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Worried Partner intrusive thoughts


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I thought I would reach out to a forum  as I would like to hear from someone going through the same thing. My partner has been diagnosed with OCD and suffers from intrusive thoughts. He doesn't go into much detail but most of them are violent intrusive thoughts.. do I have the ability to kill someone? Have I hurt someone on my own? Could I hurt a child etc.. The worst time for him is if he drinks, when we wake up the next morning he will have a panic attack and think he may have hurt someone when he was on his own. We know this would never happen but the intrusive thoughts will not go away. 

We are still young (21) and enjoy going out and having fun, of course we do not want this to stop but the intrusive thoughts are only getting worse and are coming on during the day all day. My partner had to leave his job as a gas engineer as he was worried about working in people's houses. 

He is taking sertraline (anti depressant) and I cannot see him coming off them anytime soon. I feel that they make him robotic and he has changed a lot since being on them. I just want him to be happy and be able to live. 

Does Anyone have any advice at all? Something that may take his mind off it ? Any hobbies ? Exercise? What do people find that helped with these thoughts . I would love to hear from you.

 

charlotte 

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Hi Charlotte and welcome to the forum. :) 

Hobbies and exercise are good distractions but they won't treat the problem. In my opinion neither will the drugs, but some people do report a reduction in thought intrusiveness on them so if they help him he should continue and if they aren't helping the OCD (and he's not depressed) he should discuss whether or not to continue taking sertraline with his doctor.

What he really needs though is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT.) Do you know if he's been referred yet? (If not, why not? It's the recommended treatment for OCD) 

I appreciate you're a young couple and alcohol plays it's part in youth culture, but my advice would be for him to avoid ever getting drunk or even drinking to the point he's unsure what he's done or has any kind of hangover the next day. Feeling physically unwell makes OCD worse and excessive alcohol makes the OCD much worse. There's also a risk of using alcohol to escape the anxiety, but this kind of attempt at 'self-therapy' is a slippery slope to nowhere good. 

Why don't you introduce your partner to the forums himself? Maybe he'll pick up some useful tips. :) 

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  • 2 months later...

Hi @charhutch. Sorry I have only just picked up on your message and I hope things are going OK for you. My wife was diagnosed with OCD about 5 years ago and we have had a really, really tough time. Right now things feel a bit better but it is very up and down. I can only offer my experience which might or might not be helpful. Without writing a huge message with loads of details, the main things that have been important for us are:

- The very first thing was getting her to see she had a problem. She was so depressed and exhausted with all her rituals and anxieties (some of which are similar to what you describe in your partner) she didn't have the space to see it was something that was not normal and needed addressing. It took me months to convince her she had a problem and to see the GP. Getting a diagnosis was the start of her getting better. She was suicidal at that time.

- The next really important thing was getting her to let me talk to others about it. For ages she made me keep it a secret as she had managed to for so long so I was trying to support her alone without any support of my own. She first let me talk to my best friend and gradually others and that made a huge difference to me

- The next thing was getting her to talk to others about it. This was extremely hard for her but I pretty much forced her to and started telling one or two people I know she really trusts. She is now (a few years later) quite open about it with family and friends and that has helped her - and helped me

- We decided that the NHS mental health support wasn't going to give us what we needed so she started to see a private CBT therapist. The first woman didn't work out at all for her but the next person she saw she clicked with and I started to see very slow and very gradual improvement. It is not a miracle and we still had extremely tough times but it gave us something to work towards. She has been seeing the therapist for 2 years now which is a huge financial expense but worth every penny

- She also started taking sertraline and was on it for about a year but managed to slowly come off it over about 6 months which is fantastic.

- My approach to supporting her has varied but overall I have felt that being tough with her OCD has been vital. As much as possible I don't let her get away with it. When she says she needs to turn left or someone will die I try to refuse to let her and for her to see it is her OCD bullying her. There are a thousand examples of this. This has, as you can imagine, led to huge rows between us but I really do feel this has been necessary to help her start to get better. Equally I haven tried not to fall into the trap of being her therapist - I am not, I am her her husband...

- As she has slowly improved the other thing I have realised is that I am holding a lot of trauma (for example from being told to change my clothes all the time, to shower, not being allowed to hold our daughter etc etc) and I have lost trust in her as she tried to hide things so much. So now it is about me rebuilding my own strength as well and I am starting to work more on that.

We still have some really bad times and I still have moments I feel I can't cope but we are gradually getting better and hopefully will continue that way.

I hope this helps. 

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