about it affecting future jobs and stuff.

i seem to think that its something to be ashamed of even though i wouldnt think anything less of anyone else who had ocd. i would never consider telling my family either, i dont know why, its probably because i try so hard to be seen as perfect and dont want to admit that im only human.