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When the panic doesn't reduce


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From previous cbt, I understand the theory that the fight or flight response to adrenaline is meant to be short lived and, if you can wait the panic out without carting out compulsions, it should reduce. However, I often don't  find this is the case. 

Yesterday I had an issue.  The previous day I had carried a dress downstairs to put on and felt that I had touched it on the kitchen bin as I walked past.  The kitchen bin feels the most contaminated area in the house as this is where I put wipes etc when I have cleaned any contamination. I put the dress on the floor immediately (just happened to be near the tumble drier) as I was in a hurry to go out - found s new dress and planned to wash the dirt one later. Yesterday I was taking clothes to put on for work out of the tumble drier. My duvet cover half fell out at the same time and I was worried it might have touched the dirty dress. I am attempt to avoid the compulsion to rewash the duvet cover, I put it back in the tumble drier. 

This morning, I need to tumble some underwear for myself and my daughter which I washed overnight.  However, instead of the panic over the tumble drier reducing because I didn't give in to the compulsion to take the duvet cover out and rewash it, it has increased and now I don't feel I can use the drier as it is completely contaminated. What am I doing wrong? Stuck in bed now and don't know how to move on. 

Edited by Chelsie
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The first issue is the feeling that you may have touched the kitchen bin - which is by your definition "contaminated"  and indeed a most high contamination. 

The second thing is that other things are contaminated to other degrees, and touching them spreads contamination all around. 

You wouldn't like my home - everything would scream contamination, we aren't the tidiest, not the cleanest and - whilst we have all the right cleaners and antiseptics - we don't use them that regularly. 

But my wife and I - both good risk assessors, see no risk. 

The kitchen bin is emptied every two days I reckon. 

So slapdash standards, though we are improving - but no risk perceived. 

Until you have got into a process of standing up to your perceived risk, and staring it out in graded exposure and response prevention, you will remain anxious. 

 

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Difficult to see any quick fix to that. 

But the CBT will gradually help give you more understanding of how your OCD is working - we've given you a good start,  help you set goals and plan exposure work. 

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1 minute ago, Chelsie said:

I realise that was an unreasonable post - nobody could offer any real advice.  Just felt I needed someone to talk to and was in my own.

onwards and upwards....

That's OK, you found me and I care :)

I am just planning my own day, having had a rough time with physical symptoms this week. 

I am hopeful my wife will agree a relatively free day for me, as a day of rest and recuperation reading and music, plus helping others here selectively where I can, sounds good to me. 

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I suppose one thing that will help you is to know that others don't see the risks you do - treat them as the exaggerated perception of minimal if any risk, with false connections. 

Your aim is to be able to see things the same way. 

 

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24 minutes ago, Chelsie said:

I realise that was an unreasonable post - nobody could offer any real advice.  Just felt I needed someone to talk to and was in my own.

You're not alone on this, Chelsie. :hug: I had similar contamination ideas for most of my life and knew at once what you were going through. In the past I've spent whole days lying in bed wondering where to start decontaminating everything and feeling totally overwhelmed! :ohmy: 

For me, even to this day, leaving something 'contaminated' and riding out the anxiety never works. I've lasted an interval of over ten years before giving in to the compulsion to dispose of a 'contaminated' item and was every bit as anxious binning it as I was on the first day I resisted. For me personally I never habituated to the point of 'not caring' that something was contaminated.  :(

But what has helped me - turned my OCD on it's head and is helping me recover  - is tackling the belief things become 'contaminated' and challenging the belief that the 'contamination' can spread from contact. (In my case even the merest suggestion of possible contact from six inches away :blushing: or sometimes becoming contaminated by association just from thinking about the clean thing while dealing with a contaminated item. I was never one to do things by halves... :whistling: )

It's the thought that something others see as normal is contaminated (and the associated thoughts that it is therefore dangerous or unpleasant) that we need to challenge and change. It helps hugely when you understand 'contaminated' items can be cleaned just by thinking of them as acceptably clean. It gets easier to change your beliefs the more you challenge them, and there's a lot less putting up with anxiety involved too.

That's not to say you should routinely try to 'think things clean' (that could become a neutralising compulsion). It's about tackling the underlying false belief there's a danger to be avoided in the first place. This allows you to get things back in perspective. After a while you come to view the world differently, seeing it as a much less threatening and scary place to hang out. :) 

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Hello Chelsie

I just wanted to say that I understand where you are coming from.  At several points during my 30 year struggle with OCD, I have experienced anxiety which stays high for prolonged periods of time.  What I think happens is that the thoughts just go round and round in your head, and the anxiety keeps getting "refreshed" rather than subsiding as the classical model of OCD suggests.  However, if you can stick it out, the anxiety will eventually start to go down.  When you are having therapy, the cognitive model might help you somewhat explore what is happening in your head.  I have found the cognitive side of the therapy to be most helpful. 

All the best

Tez :thumbup:

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It's also helpful I think to see it as the old OCD, whichever way the illness chooses to express itself. 

With my "magical thinking"  OCD hat on, I got imagining things that simply didn't exist. 

I ask my wife why distressing news stories in the paper don't bother her - whereas I can obsess and distress about one that I only catch sight of momentarily - and she says she simply ignores them ; how I wish I could always dismiss them like that. 

And yet, when my resilience is strong, I can do that. :(

I asked my sister about how her OCD manifests itself. Only latterly does she feel confident enough to confide in me about it!  

One common element we found interesting was she said words "leap out from the page"  at her and she starts obsessing about them, they won't go away. Well I have a variation on that theme. And my magical thinking is different. 

The sadness for me about contamination - which is why I  have taken an especial interest in it, try to help people with it - is how it rapidly mushrooms into something so restrictive, yet in the eyes of non-sufferers like me, there is no issue. 

OCD is a tragedy happened, about tragedies it claims have, are, or are waiting to happen. 

Some of us try to help counter it. And at the same time, it encourages us in our own battles. 

 

 

Edited by taurean
amendment
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I'm sure the reason your anxiety did not subside is because you continued to do compulsions, notably ruminating. You were probably spending a good chunk of time ruminating over what was contaminated and what wasn't. As Tez said, and I love it, you were refreshing your anxiety with each compulsion you did.

The first mistake you made was doing anything with the dress after it touched the bin. That was the first compulsion and everything snowballed from there.

Edited by PolarBear
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It's a very good analysis PB.

It is absolutely spot on.

However, we can't just, especially with contamination problems, stop the compulsing per se. It simply cannot be done 

We can however start to unravel the layers of it. 

Were it me, I might focus initially on tacking the "spreading"  connection. 

 

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I don't agree that sufferers can't just stop compulsions. Of course they can. They're not going to just completely stop and never perform a compulsion again but at any given moment a sufferer can decide right there and then not to do a certain compulsion.

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3 hours ago, PolarBear said:

I'm sure the reason your anxiety did not subside is because you continued to do compulsions, notably ruminating. You were probably spending a good chunk of time ruminating over what was contaminated and what wasn't. As Tez said, and I love it, you were refreshing your anxiety with each compulsion you did.

The first mistake you made was doing anything with the dress after it touched the bin. That was the first compulsion and everything snowballed from there.

Spot on. That first ritual, invariably leads to another ... and another ... it's NEVER enough. Better to nip it in the bud from the get-go. Let's that initial anxiety hover and remain - and go about your business. The worst contaminant is OCD. 

Edited by paradoxer
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This morning was a big disaster.  Trying harder tonight.  Just sat down in front of the tv on my sofa, which has the recliner-foot rest raised.  Normally I make sure that my feet hang over the end so that the bottom of my feet doesn't touch the sofa at all.  However, I accidentally kicked the sofa as I put my feet up.  Automatic reaction is to get antibacterial wipes and wipe down the footrest where my feet touched it.  Am sitting watching the tv now and trying hard to resist the temptation to do this. 

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6 hours ago, PolarBear said:

I don't agree that sufferers can't just stop compulsions. Of course they can. They're not going to just completely stop and never perform a compulsion again but at any given moment a sufferer can decide right there and then not to do a certain compulsion.

Yes, it's a choice

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12 hours ago, paradoxer said:

Spot on. That first ritual, invariably leads to another ... and another ... it's NEVER enough. Better to nip it in the bud from the get-go. Let's that initial anxiety hover and remain - and go about your business. The worst contaminant is OCD. 

This is so true.  Very well put :goodpost:

Chelsie. Well done on not giving in last night. Xx

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