Trying to get a diagnosis

[ddess]

Hello everybody,

(sorry but this will be long)

This is my first time posting, and I'm writing with last-minute nerves before my doctor's appointment tomorrow morning to discuss my anxiety issues. I've already been once before, and they seemed to think what I have is GAD or just general 'life stress' because I don't have visible rituals, as the doctor said. I'm writing here to get a different perspective as I really do feel that I have at least some form of obsessive component to my disorder.

I first had obsessive thoughts as a child, when I would get intrusive images of me kissing a boy or things like that which I deemed 'inappropriate to think about' at the time. The only way to fix it would be to watch this specific DVD that I had, and that would make it go away. I would also seek reassurance from my mum, but she eventually got tired of me crying over things that weren't even there. Every morning I would wake up and check if my uncomfortable feeling was still there, and if it was I would spend the whole day feeling awful.

Eventually this passed, and it's now 10 years later. For the past 2 years or so I am having very similar troubles. They change focus over time, from me questioning my sexuality, to doubting my relationship, to thinking I will cheat on my boyfriend, to being scared I want people close to me to die. After the focus has shifted from one area to the next it's suddenly so obvious that the thoughts were never real, but when I have bad days I'll just be paralysed and want to stare at the wall and cry. It feels like I can't escape the cycle inside my own head.

As I said, I don't have any visible compulsions but I do many things in my head - when questioning my sexuality I would 'test' how I felt when looking at other girls and checking my body's response, I always have to rationalise bad thoughts and find proof in my head that they are wrong, I have this paranoid belief that if I read an article somewhere about cheating then that means I will do it too... the list is endless. If I think a girl is cute I start obsessing over whether I am secretly gay and in denial, but if I find another guy attractive then I obsess over whether I don't love my boyfriend anymore and I will cheat on him... I really can't win. I also often check and try to "measure" how excited I am to see him and how good I feel about our relationship, which is of course hard to quantify and doesn't lead anywhere. I also avoid some of my male friends in fear of me somehow cheating, I avoid reading online posts about break-ups because I think it will happen to me, I avoid films that have to do with those issues etc.

It's worth saying that I am in a great long term relationship and I am 100% happy with no desire to do any of those things - which is why the thoughts cause so much distress in my head, and sometimes make me feel like I cannot avoid breaking up with my boyfriend because I am such a horrible person. I hate it because I really and truly KNOW that the thoughts are not true, I just can't deal with the "what if they are" possibility, and I spend hours and hours trying to reassure myself and make everything okay in my head. What I wrote is not even an exhaustive list, as I obsess about many different things, and sometimes get triggered quite easily.

My boyfriend knows about all of this and he was the one that pushed me to get help. I was quite uncomfortable opening up to my GP about all the details of it, but I was referred to CBT and am now on the waiting list. My hope is to talk about everything in detail during my first CBT assessment and hopefully I will be able to get some help. I'm just quite worried because my GP seemed to think it's all just a bit of stress, whereas I feel like it's something a bit more severe, and it's been troubling me for years now. I would appreciate any comments or opinions as to whether you think this could be OCD or not, because even just having it acknowledged would take some of the weight off of my chest at this point.

Thank you in advance and sorry for the essay!! 

Edited October 22, 2017 by ddess

[Symps07]

Hi Ddess!

Welcome to the forum

I'm not sure why your GP thinks that because you do not have any physical compulsions that you do not have OCD? What you describe above, to me, is ruminating, which is when you engage with an intrusive thought & try to rationalise it, argue against it, find an answer etc... & the thoughts keep going round & round with no satisfiying outcome. There are seems to be some reassurance seeking compulsion there from what you mention about how you used to ask you Mother to reassure you.

Perhaps your GP does not fully understand what OCD is?

This is a link to the different types of OCD here on the OCD UK website. It might be worth looking through this & some of the other pages & seeing if any of these symptoms match how you feel, maybe print the pages that relate to you off, highlighting the bits that relate to your obsessions/compulsions & take them to show your GP?

http://www.ocduk.org/types-ocd

If you have no luck with your GP, are you able to contact a mental health specialist directly & tell them of your symptoms?

In the meantime, keep using this website for information on OCD & try & take heed of the ways to overcome it! Ask questions here if there is anything you are stuck on, someone will be sure to help

Best of luck tomorrow.

Kind regards,

Symps