Ups and downs

[Guest nicolam381318]

I've had an awful couple of weeks but things do seem to have improved slightly over the past couple of days. I'm still getting periods of intrusive thoughts and anxiety but there has been some normality and rational thinking in-between, which is an improvement. I've got an appointment with the GP on Monday (which I made when things felt really bad) but it sort of feels as though I'm wasting their time now that things seem a bit better.

Does anyone else experience these ups and downs with their OCD? On the darkest days, I struggle to see how I can make it through the day...but then a couple of days later, the fog seems to lift and things seem pretty close to normal. I'm assuming it's to do with exposure. I haven't had many triggers over the past of couple of days and that has allowed me to relax a bit more. I think I'll keep the GP appointment anyway.

[Guest OCDQueen]

Keep the gp appointment I always go through ups and downs like that! Recovering from OCD is a rollercoaster of emotions and thought x

[dksea]

I absolutely get this Nicola, and it frustrates me to no end! The logical part of me is like "come on, I KNOW that there are stretches of time where this stuff doesn't even bother me at all, why can't I feel like that NOW! This makes no sense!" but of course that's OCD. Its like there's an ON/OFF switch for OCD in my head. When its OFF I can come across all sorts of things related to my OCD worries and not bat an eye, then, for whatever reason it gets flipped ON, and I feel my motivation draining, my anxiety rising, etc.

I do agree with OCDQueen that you should keep the appointment even if you are feeling better. You can still discuss the symptoms from when you were down and its good that they'll have a record about it. One thing I started doing in the past was keeping a short journal where I track when I'm having OCD incidents, so I can take it to my doctor and we can discuss things like adjusting my medication or refreshing my therapy if we notice a more frequent pattern. It also helps me later to look back and see how I progressed from feeling overwhelmed to back to "normal" after a spike.

[Guest jrb5094]

Deal with the same stuff. I have good and bad days. TImes where I feel like, "wow, maybe I'm over this." Then bam. An attack will come. Best thing I can say is to just have a lot of tools in your toolbox to help calm down the attacks.

[highlight]

Yes this is very common but I do think I have something to add.

In my experience triggers are not the cause of anxiety. It sounds weired but it's true anxiety is something that happen in the deepest parts of the sufferers mind. You only become aware of the anxiety after you have a trigger event. This is why you can have many good days n a row and then have a break down later on. You need to be careful not to make he same mistake I have of shutting out the world. Mental problems are not like physical ones they do not heal simply because you rest for a while and do nothing. If you do this then all of your focus will be on the anxiety magnifying its damaging effect.

[Guest HeadAboveWater]

I completely agree, though lately I haven't had a complete day of freedom from OCD. I have experienced hours upon hours where I thought, wow, I see that the thoughts are false and I feel good and clear minded. Then, out of nowhere I fall into a trap of intrusive thoughts and feel lost again. It is utterly frustrating... but I do feel like something must be changing - that things are trying to clear up because I used to have no freedom from these doubts, thoughts and anxiety. So, I guess, despite how frustrating it is... we can be glad that we are getting a bit of clarity.