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Hi Ironborn, I'm sorry you've been having a hard time. Have you spoken to your psychiatrist about what's going on recently? How have you been doing this week?

Hi Kaaay, Welcome to the forum! A good place to start might be with your family doctor to get an OCD diagnosis and potentially a referral to a therapist who specializes in treatment for OCD. The gold standard treatment for OCD is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT. It teaches you how to look at your thoughts in a different way (the cognitive part) and to build up resistance to giving in to the urge to do physical and/or mental compulsions (the behavior part) using a technique called Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP). There are some great resources on OCD-UK on what OCD is and how it is treated that will go into more detail. Feel free to ask any questions here too. Everyone on the forum is very friendly and happy to help.

Hi mfh010, First, welcome to the forum! I'm sorry to hear you're having a hard time. What you're describing does sound like a common occurrence with OCD called magical thinking. Have you had any therapy for OCD in the past? In a nutshell, the gold standard treatment for OCD of any type/theme is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy which focuses on the way we think about the obsessions (the cognitive part) and what we do in response to them (the behavioral part).

Hi californiadreaming, Just wanted to lend some support -- well done for fighting against doing the compulsions to check the hours and going for the test. Try your best to keep going with resisting the compulsions. Distract yourself as much as you can with work or something else. You can do it!

Hi Dreamerr, Welcome to the forum! This sounds very much like OCD. I deal with very similar themes and issues, so you're definitely not alone (I think this theme in OCD is actually fairly common). You might want to check out the website OCD Online and look at the article called 'Guilt Beyond A Reasonable Doubt'. It talks about just this kind of theme with morality and hyper-responsibility. Have you looked into CBT and ERP treatment at all for tackling the OCD?

Hi lostgirl, I'm sorry you're having such a tough time right now. How are you feeling now that it's been a little while since entering the hotel?

Hi Gerard, I'm sorry you're having a hard time. I'm also trying to practice ERP with things that spike me at home and at work. Just wanted to say I understand and you're not alone. How have you been doing the last few days?

Great, thanks Ashley! Posting on here would be great if possible.

Hi Ashley, I just wanted to clarify -- is the webinar at 6p.m. GMT or EST (the information at www.ocdwebinar.org says GMT but the countdown seems to be for EST)?

Hi Shaun, I think this particular kind of obsession is often referred to as sensorimotor OCD. I believe CBT and ERP can be applied in the same way it is for other themes of OCD. From what I've read, the idea for exposure would be to purposefully make yourself aware of your breathing and sit with anxiety that results and over time and with practice, it will become less focused on by your mind distressing.

Hi Heidi18, One thing I just wanted to point out is that the goal is not to stop the thoughts or push them away. Everyone has these kinds of thoughts but they are just less intense and less frequent in people without OCD. The goal is really to change your response to the thoughts in your beliefs of what they mean and your actions/compulsions in response to them. When you do stop reacting to them, they will over time come into your mind less and bother you less, but if your goal is to stop them or push/make them go away this will feed the OCD. Your mind will interpret this as evidence from you that the thoughts are real/dangerous and they will come up more. Not reacting to the thoughts is hard to do, though, and so finding compulsions that are on the easier side to stop is a good place to start.

Hi Heidi18, I'm sorry you're having a hard time. I would say that yes, avoiding going out in public is a compulsion. It's a response to the intrusive thoughts because of the fear and a way to try to lower the anxiety and perceived risk of being around other people. It's also feeding the obsessions and your mind's sensitivity to them because the avoidance reinforces to your brain that there really is danger and so your mind generates more thoughts with more intensity when looking at other people. Have you tried applying CBT techniques? A place to start might be to write down things (compulsions) you do to lessen the anxiety when the thought comes. Avoiding would be one of them. Another might be rumination about what the thoughts mean and the actions you feel you need to do to reduce the risk you feel from not doing them. You can then work on cognitive aspects like what you believe the thoughts mean and how to look at them in different ways. As well, you can work doing exposure and response prevention by finding situations which are least anxiety provoking to try being in and tolerate the anxiety. You can set short time limits to start and then increase them gradually as you feel you're ready. If something seems to difficult, finding ways to make it easier is okay as long as it still provokes enough anxiety that you feel it is still a challenge. That way you build up your tolerance of anxiety over time.

Hi Marko, It sounds like one compulsion is reassurance seeking from your Mom and fiancee and tutors. For realizing other compulsions, it might be handy to keep a small notepad with you during the day. Whenever your anxiety spikes, even if it is a small amount, you could write down what the trigger was and the response you feel you need to perform. Once you have a list, you could start to rate how much anxiety not doing each compulsion would cause and try to work on the smaller ones first. For books, I've heard a lot about "Break Free from OCD" on the forum. Paul Salkovskis is one of the authors and a world expert for OCD.

Hi Marko, I'm sorry to hear you're having a tough time. Have you gotten any books on CBT and ERP? Maybe a good first step would be to make a list of your obsessions and compulsions to start to form a hierarchy you work on?

Excellent website -- thanks for sharing!