Hi Everybody

[Guest jonber1970]

Joined this forum today in the hopes of getting some support and help with my condition.

I suffer from what is usually referred to as "pure O"

Ive had this illness for over 20 years and my focus has changed many times over the years.

It first started with an obsession with my heart thinking there was something wrong with it, this lasted for a good 5 years and still very occaisionally rears its ugly head, but my fear of dying is not very significant any more so that initial fear has little control of me anymore. In fact I sometimes wish I had cancer or some other type of terminal illness so I could die with my honour intact.

As I say my illness has found other ways to torture me, its extremely creative and adaptive to my circumstances.

Some of my fears briefly outlined in chronological order:

Heart defect, nervous twitching, causing harm to the ones I love, sexuality, causing harm to my daughter.

That is a very brief list and there are others and variations of each focus.

Right now I feel like I'm going through hell and hate life and I seem to be losing my mind.

Having this last year been through alot of personal trauma, my wife had an affair and changed the locks then tried to stop my access to my daughter, 12 months in court and its finally at an end, but I just feel completely alone with no help. Who can really understand this illness if they havnt suffered from it?

My thoughts have turned very dark these last few weeks, and its very hard to reassure myself these thoughts arent real and I'm really some kind of closet monster suppressing my true nature.

Scared of getting help in case they think I'm evil or something.

any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Jon

[Gemma7]

Hi welcome to the forum.

You should definitely seek help. Go to your gp and they can refer you. Nobody will think you aren't a nice person. You can get support anytime here.

Gemma x

[PolarBear]

Welcome to the forum.

It is very common for people with OCD to not seek help out of fears of being labelled a freak, being locked up in a mental institution or being arrested and thrown in jail. That was one of my big fears and I waited nearly 40 years to seek help. I can tell you that all of that fear didn't add up to a hill of beans. It's just our own insecurities getting in the way of getting help.

Don't wait. Today can be the first day of your journey to wellness. Take the first step.

[Guest jonber1970]

Hi Gemma and polarbear, thanks for your replies. Ive done what you advised and made an appointment with my GP to try and get some CBT hopefully, I'm already on prozac 40mg but have never had any other form of treatement. I also got a copy of brainlock today which Ive started reading, seems to make sense. Though my inner voice keeps telling me the four-steps wont work with me because Ive had it too long and I dont have OCD etc, the inner voice is really fighting back, I can only presume at this stage its my OCD fighting back, sounds wierd I know. I also get the message in my brain it wont work because part of me likes these thoughts, which is quite scary. Will keep reading.

Thanks kindly

Jon

[PolarBear]

What you noted in your second post is not usual at all. There are tons of different obsessions but one that many of us have in common is the doubt filled belief that what we are dealing with is not OCD. It is very common. Take a breath, read your book, try to understand and try to put into practice what it talks about. Treating your problem as OCD and working on getting better from OCD will do you no harm. It will likely do you a world of good.

[Gemma7]

Hi I agree with polarbear glad that you have made those initial steps they can be the hardest to make.

I too had doubts about having ocd at times but stay strong and you will be on the right track to getting better.

Gemma x

[Guest jonber1970]

Hi Gemma and Polarbear, thanks again for you valued input. It gave me some relief to know that its not just me that has these doubts. Reading your comments broke some kind of mental block because I just burst into tears and cant seem to stop now, think thats probably good, but I'm not looking for sympathy.

I have just finished my first read of Brain Lock and have wrote a very brief summary of my initial thoughts and questions which I will start on the normal forum as I believe this one is only meant for introduction purposes.

Kind Regards

Jon