Do some people never recover?

[lostinme]

Roy’s right gbg this little quote as helped us a lot  it might help you too. 

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change 

Courage to change the things I can 

And the wisdom to know the difference. 

[gingerbreadgirl]

1 minute ago, Franklin12 said:

Have you ever gone the ‘full fear’ with this obsession? Just given in and assumed it’s true, given up trying to fight it? Incidentally there is no straightforward dichotomy between a true thought and an OCD thought. OCD is where your thoughts spiral out of control. Most of mine are based in some kind of truth, but that get more and more warped. You need to get to a place where your OCD isn’t convincing you that a drunken pass is a crime. It isn’t. When you’re past this episode you still won’t know all the details of what happened but you won’t care about knowing. 

Thank you.  I've got over this fear before, and did for years.  I can do again, I guess.  I think I got slightly triggered because I have been worrying recently about being immoral and I worry that is a fact, not OCD, and if that is a fact, then this fear just seems so very plausible to me. I worry that everything I do is a bit grubby and immoral or dishonest in some way and it just all seems to map back to that time.  They say when you're drunk you just reveal who you really are.  And what you say about there being no dichotomy between true thoughts and OCD thoughts.... this is my big worry.  Just because I have OCD, doesn't mean I have an invisible talisman protecting me from me fears.

I know all the advice and I know what I would say to me in this situation so don't worry anyone about replying about this and going round in circles with me (and I know I have taken up so much of the forum's time of late) and I can see I got spooked by reading into Caramoole's post something which I can now see wasn't there at all.

[Isthisreality]

I would want to say that you didn't really eliminate the fear. There was still some left.

I am assuming you actually worked on it. Because different themes will come and go, that is just how OCD works. But that is coping.

 

Or you actually did recover but wasn't aware enough. You started out with doubts and then you did compulsions (when we have PURE-O and have the compulsions in the head do we need to be more aware) But if it came with full fear directly would i want to say that you didn't remove it. 

Edited March 16, 2018 by Isthisreality

[Caramoole]

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I'm drawing a line for you GBG

You've slipped into lot's of rumination, looking for reassurance and are winding yourself up now into that tailspin.  This is where and why OCD grabs hold and where we have to learn to snuff it in the early stage before we get pulled into the quicksand.  When you struggle in quicksand you sink further down until you're stuck....lay flat, stop fighting and relax and you can slither across the top.

Go watch some TV, have a glass of wine and eat chocolate.  This is where you recognise the warning signals and don't fall into the trap.

[gingerbreadgirl]

I see what you're saying I do and I don't want to seem like I am ignoring any advice because I'm not trying to.

I'm just not totally sure I am a very good or upstanding person, I feel like my motivations are not always good or honest and I can make myself out to be nicer than I am.  I think if the chips are down then I show my true colours and I'm not sure they're very good, and I'm not looking for reassurance because obviously you guys don't really know me anyway, you just see what I reveal here and of course it's easy to come across as good and helpful on the internet where nobody knows who I am.

sorry I know it can be frustrating when people seem to ignore advice and I'm sure tomorrow I will see the wisdom in all of it, and as always thank you for taking the time x

[Isthisreality]

It's not frustrating it is just how OCD works. I wish knowledge was enough but the leap of faith is the most important thing. 

There is also obsessing about the recovery and learning just right when it comes to OCD. I hope you can do it! It's hard, it is extremely hard. I hope you find the strength!

 

It is not sure you will see it tomorrow if you let it occupy your mind and let it grow. You are doing a lot of compulsions now. I think you know it yourself but it is always good to hear it.

Edited March 16, 2018 by Isthisreality

[snowbear]

13 minutes ago, gingerbreadgirl said:

I'm just not totally sure I am a very good or upstanding person, I feel like my motivations are not always good or honest

Maybe it's time you started challenging this from a different angle, GBG.

Where is it written that any of us have to be good, upstanding people, or have good and honest motivations?   If that's your starting criteria, let alone what you're aiming for, then you're already buying into a false ideal before you begin.

Normal people aren't always good. The good ones mostly try to be good, but now and then even good people do things out of less than honest/moral motivations. That doesn't make them bad people, or less good people - it makes them people. Normal, everyday folk with complex lives. 

The most liberating change came for me when I took the stance, 'Yeah, fine, say I am what people think; I am a murderer. I am what I feel -a harmful, nasty person. I'm bad, evil, no good. That's ok. Because nowhere is it written that everybody on the planet has to be nice, has to live a productive life, has to be a success as defined by the society of the day. I'm muddling along as a mix of good and not so good, mostly trying and sometimes being too obstinate and pigheaded to try. Whatever, I don't have to be perfect. I'm me - the good, the bad, and the ugly of it - and I'm ok with that even if nobody else is.'

So now when I have a bad day and my OCD starts nagging at me that I'm failing in some way or not as perfect as I should be, I just shrug it off and say, 'Should be? According to whose rules, whose judgement?'  And in an instant the OCD desire for answers/evidence aimed at proving I'm a good person vanishes.  

As the years have passed, I've learned that this stuff the rules  attitude is actually the healthy option and thinking you 'ought' to be a good person is the unhealthy option. If you want to be totally well/normal, at some point you'll need to give up the unrealistic desire to be 'a good person' and the desire to be judged as a good person by others. 

[Orwell1984]

On 14/03/2018 at 18:04, gingerbreadgirl said:

I'm sorry for the defeatist title to this post.  I actually try never to be defeatist about this but I feel a bit like that now.  I know lots of people do recover - there are people on this forum who are testament to that - but I worry that I never will, not properly. I'm not complaining per se, I am very lucky to have a waxing and waning type and have been through long periods of time with relatively little OCD and for that I am grateful.  I know there are people who suffer without respite for years, and I can't imagine what that must be like.

Since joining this forum I've read every book I could get my hands on, I've done CBT, I've filled in theory A/theory B charts, I've done exposure til I'm blue in the face, I really think I understand the beast and I try to walk the walk - but still it comes back.  Last year I was tootling along, basically fine, enjoying life, things were good, I even thought that it was under control.  Then suddenly OCD hit SO hard, harder than it ever had done before, by miles - I felt like I'd totally lost control of my mind. How can it do that when I'd put so much work in? How can I have made so little headway that it could not just come back, but with avengeance?

In some ways I almost wish someone could just say to me: "yes, you will never fully beat this, you will go from episode to episode and that will suck, but there will be good times in between and there are worse things that could happen in life".  I could adjust my expectations and know that the next time will hit and I could adapt to that.  But I know people do recover and I have worked for that, I really have, and I guess it just bums me out a bit. 

 

Hi Ginger, I guess it's different for everyone. One brain is different to another, like a fingerprint. I guess environmental factors (internal chemicals and external stressors) will make it more likely for the circuits to fire up more in one individual as opposed to another. I think none of us ever truly will be free of the circuits being triggered again and the ones who have been cured just have been lucky to not have the circuits triggered, whether it's due to their internal chemistry or whatever. 

I hope I will never have a big relapse but there's no guarantee. No certainty with anything I guess!

I hope you'll get to the other side of this relapse soon GBG. At least you know each episode ends at some point. You'll be out of it soon  

[Isthisreality]

 

OCD is not about morality it is faked morality. I would actually want to take that perspective instead of trying to figure out how normal and good people live.

I have thought about this qestion for a couple of days but i can't articulate it good enough yet. I really don't like the notion about core values. Because core values is one thing and you know your values deep down but all those systems you are trying to live by when your OCD hits you are not you. 

Edited March 16, 2018 by Isthisreality

[gingerbreadgirl]

Thank you, everyone, again.  You're right I need to do better with this, thank you x

[Orwell1984]

2 hours ago, Gemma7 said:

A one worried about being a bad person. A problem of worry, OCD. 

This I think is a major core belief that fuels the OCD

[taurean]

Just reading the words of snowy and what leapt at and hit me is the word should. 

My first therapist and I didn't see eye to eye over flooding, but I did buy straight in to this. He said watch out for using the word "should"  because it's applying an unhelpful categorisation. I should be good, but I am not /was not therefore I must be bad. Which is a false logic typical of OCD. 

I took this onboard straight away and it has never left me. 

[gingerbreadgirl]

Thank you, this is all excellent advice as always, I will properly read and digest tomorrow.

I guess, what I really wish, is that some omnipotent being or something could just tell me "you're doing OK, you're fine as a person, you're fine as you are".  I feel like I am just always waiting to be found out as this awful person and I feel like I am having to hide in some way from the people around me and if they really knew then they'd be horrified, and then that in turn makes me feel like I am dishonest. and the prison thing horrifies me so much i guess because it would be the ultimate stamp of disapproval, confirming my worst fears about myself.

anyway I have somehow managed to derail my own thread...

[taurean]

Well read that middle paragraph tomorrow in a detached way and you will see how the whole thing is an anxiety chain with catastrophic thoughts. 

You need to spoke the wheel of the anxiety cycle before it spirals. 

So some great homework to be doing. 

Night night GBG

 

[snowbear]

8 minutes ago, gingerbreadgirl said:

I guess, what I really wish, is that some omnipotent being or something could just tell me "you're doing OK, you're fine as a person, you're fine as you are". 

YOU are that omnipotent being, GBG.   You are the only human being who knows everything about you, the only person with that kind of omnipotent knowledge of your life to be able to say this. 

So say it. Say it to yourself. Give yourself permission to just be 'you'.  

[taurean]

And you have a choice.

You can let your OCD overpower and torture you, threaten your relationships and your happiness.

Or , as I did, choose to accept what you have learned is true, and not connect with or give meaning to it, and go about normal daily life till the OCD thoughts fade from lack of reaction to them. 

[Franklin12]

Im sure I have mentioned before, but I’ve had a few glasses of wine this evening, so sorry if I’ve forgotten, but if you haven’t then look up Imposter Syndrome. 

[gingerbreadgirl]

Thank you everyone.  I am still feeling a bit wobbly this morning TBH.  I feel so guilty about so many things.  I just don't think I am particularly good and the people who think I am, I think sometimes I put on an act for them, I say and do things which I know will make them think I'm nice but really it's just for show.  I am never sure how much of my motivation is genuine and how much is just to be a bit duplicitous.  And then I wonder, well is everyone a bit like this? But I don't know because all you get from other people is the outside, you never see what's going on.  But I do know a lot of the people in my life are much kinder and much more honest than I am and I wish I was more like them.

Anyway I really appreciate all your help (and I have now read all your comments so thank you very much). Feel a bit embarrassed for running with Caramoole's totally innocent comment

Today is a new day and all that jazz x

 

[Avo]

16 minutes ago, gingerbreadgirl said:

I am never sure how much of my motivation is genuine and how much is just to be a bit duplicitous.  And then I wonder, well is everyone a bit like this? But I don't know because all you get from other people is the outside, you never see what's going on.  But I do know a lot of the people in my life are much kinder and much more honest than I am and I wish I was more like them.

This is me also, I compare myself to my wife who I would regard as a caring person. I feel a bit inadequate as I know (and it worries me at times) I can feel quite cold towards things she seems to care about, her family for example I feel I should be more concerned that I actually do feel. This maybe stems from a time a few years ago when I felt they were not that sympathetic when my mum died in 2011.

We were in a business with them at the time and I felt they were not nice to work with, overly critical of me - despite me

A) never having been in retail before where as they had years of experience

B) My Mum dying suddenly and very distressingly of Cancer a few months into the business set up.

C) my gran also died around this time, though this was not unexpected as she was suffering with dementia

For me these were shattering events, they did acknowledge them and they are not bad people I know that they do help us in lots of ways and I know they do care

. essentially I felt i should have been cut a bit of slack by her parents but wasn't. 

I however feel something inside me has gone numb towards her parents - she is aware of this and it causes all kinds of arguments between us. Her Dad Is getting treatment for prostate cancer, its going ok and was caught fairly early and the prognosis is a positive one. 

I have worried what I am worrying very little about him, my wife understandably has but I feel unable to feel any real emotion around the topic. This does worry me, and maybe feeds into the am I a bad person element which plays to my OCD. Guilt for me is also a big problem. past present and future.

Sorry to waffle, or even hijack the thread. Wanted to say I suffer too with similar concerns. It sounds like you have spiralled a bit due to an intrusive thought, I did the same myself a couple of weeks back.

The serenity prayer seems a good way to try and live your life, its tough to implement at times though.

 

[taurean]

1 hour ago, Avo said:

This maybe stems from a time a few years ago when I felt they were not that sympathetic when my mum died in 2011.

This looks likely, often "seeding events"  like this form the base for an obsessive response. 

So, how do you think a person can work to overcome this?  

 

Edited March 17, 2018 by taurean
amendment

[Avo]

Yes it quite possibly is a seeding event. I think I feel very wronged from that time, In my mind a lot of bad was done,  no apologies were ever made. It is a bit like a scab festering. I was very raw and vulnerable about my Mum, she died tragically over a period of 3 weeks after seemingly being healthy up to that point. I am from a small family my dad was not in my life, my grandma was my only surviving grandparent, all the rest were dead my the time I was 2 years old. It left me with just a step dad and brother and none of us were that close emotionally to each other. I think I felt I had to either crumble or to fight (metaphorically ) and I chose fight. It was the way I felt I had to deal with things. I felt very isolated and lonely. 

My wife was a big support and I am very grateful for that, however she was caught in the middle a lot. 

To be honest I am not sure what the core belief, maybe it is worrying me that I am an uncaring person.? am I setting myself too higher standards in terms of what I think I should do like? how I think I should be thinking or feeling about a situation?

[gingerbreadgirl]

Hi Avo,

I am sorry to hear you struggle with this - losing your mum in those circumstances must have been awful.  I've read your posts above and I totally understand why you feel the way you do about your wife's parents.  I would feel the same.  It doesn't mean you are a bad or uncaring person it makes you human.  Sometimes we have feelings we'd rather not have but that doesn't mean we're wrong for having them.

When I was a teen my grandma died, and it was from the outside quite an upsetting situation because she lived with us at the time and I was there when she died, but honestly I felt nothing because I felt like she'd treated my mum badly.  I felt cold towards her.  This lack of feeling absolutely hammered me with guilt afterwards, and set me up for a long-term fear that I was a psychopath, that I had no compassion or empathy, I was absolutely haunted by guilt over this for many years.  But honestly now I can see that it was OK for me to feel like that, we are not obliged to feel any particular way about anything, and it is human to develop coldness towards people who have harmed us emotionally (which your wife's parents clearly did, even if they didn't intend to) - even if rationally we don't want to feel that way.

I hope some of that makes sense, and I hope you're OK x

Edited March 17, 2018 by gingerbreadgirl

[gingerbreadgirl]

So not had a good morning so far and ended up bursting into tears quite randomly after my partner and I had a bit of a bicker over me not cleaning the sink (ah the joys of marriage )

Feel like I've taken somewhat of a step backwards, but it's OK because it's just one step, it's not like I'm all the way back how I was last October, or at Christmas.

Going to get some new music and go to the gym and maybe I will feel better after that. 

Thank you again x

[Isthisreality]

I took a tablet of ordinary painkillers yesterday. Might have got a little bit better..  there are actual studies about inflammation and OCD

 

Now. It is not strange you are feeling down because you did compulsions. The sad thing is that even a compulsion that you dont know is a compulsion will take you further down.

 

Training is antinflammatory and i feel a lot better the periods i am a addicted training than not.

 

Edited March 17, 2018 by Isthisreality

[gingerbreadgirl]

I have heard this about inflammation - you hear lots of things though.  Also anti-inflammatories would not be a good long-term strategy :-/