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Guest REBECCA

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Guest REBECCA

I have been a member of the Forums for quite a while, my Sign In details reminded me yesterday is actually ten years. !

I visited the Forums quite a lot at first and read a lot, and hopefully helped a few people, but rarely, if ever asked for help myself.

I am currently successfully engaged in treatment and I realise now that I think a big obstacle to me overcoming ocd previously has been that I learned as a child to hide it and feel ashamed, as if nobody could know I was 'weird' and did these strange things. So I got into the habit of not talking to anybody about it, friends, family, partners, anybody.

So my symptoms became stronger and I became more and more isolated. I somehow believed I could deal with ocd on my own, out of a sense of privacy, and even perhaps some arrogance.

Now I am learning to ask for help, and whilst I still feel very uncomfortable talking about some symptoms, I can feel the relief of doing so, as it takes the charge out of them, and in some cases enables me to dismiss or even laugh at them.

So I have returned to these brilliant forums, full of lovely, helpful, knowledgable people and this time I humbly ask for your help and support as I work through my treatment. ..

The last few years have really not been great, following the death of my Father and end of long term relationship, amongst other things; and by the end of last year my ocd was probably at its worst in terms of inhibiting my life and isolating me.

Through making decisions and making changes in my life, and most importantly in pursuing treatment, my life has got So much better over the last 7 months. I now feel genuinely optimistic. ..

There is more work to do on my treatment, but I can definitely see the light now

I really look forward to talking to you and Giving and receiving help, hope and inspiration

Thank you very much, my friends,

Rebecca

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Guest Sisyphus

Hi Rebecca,

Great post. I think a lot of us start off that way, reluctant to share anything about it, because we've been conditioned into trying to deal with it privately, away form the world, for so long. Plus yknow, some people are sharers and others try and deal with stuff themselves. I was always the latter, but Im trying real hard to share what I can if it means it'll help get better.

I'm sorry to hear about your father and relationship. I don'[t think there's any sugarcoating for those thing sis there. They ware what they are. When my relationship ended a couple of years ago it had a surprisingly bad effect on me. I just went into complete shutdown for a while. I don';t lknow if I'm better now or not really. Hard to dissociate the OCD with all of that. Life's full of nice little suprises along the way isn't it!

Anyway I hope you can share some of your valuable experience with us here. and vice versa.

All the best,

David.

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Guest REBECCA

Thank you very much for your response David [sisyphus is a very apt analogy for ocd, it made me Smile! . .. though obviously not at the potentially relentless suffering aspect of it, only because I am recently developing an interest in Greek mythology.] I am grateful for your kind words and wishes.

Thank you for your question Gareth. My instinctive reluctance to answer it is a valuable reminder to be willing to talk more about things [whilst maintaining reasonable boundaries] So in response I would say that the nature of my symptoms has changed a lot over time and I seem to have touched upon nearly all of the categories of symptoms to some degree.

The current manifestations include: magical thinking regarding letters, numbers, words, colours and various other obscure things my brain has made connections with. Touching rituals of various kinds, repeating actions such as going in and out of doors, turning lights on and off, picking things up and having to put them down again before I can pick them up to use them, avoiding certain places. .. actually, whilst I am writing this, I am aware that I have so many different symptoms and types of symptoms, including some that are more private that I don't feel comfortable mentioning, that it would take too long to list them all. But mentioning even a very few of them here is more than I have done previously, so that's something.

I am aware that some people only have one type of ocd and some have a few types simultaneously. I think the short answer is I seem to have almost all of the types to some degree simultaneously. ! In treatment I am having to be very methodical in disentangling it all and separating it into groups of symptom types to tackle them one at a time, this is actually proving very helpful as it is enabling me to see symptoms as 'variations on a theme' and get rid of a whole group of symptoms together, rather than picking them out one by one, which could take a long while. This process is definitely making my recovery quicker. ..

So, sorry, that is a rather long answer, but there it is.

Now that I have started talking, after not talking for so long, you might not be able to shut me up. .. !

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Guest Sisyphus

Thank you very much for your response David [sisyphus is a very apt analogy for ocd, it made me Smile! . .. though obviously not at the potentially relentless suffering aspect of it, only because I am recently developing an interest in Greek mythology.] I am grateful for your kind words and wishes.

Hey Rebecca,

Ah thanks - yeah the name seemed appropriate for OCD somehow, so I'm glad it made you smile. As I said to someone else recently, some days I think prometheus might be more apt!

I would like to find out more about Greek Mythology. Homer's Odyssey was my next in line book when I stopped reading years ag because I was finding too many problems with words/OCD(didn't know it was OCD at the time though) and it was just making it a positively traumatic experience, and knowing it was coming made the problem worse. It became a "thing".

Now that I have started talking, after not talking for so long, you might not be able to shut me up. .. !

Sorry, this wasnt aimed at me, but it made me laugh cos thats kind of like me. I was very reluctant to discuss anything on here at first and now it's like a stream of conciousness - bla bla bla bla bla. But surely this is good. I figure it helps me talk about some things in therapy that I might not have done otherwise. I find I am talkign about things in this current round of CBT much more freely and unreservedly than before. I think it's unusual do dicslose absolutely everything - I think you have to make a call on what you can and cant disclose and just be sure to apply the same methods to what you cant disclose. I think that's a realistic approach.

Well done on listing your stuff.

David.

Edited by Sisyphus
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Guest REBECCA

Thank you David,

If you don't mind me asking [you don't have to answer] what the problem was for you with reading and words.?

I only ask because I have difficulty with various words ocd has irrationally designated as 'Bad' and reading is my favourite thing to do,but I can feel ocd potentially creeping into that at the moment, as when I read a 'Bad' word I have to look at it again to 'neutralise' it, or turn the page back and forth in a pointless, ritualised way. Reading has always been my refuge, so if ocd tries to take that from me I will really put up a fight.

It is one of the few pleasures I currently have.

Warm wishes,

Rebecca

ps: your picture seems to depict a man on fire, why is that. ?!

Edited by REBECCA
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Guest Sisyphus

Thank you David,

If you don't mind me asking [you don't have to answer] what the problem was for you with reading and words.?

I only ask because I have difficulty with various words ocd has irrationally designated as 'Bad' and reading is my favourite thing to do,but I can feel ocd potentially creeping into that at the moment, as when I read a 'Bad' word I have to look at it again to 'neutralise' it, or turn the page back and forth in a pointless, ritualised way. Reading has always been my refuge, so if ocd tries to take that from me I will really put up a fight.

It is one of the few pleasures I currently have.

Warm wishes,

Rebecca

ps: your picture seems to depict a man on fire, why is that. ?!

Hey Rebecca,

That's a good question. Well the picture with the one guy on fire appeared on the sleeve of the Pink Floyd album Wish You Were Here, which I really like anyway, but I *think* I chose it for this because it says something about how I used to feel at work with OCD. Like on the surface, I was just another guy in a suit going through the motions like all the rest, but underneath there was this firestorm going on that I was desperately trying to contain. So I'm pretty sure that's close to why I chose it for here. I just really like that picture - I also have a t shirt with it on! (nutcase alert!). I dont have a pencil case or bed spread though. Drew the line there. Pyjamas obviosuly but no bedspread.

Erm, it's hard to explain the word thing. but I'll try. A part of my OCD revolves around certain words, objects, names, and maybe even other stuff that have vague associations to some trauma - looking at it now at face value - these things/associations are so tenuous and contrived, and the associated trauma so long gone, that it's really hard to justify why I'm still doing them. Like I said to my therapist t'other day, I think I was just exposed to this thing for so long it got burned in deep. So anyway I have these words that have evolved over time and if any of them come up in a book or anywhere else, I can be thrown into anxiety and locku p, and have to think my way out of it, by somehow re-establishing the separateness of the thing the word is currently attached to as opposed to the association. Then if I do it with the right meaning, I put out that particular fire in my mind and I can get back to my book for 5 nano seconds until the next thing strikes!

Now I don't really fully understand why but for some reason this hits hardest with books. Possibly because I've never been a strong reader so reading's always a challenge anyway, possibly because sitting in the garden reading after work was a precious thing to me at that time and I could feel this ruining it, I don't know. All I know is, some days I'll go and try and read and I can be sat out there for an hour, part going over the same paragraph again and again, part performing compulsions, and part resting while my aching brain recovers. And then I just get down and come back inside. Happened again earlier today actually.

So it sounds maybe a little different to your good/bad word thing, which by the way I've definitely heard more than one person on here describe before so I think you're in good company with that one.

Yes I agree with you - don't tolerate OCD interloping on your reading - kick its sorry @ss. Oh and by the way when OCD interfered with the reading this was waaaay before I knew I had OCD, so I think knowing helps prevent such things. I really do. Forewarned is forearmed etc. So I'll bet your reading is safe ;)

All the best,

David.

Edited by Sisyphus
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  • 1 month later...
Guest jazzjass

Yes it is very difficult to ask for help but a crisis last year in my life meant that I

had to go for help, I had thought about it years ago but couldn't face going to a GP

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