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Guest Brighton Obsessive

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Guest Brighton Obsessive

(Sorry if this is a bit long!)

Hello, I'm a father in my mid-forties and four months ago was diagnosed with OCD. It was a complete shock when the psychiatrist told me it was OCD as for 30-odd years I'd thought I was just evil and turning into a monster, but I also had always known that in some way my fears were irrational. It started when I was about seven with fears that my family would die if I didn't turn my pillow over in complex ways. I developed a nervous blink and strange things I had to do with my tongue in shapes and patterns inside my mouth (!). When I was about ten or eleven it became really distressing with a new fear that I was gay, then it changed to a fear I was a rapist, then some sort of murderer, and in the last 20 years it's been that I am a pedophile. This has been the most awful manifestation of it.

I can lose whole days, wracked with anxiety, in which I endlessly argue with myself about my thoughts about children, about whether I want to hurt or have sex with children, about whether I will do it in the future or if I have done anything in the past that makes me a pedophile. I have two children of my own and as soon as they were born my fears transferred to my motivations towards them. The crazy thing is that these arguments have gone on in my head, every day, for decades and I've never once even remotely hurt anyone, let alone a child.

It took everything I had to tell the psychiatrist what has been going on in my mind my whole life but getting the diagnosis was initially a massive relief. The psychiatrist couldn't believe I'd hung onto it for so long. I was prescribed 40mg of citalopram daily and after a couple of months I got some relief from the fears and thoughts for the first time in my life. I also read various self help books and started having some success in just dismissing the thoughts and fears as "OCD thoughts" and not deserving any attention. I found that reading other people's stories of OCD and their irrational fears really helped me with mine when I lose all grip on reality. I can see that my fears are also irrational when I see them mirrored in others.

I went from never having spoken about my fears to telling the doctor, a counsellor, and my wife about them. I found great comfort in that.

However... I've recently started to doubt the diagnosis and have returned to fretting and worrying that my true nature is actually evil. The latest thing is that I tell myself that I engineered the whole OCD diagnosis and manipulated the doctor, even though I'd never heard of this type of OCD!

It's driving me insane.

I guess I'm just trying to introduce myself here but also wondered if other people doubted their diagnosis and how people got around that one. I also wondered what my next step should be. I feel I'm a long way from beating or coming to terms with this.

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Welcome Brighton, I have to agree with your psychiatrist that its amazing to me you were able to deal with your struggle for so long without diagnosis or treatment, that is no small feat!

As to your question of doubting that its OCD, I can assure you that that is a common worry that people with OCD struggle with. I don't think a week goes by where there are not posts on this forum from people struggling with the same fears and doubts. At its core that's what OCD is all about, fear and doubt, As you go through your recovery you will learn that dealing with one type of fear (say that its not OCD) is really not much different than dealing with another fear (say that you are a pedophile), you'll learn to treat the fears for what they are (OCD driven obsessions) and learn to accept the feelings of doubt as caused by the OCD not what you really want or believe. You actually hit on one of the more unique aspects of OCD in your post too, that you can KNOW the thoughts are irrational and yet still feel doubt. That is, unfortunately, the nature of OCD, but with work you can overcome it.

Medication is a valuable tool for fighting OCD, SSRI's like Citalopram can help alleviate symptoms and make a real difference in letting us get back to the lives we want to live. Many of us, myself included include medication as an important part of our management of OCD. The other side of OCD treatment is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT. You may have come across it in your self-help reading. For many people, they are able to manage their OCD using CBT alone without medication, for others like me, we use both. I would say that the best next step you should take is working with a CBT therapist to start tackling your OCD from that side as well. While some people rely almost exclusively on medication, I've found through personal experience that this can be a tricky path as you are not well equipped to deal with setbacks when the medication isn't being as effective as you'd like. There's information on the main OCD-UK site about treatments including information on finding a CBT therapist and talking to your doctor about getting such treatment. If that's not an option for you, for one reason or another, there is also self-guided CBT using workbooks like you have mentioned.

Its true that managing OCD is a long term battle, and it can take time to make the progress you want to, but you should be proud of yourself for how far you have already come. You've not only managed to live a life for 30 years while dealing with OCD unaided, but you had the strength to open up about your fears and seek out help, that's huge and you should be proud of yourself for that. I encourage you to read more about OCD, how it affects us, treatment information, etc. on the main OCD-UK site and join the rest of your fellow OCDers in the main forum. Best of luck with your continued recovery!

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Guest Brighton Obsessive

Oh thanks so much for the fantastic reply! Really appreciate it. After so many years of hiding it all in the belief that I would kill myself before letting anyone into the thoughts I had, it's such a relief to have people understand!

Yes, i should try and deal with the "what if it isn't OCD" thoughts in the same way as all the other thoughts. All part of the same thing. I will try!

I'll look into the CBT options available as well.

Many, many thanks.

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You're more than welcome! It is definitely a relief when you find out there are other people like you who can understand what you are going through for sure! One of the best parts of living in a connected world like we do today is how easy we can connect with each other, even from thousands of miles (or kilometers as it were) apart!

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Hi Brighton Obsessive,

I know exactly what that relief feels like, I hid mine for just over 10 years and that was long enough! Well done.

May I ask, did you have sickness and the other when you first went onto Citalopram? I came off them after 2 weeks as I was losing weight but am now wondering if I should have stuck it out?

Whirlwind x

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