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NicoletteCB

Bulletin Board User
  • Posts

    424
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About NicoletteCB

  • Birthday 23/01/1998

Previous Fields

  • OCD Status
    Sufferer
  • Type of OCD
    HOCD (reversed- afraid of being bi or straight) and health/ vomit OCD

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Female
  • Location
    California
  • Interests
    Reading, writing, art/drawing, learning, and thinking/problem solving.

Recent Profile Visitors

1,091 profile views
  1. Greeting everyone. I have a surgery scheduled nine days from now for my knee/patella region. It’s not a considered a “high risk” surgery for me to have and my surgeon is skilled. I’m just having one ligament tightened and another one cut/released. I also had a check up and was ok’d by my general care doctor for the surgery. I am going to be put to sleep for the surgery though and I have been agonizing and obsessing over my fear of dying during the surgery. I am absolutely convinced I will die during surgery. I seem to also be having terrible magical thinking obsessions in regards to this all. There is a painting (of a somewhat religious context) that scares me. Everytime I am online on a certain website I get intrusive thoughts worrying that if I see this painting I will die as I am scrolling through the site. Well literally everytime I think these thoughts, I see the painting exactly after the thought. I am convinced that this is an omen that I will die during surgery I cannot stop ruminating and trying to think of every possible thing that could go wrong and cause death during a minor surgery.
  2. I’ve been having this problem for 6 months now and it’s been driving me crazy I worry about swallowing my food incorrectly and choking then dying. I try to expose myself to my fear so before swallowing I agree to my thoughts and say “Yes I will choke” but when I actually swallow my food, if I have an intrusive thought as I swallow, I either jump, my eyes bulge out, or I start shaking. It’s so incredibly embarrassing. My mom has even told me I eat “weirdly” because when I swallow I have thoughts as I’m swallowing I’m about to choke. I don’t know what to do or how to stop this. It’s embarrassing and I have such difficulties eating out or even at the dinner table with my family now.
  3. So basically I seem to have this problem where any little pain or weird feeling in my body becomes interpreted as a life or death emergency ailment What I mean is like I’m really scared of having a heart attack, stroke, blood clot, anaphylactic shock (not allergic to anything tho), not being able to breathe properly or aneurysm and dying because I don’t make it to the ER on time or whatever. Sometimes as an example I get chest pains (most likely from anxiety) and then suddenly I’m thinking “ What if this is a heart attack symptom and I’m gonna die now!” Then usually what happens is I just cannot stop thinking about the symptom. I’m monitoring it and freaking out basically. My therapist would tell me to distract myself but I don’t know how to. Sometimes I’m also in class or on cash register at work and I can’t just leave the triggering situation to distract myself from the physical symptom I’m scared of Any help?
  4. Hi everyone, It saddens me I have to post on here twice in several days as I had recovered a while back but oh well. Back in April I had to have an emergency laparoscopy to remove my left ovary. It was a very traumatic experience for me. Ever since my surgery my OCD has switched sadly over to worrying about sudden health or death crises. I have worried about everything from having a stroke, heart attack, blood clots, aneurysm, to even choking on my food and dying. Recently the obsession has expanded to included fear of death by sleep deprivation or sudden death in sleep. It’s a lose- lose eitherway. Last night I did not sleep, I slept in the morning for maybe three hours. I had to miss my college class due to my tiredness. I’m not sure what to do because I try to label and move on but I’m absolutely convinced I’m going to die. I’m considering taking something like Zoloft at this point honestly. I have a therapist who is an OCD specialist but I can only see her twice a month as she’s out of my insurance and expensive
  5. Soo my therapist has told me to basically label all intrusive thoughts or say something amongst the lines of “ This is OCD because the last time I had this thought, the catastrophe didn’t occur.” It was working beautifully for me except that I was always having a feeling of “peace” at being able to quickly feel like I don’t believe in the thought and move on. Now though I’m not getting the peaceful feeling and after I label the thought feels like it gets “stuck” in my head and my OCD is just like, “ So where’s the good feeling that indicates the thought isn’t real? You’re uncomfortable right now so that means this is true.” It’s hard to move on to the distraction phase now because I feel like I’m feeling wrong(?) I guess I’m just wondering if other’s experience this also.
  6. I have obsessions that involve dying. I worry I will choke on my food and die, have an allergic reaction and die, have a heartattack and die or some other misc health crisis that ends in me dying. My problem is that just labeling and accepting the thoughts as ocd feels inadequate to me. I feel like even if the chances of dying from my fears may be small...I could still die. I can’t rule that out. Death is inevitable, no matter how I die. I know this is a deeper problem (and I am seeking a therapist) but like with my other obsessions all I had to do was accept I had ocd and move on but with these obsessions, I label the thoughts and my ocd counters with, “ Okay well so you’re going to die, you still can maybe die from this fear! Doesn’t matter if you label the thoughts. “
  7. Thank you for the response Honestly it’s really triggering because I will try to swallow some food and if some of it doesn’t completely go down in one swallow (so like some bits of food remain at the back of my tongue/opening of my throat) then I start to panic really badly about then swallowing the “stuck” piece incorrectly and choking/dying. I think I’m stuck between fearing dying from choking and also just my life being ruined by this obsession as in I won’t be able to eat properly or enjoy eating anymore
  8. I didn’t have this obsession about a month ago but now I suddenly do and it’s really taking away from the quality of my life. Basically, whenever I’m eating I get intrusive thoughts that I am going to choke and die. I don’t know what to do because then I get anxiety and hyper aware of how I am swallowing my food or chewing and it just feels hard to swallow.
  9. Hi, long time no post. So this is a family forum I understand but I am going to try to keep this as clean as I can. I had sexual orientation related obsessions years ago which for the most part I have dealt with pretty well aside from one reoccurring issue. Whenever I am being...intimate with my sexual partners, I get intrusive thoughts during intimacy which makes it hard for me to focus on what is going on and then creates an obsessive influx of thoughts related to what is happening. It’s bothering me deeply because I want to enjoy these experiences but then my ocd comes in with a thought that will get “stuck” in my brain during intimacy which then makes it hard for me to enjoy myself. Just wondering how others deal with this lol.
  10. I have these obsessions that only happen when I’m in or about to enter a relationship. I keep worrying that I’m not feeling the right way about the person I like or I don’t feel love properly or I’m just feeling wrong in the moment. I’ve had this happen in two relationships already and the crappy thing is that I sometimes instead get an instrusive feeling, almost like a “blocked” kind of feeling that then when I look back on the relationship, I start to remember only that feeling. My big problem is once I start to try to ignore the thoughts of not feeling the right thing...I just feel like I’m worried I’ll never feel right about the person I like. I keep thinking that I’m kind of ruined and I’m ruining the relationship before it even happens by feeling incorrectly or having the instrusive feelings.
  11. Recently I’ve come really far in my recovery. I’ve been at a good place with my OCD for two years now but I was still struggling on and off from groinal responses. For anyone who does not know, groinal responses is a term coined for when a person with sexual obsessions “feels” a sensation in their groin and their OCD labels it as attraction and this causes an endless, learned cycle of trigger=response=intrusive thoughts fearing attraction to trigger. The only way to “beat” groinal responses I discovered was to divorce the meaning from the sensation. When you label the feeling as meaning attraction or arousal, that’s when you commit yourself to the endless obsessions and compulsions that come with the trigger. The goal shouldn’t be to stop the responses, but instead to stop associating the physical sensation with some label/meaning. So in my experience, if I see something sexual that I don’t like and then I have this physical sensation, instead of mentally categorizing it as, “ Oh god, I’m aroused,” I instead counter it with, “ Here’s that random physical sensation that my OCD created/labeled.” The goal should be to basically not care that you’re having the sensation and to stop labeling it as arousal/attraction. If you divorce the meaning your OCD gives to the response and learn to accept it as a random trained response from your body (similar to Pavlov’s bell experiement with his dogs) then you’ll eventually live more comfortably. Thanks for reading.
  12. I haven’t posted in a long while but my ocd has shifted to a more politically sensitive topic lately. For anyone who is non-American, there was a mass shooting in February at a highschool that killed 17 students I believe. I’ve always had some intrusive thoughts about being victim to a mass shooting but since the Parkland massacre, my obsessions have increased. The problem is that I have become incredibly sensitive to other students around me on campus. If I see a “suspiscious” looking student or I hear backpack rustling in class or loud noises then I instantly panic. The problem with this obsession is in the past I just fobbed off my other fears on, “ Oh it’s just ocd and unlikely to happen,” but the reality is I live in a country that does have a mass shooting problem. This can happen, but it’s getting to the point where I am gripped with anxiety in class and on campus constantly. What can I do?
  13. Happy New Year everyone, I'm having some problems with my ocd. So, for the last two years actually I've had obsessive worries and thoughts about my romantic relationships/interests. I obsessively worry about being broken up with or left basically. When I was with my ex, I was constantly asking for reassurance that they wouldn't leave me, which they'd always promise not to leave me, but obviously they did. It bothers me because everytime I obsess over a partner leaving me and they do, then it just feels like it confirms my fears and now everytime I do obsess again over a new interest leaving me then I feel like what's the point of fighting back against the obsessive thoughts if they end up being right anyway?
  14. Hi everyone, I haven't posted in awhile but my OCD has been triggered from a comment. Here's some background info: So my ex broke up with me about a month ago. I was heartbroken for weeks and reached out to her. We had a conversation two weeks ago I told her I'd always love and belong to her. Big mistake. I met another woman, and we just hit it off so good from the very first conversation. I started talking to her for fun but then the both of us became attracted to each other and she asked me on a date, which I said yes to. I felt like I had to tell my ex that I was dating again so I sent her a message, in which she reacted badly. She told me I never loved her to begin with it I am moving on now. My OCD fears are relationship based and I always have thoughts doubting if I really love the people I am with so when she said that it really upset me. I keep worrying I never did love her and if I never did then what if I can't love the next woman? It's just a headache for me rn. Besides that I feel immense guilt for trying to move on because I hurt my ex. I feel like a bad person.
  15. I don't like to put labels on myself but at this point in my life I'm pretty sure I have really strong obsessions with my physical appearence aka bdd since I was 10 and I'm 19 now so it's been 9 years. It started off with this intense obsession with my skin imperfections and it still mostly around that. I spend hours of the day just thinking about what flaws I want to "fix" and what I need to get done. I've never gone as far as wanting any cosmetic procedure though and don't wish to have any of that. But I am extremely engrossed with my physical appearence and it has been causing me a lot of suffering and anxiety lately. Mostly it's tied to my idea that if I'm not attractive enough then I can't get a partner or that I'm less likely to have more women to chose from to be with if I'm ugly and have to narrow down my options and I will never find someone who I am as equally attracted to as they are to me. But the issue rn is that I'm not single. I am in a relationship and very happy with someone I am extremely attracted to, except I keep obsessing over my appearence so my partner doesn't grow physically unattracted to me and leave me. She's said that she wouldn't but I did have an ex who did that in the past and really hurt my feelings. And also I just am obsessed with looking attractive because I want people to like me. In my psychology class we even talked about how attractive people are more liked. I know I need to see a therapist for this and will but I don't know how to really deal with this. BDD is like the cousin of OCD but I don't really know how to treat this. I guess it's like my compulsions are ruminating on my appearance or looking up skincare I want to get done for myself or whatever. But I just feel like my beliefs are too strong to just cut everything and treat it as OCD because I strongly believe my beliefs are true. I'm aware I do need CBT for this though but just looking for some advice
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