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October 10th - 16th is OCD Awareness Week. I am an OCD sufferer, I don't just wash my hands a bit or clean my home really well, it runs a lot deeper and can cause tremendous suffering.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder has ranked in the top ten of the most disabling illnesses of any kind, in terms of lost earnings and diminished quality of life - it really is a serious illness, and affects as many as 12 in every 1000 people (1.2% of the population) from young children to adults, regardless of gender or social or cultural background.

Deep inside the brain lies a structure called the caudate nucleus. Scientists worldwide have studied this structure and believe that, in people with OCD, the caudate nucleus may be malfunctioning.

To gain a deeper understanding take a look at http://www.ocduk.org/types-ocd

With the weekend approaching, I am mindful that many of our regular users are making plans to spend time with their loved ones, and may now be travelling over the next few days, and perhaps not online beyond today for a week or so, so I wanted to spend a moment to wish all our forum users, those registered and those that just read the forums from afar, a very peaceful and happy Christmas.

May all your wishes come true this Christmas.

Whilst wishes and dreams may not come true for all of us, I want you all to be kind to yourself when the OCD rears its damn ugly head over the next week or two. At Christmas we are often faced with having to interact with friends and family when sometimes our OCD may not want that, so please be kind to yourself, don’t be afraid or feel guilty for taking 10-15 minutes for yourself if it gets too much.

2013 will bring new challenges, personal ones for each of us, and professional ones also, but it will also bring new opportunities to explore our own personal strengths in our fight to overcome our OCD.  As we make progress with our OCD, it will bring new possibilities in life, exciting and fun possibilities too!

Whilst the new opportunities that life without OCD may bring in 2013, the challenges that may first lay ahead of you we can face together, to help and support each other, and cheer each other on through the good and bad times. If we do meet and share those challenges together, we might find life a little less challenging then facing our struggles alone.   So Christmas is the perfect opportunity to put old differences to one side, and work together for the good of each other, for new friendships and for our wider OCD community, together, we can, and will make a difference.

Working for the benefit of other people is something my volunteers do daily, and I want to thank them on behalf of all of us for their tireless hard work. I sometimes forget they suffer with OCD too, so giving so much of themselves to help others in distress is noble, and I thank them, from the forum mods and volunteers to those that work for the charity behind the scenes, these guys don't get enough recognition  so please accept my festive wishes and gratitude for a year's amazing noble work.

Thank you to you guys too, for those that support the charity financially, or through your commitment to support our ideas and projects by getting involved in some capacity, by Tweeting our awareness messages, to helping others on the forums and for generally showing respect for the work of the charity. I thank you all for your kindness of heart and support of pocket.

Finally, Christmas for some can be lonely and isolating, so please spare a moment for someone who might need a little Christmas cheer, who might be feeling alone this Christmas, be that a friend, an elderly neighbour, or just someone from the forum. Even a simple hello over the fence, a simple PM or text message can make the world of difference for someone on their own this Christmas, say hello to someone, for them it might be the best Christmas present of all.

Whatever you are doing, wherever you may be in the world, I hope that you all have a lovely Christmas, and a peaceful, healthy and OCD free 2013.

Merry Christmas to each and every one of you.

Ashley.

I finally got through OCD. After praying, hoping, and struggling against this frustrating illness, I am now set free. For the first time today, I went on a nice relaxing trip with my Father without a single OCD thought. I am set free from this illness.

How did I do this? For the past month, I've been just stopping everything. Stopping rituals, worrying. I focus my mind on other things. It will be HELL, but it will probably get you through it. Your OCD thoughts will probably be as high as ever before, you will worry more than usual. But just stop, stop everything. Do something else, get your mind off of it. And you won't be able too, but if you just stop doing your rituals, (ocd), it will slowly fade away.
But as I said, it will be hell the first week or 2.

Now I had severe ocd and was able to overcome this. You can too. Now this method may not be for you, but try it. You'll probably lose some sleep, worry, and be very anxious. But once you train your brain that it really does not matter, you slowly start to ignore it and it will become nothing.

Now, you will ALWAYS have OCD thoughts. It's incredibly hard, maybe impossible to get the thoughts COMPLETELY away. But I have limited it so much that I only get thoughts maybe once every 2 days and hopefully even LOWER eventually. But now I ignore them, and as you do that it will dissapear from your life slowly.

Try it. If you haven't you need to. Remember, its going to be hard, and incredibly difficult, but if you want to get away from this you need to train your brain and focus on other things. Train your brain thats its really nothing to worry about, and that almost 100% of the world has no problem with it. I am only 13 years old, and excited more then ever about my future, too. Like going to NYU and moving to NYC where my father grew up.

Hopefully I can maintain this. I will probably always get occasional "side" thoughts, but lets just say its not the main focus in my life anymore.

Good luck to all of you still having major problems with this, and please message me if you like to know more or need more help with this.

Sincerely, your friend, matthew.

Or a quieter one:

http://www.youtube.c...&feature=fvwrel

Hang on in there, Paul, it's just a bad day.

Is there anything you can do to distract yourself/give yourself a break? Favourite film/tv show, or drinks with friends?

The thing is, you need to carry on living life as if this is just OCD, even if your OCD is telling you that it's not. You need to live in spite of those OCD thoughts and feelings and carry on as if you are a worthwhile and nice person.  OCD will tell you that you're a bad person, you don't deserve to happy, you're in denial if you pretend to be normal, blah blah blah, but you have to carry on as if this is all OCD nonsense (which it is!).  You can't wait to feel right, because you can't control your feelings, but you can control your actions.  So change the thing you can change. This is how CBT works.  If I listened to what my OCD said, I'd probably never get out of bed.  It takes patience and hard work to live in spite of horrible thoughts and feelings, but you can do it, and as you keep doing it the OCD will get weaker and weaker.

OCD is a ****, but it can be beaten.

You are not alone in this.  Be compassionate to yourself and don't give up.

Dear ocd. Meet legend, the powerful one

Cannot stop Legend, I have AOCD (acronym ocd).

Just put these together as status ideas....


Did you think you might throw your child from a window today?
An OCD sufferer somewhere could be avoiding their child because of this meaningless thought.

Did you stay in today for fear of contracting aids from a plaster on the street?
An OCD sufferer could be staying in today having an anxiety attack because of this meaningless thought.

Do you wash your hands repeatedly until you think its right?
An OCD sufferer could be sitting in pain right now with red raw, bleeding hands.

Did you run someone over on your way to work today?
An OCD sufferer could be retracing their journey right now, to check they didn’t because of a meaningless thought.

Have you ever had a song stuck in your head?
An OCD sufferer could be locked in complete fear and anxiety because of an awful thought stuck in their head.

Will you catch a life threatening illness from that public toilet on the seafront?
An OCD sufferer might have avoided a trip to the beach today because of this meaningless thought.

Have you spent months of life worrying over a thought?
An OCD sufferer somewhere, right now, could be in complete turmoil because of a meaningless thought.

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

I HATE YOU OCD!!!!

 

OCD.

 

There you go, I've said it and it's somewhat therapeutic.

I am so sorry that so many of you have found OCD stops you doing things, and I hope that with the right support and treatment you will find the strength to fight back, and no longer allow OCD to dictate.

 

I am not going to post what OCD stops me doing, but instead I am going to make a pledge, that I will no longer allow OCD to stop me doing anything, no matter how difficult it may be sometimes. I hope others will join me in this pledge, either now, or in the future when they feel able to.

Hey everyone,

 

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, thought I would update you all. I am doing fantastically!

 

I wanted to give a glimpse of hope to any new people, people just starting recovery and family members watching someone go through the hell that is OCD.

 

Well, I have been in hospital for 7 months now, and am soon(very soon) to be discharged. I went in with rituals controlling my life. Spending 2 hours in the shower, twice a day. Washing my hands over 100 times, every time I needed to ( which includes times which i totally didn't need to). And many other small, time consuming rituals.

 

After 5/6 months in the Priory not much was helping, my self harm, suicidal ideation and OCD was escualting. So the Priory moved me to a secure hospital called Alpha. Within a month there, i used no hand gel, and currently wash my hands 3-5 times, and have recently managed a 10 minute shower.

 

So, to people in dispair, I PROMISE you, it does, will and can get better. OCD is a pathetic illness. That little voice in your head telling you i'm lying, that OCD is right, is wrong. OCD thrives on control, repetativness and no change. BUT, one small step at a time and you will realise that you can change your habits.

 

Say to yourself, it's not me, it's OCD. Give it a name, mines 'Jim'. So, my head will tell me to wash for 2 hours, STOP, that is not me thinking, it is Jim, and Jim can jog on.

 

You can do this. Message me if you wanna talk.

 

Smile

 

Kirsty xxx

Thanks for the post you are 100 percent right.  I've been doing this exact same thing. Accepting the thought. And just carrying on. It does work. I'm not where u r yet. But I'm on my way. To compared to a few weeks ago. I wanted to die. Now I'm laughing at what I feared. It still comes back from time to time and anxiety pops up. But this happens like a few times a day and I got over. The last 6 months have been minute to minute. Every second worrying. So to go from 18hours a day worrying and obsessing. To maybe 2hours is a big deal acceptance really does work and I agree with your post. The more u argue with them or try to figure them out. The more muddled your mind becomes. I've got all the books out there and finally I'm getting better. Thanks for your positive post.

Well. where do we start.

Just really to say a massive thanks of all your hard work, and the continual work you do on a day to day basis.

why did i say this you may you ask ?

Well someone said thanks to me , on posts for helping, and to hal and others, cheers , but what we tend to forget is that
we only are able to do this, thanks to ashley.

WHY? because he took it on board back in 04 to set up this charity to raise AWARENESS. ..... and he has , he has worked tirelessly
to do so. And along the way he has changed so many things, and lifes, including mine.

The four steps , cbt , nice guidlines, self help improved access to pyschological treatment, dvla changes, the list goes on and on

I know he isnt keen on praise, but i think you thouroughly deserve it ashley. ( and so does your wonderful volunteers and all those on
the committee that help the charity run efficiently)

onwards and upwards.

legend

Hello guys. I am new to this forum, but if I am honest I have been observing some of the threads for a while now. I graduated from University in July and since then my life completely unraveled. I guess the fear of uncertainty and the constant questions about what I was going to do next turned my worrying nature into full blown anxiety. For about three months I was suffering badly from anxiety and panic attacks, and for the last 3/4 months I believe the anxiety has transformed into OCD, as themes such as suicide, my relationship with my girlfriend, and POCD have all been prevalent (POCD more so). I have been on sertraline for about 8 weeks now and it has helped with the anxiety and my mood, but the intrusive and obsessive thoughts are at about 70% what they were when compared to how crippling they were about 4 weeks ago. I fully understand that the sertraline is more of a band-aid than a complete solution, and so that is why I have also been doing CBT for the last 5 weeks. It's going well but I realise that these things take time, as I am effectively retraining my brain to observe and acknowledge thoughts and sensations in a non-judgmental way (which is going to be incredibly hard for me as I obsessively analyse everything and everyone).

Perhaps one good thing about having an obsessional personality is that I find myself constantly needing to know answers for things. So, in the 6 months or so that I have been living in what I can only describe as hell, I have educated myself on so many aspects of this crippling disorder. In fact I would say that I have learnt more about myself in the last 6 months than I had done for the previous 22 years I have been alive. I always knew that I was a worrier and an extremely sensitive person. I also realise that I am paranoid, judgmental, scared to take risks and fearful of making important decisions. If I don't have something to work towards then I panic and anxiety quickly sets in. I guess this is why I started to really suffer when University finished. As well as this my girlfriend left to go travelling in July and me and her are extremely close. In my opinion what lies at the heart of OCD is uncertainty and our inability to cope with it. This then leads to anxiety, which can then lead to OCD (in my case).

Although I know that I am nowhere near where I want to be in terms of my own well being, I do feel that I have made small footsteps in the right direction. There are a lot of people on here who are scared, upset, depressed and feeling that there is no point in going on anymore. I have felt all of these things and more almost every single day for the last 4 months (which isn't actually a lot when compared to how long many people have been suffering on here), but I know that I can beat this.

People like Legend and a few others have already given some incredible advice and support to many people on this forum, advice which I have regularly come back to and applied every single day. So, I am probably just going to be reiterating advice and guidance that they have given, but I would like to share the things that I have found to be SO helpful when trying to manage the intrusive thoughts and the anxiety caused by them.

Firstly, I cannot underestimate the importance of Jeffrey Schwartz's "The Four Steps". I have found that applying them is a great way to rationalize the consistent barrage of intrusive thoughts and "what if?" questions. Even if you don't initially believe yourself when you respond to the thought with "Oh, that was a strange thought. That's just my OCD. It is a misfiring signal in my brain", it will at least begin to slow down the intrusive thoughts because your automatic response to them will be to confirm with yourself that it is just OCD. I have found, though, that the most beneficial aspect of the process is refocusing (distraction). There is no possible way to think your way out of OCD because it will just find another way to draw yourself in and doubt yourself. If I ever catch myself ruminating about the things that cause me anxiety and distress I will either: pick up a book, watch some comedy or an engaging documentary, talk to friends, go for a run (although not so much at the moment as it is ridiculously cold) or I will write in my journal. I also play hockey on Thursdays and Saturdays which is a good way of releasing stress, and I also try and see my friends as much as I can.

Therefore distraction is invaluable, as you will refocus your mind on to thinking about something else, at least for a little while. Obsessive thoughts will only upset me if I give it the time to. I have spent hours and hours trawling through healthboards, forums, articles and books trying to find that definitive answer that I have been looking for. But, the truth is there isn't an answer. You can't beat OCD just by reading up about it. The way I see it is beating OCD is like learning a new skill or taking up a new hobby. You wont become good at it by just watching it on the TV or reading about it on the internet. You have to train yourself consistently to become better and better at it. There will be times when you feel like giving it up because you aren't getting anywhere, I have felt this many times. But I also know that realistically if I ever want to be as happy as I was when I was at University then I have to keep going. So yeah, "The Four steps" is really helping at the moment.

I've also found that Mindfulness helps quite a bit. The whole process of observing my thoughts without engaging with them or judging them seemed so alien to me to begin with, but I feel that since I have been applying some simple Mindful techniques I have found that my mind feels a little clearer. If you type in "Jon Kabat-Zinn" into Youtube you will find a really interesting lecture that he gave on the art of stepping back and actually realising that thoughts are just thoughts. I find that just paying attention to my breathing helps me refocus my thoughts. It helps me step back from whatever is bothering me, which is great because as soon as I start engaging with my thoughts my mood can turn at the drop of a hat. As soon as I start engaging with the "what ifs" before I know it I will be questioning if I am a bad person, and then I will start rummaging around in my past to see if my anxious predictions have any evidence to back them up. It becomes insanely ridiculous as you start completely discounting all the positive aspects of your personality. If you suffer from OCD

When you obsess about dying, you aint living

Your problem is that you are part of a drug culture. Asking you to give up drugs is a bit like asking a French man to stop eating snails. Your friends take drugs, your recreational activities have an element of drug use. Stopping drugs requires that you remove yourself from the culture. That is going to be tough. You have to first make the decision to stop taking drugs, and then you need to do what is required. That will take maturity...the maturity to say, 'my mental health is suffering so I need to be independent and exit this culture.'

Feel free to PM me concerning this issue. Perhaps I know someone who has had the same experience and understands.

It seems to be having an adverse affect in terms of lowering your IQ. Many natural oils are good for you, and there is much evidence that they can have positive roles in maintaining good mental and physical health, especially those containing high levels of EPA and DHA. However, the idea that this alone will leave you 'completely cured' is laughable.

I am sorry if you think my post is arrogant but I take pleasure in being rude to people, a side effect of my over administration of Uncle Joe's Mint Balls.

So ok i agree with the article, that if you were smacked then your more likley to go onto have mental health problems (7% i believe
from this survey said they had been smacked)

on that context then in theory the mental health problems should lessen as in the uk kids arent smacked these days.

sorry if i come across unitelligent and thick

I wasn't supporting the article, it was written by the daily mail.

Again, smacking is likely to be a confounding factor and a correlation between smacking and mental heath problems doesn't suggest causation by any means. Perhaps adults who smack children are more likely to be sufferers of mental health themselves or possess a genetic tenancy (doesn't mean all parents who smack children do-just a numerical  trend), perhaps children who are smacked are also more likely to receive verbal aggression and criticism, perhaps they are more likely to be born into families with a poorer socioeconomic background and so find it difficult to succeed in later life. All these factors could lead to mental illness (bearing in mind a mental illness can be anything as mild as slight depression caused by uncomfortable surroundings), and so a correlation with smacking doesn't imply causation.


The article that was posted in this thread was complete crap. It was written by the daily mail to get its readers to kick up a fuss. It sells newspapers. When it quotes the scientist as saying that smacking can lead to mental illness, it is more than likely taken out of context entirely.

You don't come across and being unintelligent or thick and I wouldn't bother disagreeing with you if I though you were.

I think that, on an intellectual level, I have a good understanding of OCD. I have read all the main recommended books on the illness (e.g. Imp of the Mind by Lee Baer, Brain Lock by Jeffrey Schwartz, and so on) and could explain the physiology, cognitive processes and recommended actions for most sufferers. Indeed, my psychologist has freely said to me that I understand OCD better than she does!

And yet, as we all know all too well, in the moment when OCD strikes and the time afterwards when we are in the grip of anxiety, logic and knowledge fly out of the window. This is because the amygdala (the anxiety centre of the brain) is triggered and the chemicals cortisol and adrenaline are released into the bloodstream: the body’s “fight or flight” response is activated. It’s one thing to sit down and discuss how to fight the OCD when you are feeling calm and rational; it’s a completely different matter when you are in the midst of an OCD “attack” (as I call them) and every cell in your body is screaming out for you to wash / check / seek reassurance / neutralise the thought etc etc. It is not the sufferer’s fault that they cannot think clearly when under attack; scientists have shown that at this point the thinking, mammalian part of the brain is no longer active. Instead it is the primitive, reptilian part of the brain which is running the show shouting, “danger! Danger! Do something!”

I am currently suffering very badly with OCD, on two fronts: contamination and thoughts of harming, worse than I have been in many years. Yesterday I grabbed the bull by the horns and totted up a tally of how many times I washed / cleaned / did associated rituals (e.g. reassurance-seeking). In a conservative count, and based on just the contamination side of things, I counted 76 incidences in one day, which blew my previous estimate out of the water. I am waiting to start some much-needed and desperately-wanted contamination exposure therapy on Wednesday next week, which can’t come soon enough.

I find that the contamination OCD is particularly bad at work as I cannot wash and clean as much as I would like to. Almost every day I find myself stuck in an OCD loop unable to do anything except for the compulsion. Today, in a desperate bid to escape the explosive anxiety I was feeling, I went on to the OCD-UK homepage in the hope that re-reading the theoretical and practical aspects of OCD might help alleviate the anxiety, just a little bit. I also wear my “just a thought?” wristband 24/7 now and try to remember to look at it and think about its message when I’m struggling. What I couldn’t find on the website, however (and this might just be down to my being in a panic and not delving as deeply as perhaps I should), is a guide to what to do in that stomach-churningly terrifying time when the anxiety is sky-rocketing and, try as you might, you can’t apply the theory that you’ve learnt. So I’ve tried to write a simple bullet-pointed list which can be used when you can’t think straight and are too overpowered by the anxiety to plough through self-help books for what to do in that precise moment:-

* Calm your breathing down. On a purely physiological level, if you are breathing slowly and deeply, the body cannot sustain the high anxiety levels. By breathing in this way, you are increasing the amount of oxygen and decreasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the blood. The deceptively simple act of restoring these gaseous levels to normal will help your body and mind to calm down and your thinking processes to become less “fuzzy”.

* Realise that the anxiety will not (indeed, it cannot) last forever. The body cannot sustain high anxiety levels indefinitely; it will run out of steam at some point. It might feel like you will never stop feeling so anxious unless you carry out the compulsion, but that is a physical impossibility.

* Try to focus on some other aspect of your surroundings, whether that is the sound of birdsong outside your window, the feeling of a soft piece of clothing against your skin or the smell of your lunch cooking in the oven. It doesn’t matter what you choose to focus on, so long as it is something innocuous and unconnected to your OCD.

* Keep reminding yourself that you are experiencing an anxious reaction because you have OCD. OCD is an illness which can be treated. You are not a bad, evil, flawed, weak or dangerous person because you have OCD.

* The thoughts are not dangerous. Everyone has these thoughts, it’s just that people with OCD react to them whereas other people are able simply to dismiss them as the nonsense that they are.

* Every time you resist the OCD urge you chalk up a massive victory against it and it loses a little of its power over you.

Some mental health workers have described their clients with OCD as demonstrating more courage and determination in their continual battle with this potentially debilitating illness than most people show in their lifetimes.

Right now you are perhaps feeling anxious and upset and are desperate to reach out for help for your OCD, this is a normal reaction for most people when finding our forums. What you are experiencing right now we can assure you that you really are not alone and your forum predecessors have perhaps expressed similar feelings before, which means many of the answers you are searching for right now are perhaps already available to you.

So before posting we recommend just taking a moment to review these suggestions first.

1. The main OCD-UK website is full of helpful resources and information about treatments, including CBT therapy and medications, so visit the main OCD-UK website at www.ocduk.org and spend some time reading through it.

2. Use the 'Search' facility on the forums to help you find open discussions on the subject you wish to discuss, the search facility will help you find many discussions relevant to the problems you're facing right now and often you will find there is already a very active discussion relevant to your specific form of OCD. Use relevant keywords like 'contamination', 'checking', 'intrusive' for example. The advanced search facility may be helpful to narrow down search results.

3. Over the years a number of threads have proved to be helpful and we have compiled a list with links to those resources on one single forum topic called Helpful Threads. Take a moment to browse through this, the resources listed may be helpful to you now or at a later date.

4. Please take a moment to read the Forum Rules and Guidelines about what is acceptable on our forums.

5. If you are new to using online discussion forums our software help page may be helpful and answer some of your questions, this can always be found using the small Help link at the top right of the forums under your login name.

6. The forum software uses colour schemes which are called 'skins'. We all have different styles, tastes and viewing preferences so we have provided a selection of forum skin styles for you to choose your preferred viewing option. To change this scroll down to the very bottom of the page and use the far left drop down menu.

7. Although we are a UK based charity, we do have form users from right across the world. The forum posts must remain in English, but to aide our overseas members we have provided several forum navigation languages choices. To select your language use the drop down menu towards the bottom left of the forum page.

8. Most importantly, don't be afraid to ask us for help, we are here to help and support you.