A day in my mind...Having all the tools, but not using them

[Guest takeacti0n]

There are days, well everyday really, when I wake up that I think to myself...Okay I got this...I can handle this. My years of self-therapy, meditation, CBT, ACT, professional therapy have equipped me with the tools to handle this. I can handle today, I tell myself with the utmost enthusiasm every day when I get up out of bed. Today I will go to battle with my OCD, and I WILL NOT LOSE.

Then the thoughts come...before I have even leave my bed.

At first I can allow them space, and just let them be there...

But then they come in stronger, and stronger. "What if that person is a Demon?" "What if I start hallucinating?" "What if I lose my mind?"

I breathe...trying to remember the tools I have learned throughout countless hours of therapy. Breathe, allow the thoughts to be there, make room for them I tell myself. You are not your thoughts, they are just clouds passing by in the sky.

This seems to work...for a short while.

Then the thoughts mount another attack so fierce that it seems as if Satan himself sent them and I can't help but to engage with them... "What if I secretly want to harm them?" "I've never hurt anyone, everyone knows that" "But what if you have to kill them" "I'd never do that"

"What if they poisoned my food?" "They did poison your food" "Wait, why would they poison my food." "I'm going to eat this food anyway because they wouldn't poison it".

I become aware I'm engaging in them...I breathe. I tell myself it's just anxiety, It's okay... Lean into the thoughts, accept their presence. You are not your thoughts I tell myself...It's okay.

This is a typical day for me...then I have massive guilt that I didn't properly use mindfulness. I look at my relationship with OCD as an alcoholics relationship with alcohol. I think my body/brain is addicted to the adrenaline, the "rush" so it creates more intense thoughts/vision/feelings/sensations to get that "high" or it's fix. The ironic part is that the high/fix is so ******* ****, but it's my brains way of working to help protect me from those metaphorical lions.

I don't know why I wrote this, sometimes I think writing stuff out can be highly beneficial...I yearn to break the cycle, to be happy, to FEEL. Tomorrow is another day, and I feel try again.

I love you all and thank you for taking some time to read this.

Edited September 4, 2015 by takeacti0n

[Guest Himmel]

This is a great post.

I could quote it all. Its exactly how it is to have ocd. Exactly how my day is just another content. You really nailed it.

I am making a Big effort these days to do all I Can to stop my ocd. Its hard but I am looking out for 2. Spikes and the rules it wants to make to scare my and drag me in. I have done my exercises better than ever so I am Hoping it will work. But the mind of course make me feel I am taking a risk and it is exhaugsting. But I will really try this time. I had enough.

I also Think that my brain wants that rush. It is an adiction sort of. So you need to take a cold turkey (what we say in Danish). This is a Big enemy for us. But it will go away some time I hope. Also the empty space - how do I then control the World or do with my spare time. Its like an old bad friend. But therefore it is very important to find a hobby or activity that distract you and you enjoy - so you get a happy rush there.

[Guest Himmel]

The worst of it all is that those thoughts are SO irrational and some of them not at all possible at all or about nonexisting things - therefore it is annoying that we need to spend half our life on them.

[Guest takeacti0n]

Thanks for the reply Himmel. Yeah I think right now I spend like 80% of my life wrapped in my thoughts...its a bit silly, but I am slowing doing positive things to get that percentage down...

How do you handle your thoughts? I'd be curious to hear

[Sodovka]

Dear takeacti0n, your post almost sounds like one I could've written. I don't have exactly the same obsessions--mine all revolve around harming loved ones. But the fact that you've done do much, read so many books, basically get how to treat OCD, and do it right most of the time, that's very similar to my own experience. But yet OCD still trips us up. My advice to you is the same I give to myself: as much as humanly possible, don't give in to your compulsions. Sometimes OCD will trick you into doing just that but we need to stop fueling the OCD fire, which runs on compulsions. At the end of the day, we will probably still have a bunch of painful thoughts and feelings but if we do our best not to make them worse, our lives will be much better overall. Sending lots of strength and good vibes your way!

[Guest Himmel]

Sometimes OCD will trick you into doing just that but we need to stop fueling the OCD fire, which runs on compulsions. At the end of the day, we will probably still have a bunch of painful thoughts and feelings but if we do our best not to make them worse, our lives will be much better overall!

It is true that compulsions fuel ocd and make it worse. But its so damn hard not to do Them a lot of the time but you really regret it at the same time. Because they get stuck and if they are hard to solve and make right then its even worse to stop compulsions.

I am in my bed waking. I really try to stop not engaging. The thoughts go "you will be forced to give up your children in a reincarnated life"... I feel the panic... "You have to undo the thought, take back your children"... I try to resist.. Its ocd making this up dont do anything... This I keep saying and try to refocus.... Then it goes in stronger sending me some of the more magical thoughts "you just Saw your late grandma in your mind, then you have to Think of a good thought or Else the children will be taken". As you Can imagine this is almost impossible to get right.

I have a really stupid, annoying ocd which has made a lot of unatural connections:

-someone up above fx dead relatives gets your thoughts as messages and take Them as wishes they make come true

- the likelihood of a thought coming true increases if you Think of those people (preventing me from enjoying happy memories), if you dont compulse, if your ocd says you wish it, in certain places like Church or the farm my grandma used to live

- I have this Strange thing that I feel I Can transfer a little trait of me or my kids to others or Pick up a little trait from others which my ocd says should resolve in that we get their destiny/way of living or They get my kids in a reincarnated life. When this goes on it stressful to walk the Streets or be social - but I just cope and walk and stay social. Ito a physical feeling that I leave traits.

- It like I have made this habit and false connection that two thoughts Can be locked together, like if I Think of a homeless person and my kid, then it lock those Two things and tell me that my kid then will get that destiny.

- and I Can lock/choose things by swallowing, breathing and so on.

So when I lay here trying to resist. The ocd threatens my "now you Saw a scenario where you might give up your kids for adoption, you have to undo it, you have to keep your child by making a ritual and certain patterns in your head and with your body to take him back or Else......,"Uh you swallowed while thinking on the bad scenario", "Uh you thought of a dead relative" "Uh Uh Uh"... Its hard to win even though I won a 1000 times, its just that little one mistake that counts. That the game of ocd.

I dont know how I Got my theme and all those crazy rules. It is very supernatural and logically I dont believe it.

No one Can transfer anything to others or Pick up something at least not a destiny or part of you

Spirits, wishes and magic dont exist

There is only this life so I am so lucky that I was born in Denmark. we are made of chemical and electrical impulses. The thing about reincarnation is an old thing like when we thought the Earth was flat. Now we know more about the brain.

I cannot choose a life for me and my kids - its magic

It does not have any consequences that I dont solve the obsessions even though I feel so

Thinking of dead relatives and a bad thought cant resolve in anything- its just threads and weird ocd ideas

Or is it a little bit possible? And then I need to resist again.

So what I do is try hard not to do compulsions telling me thst ever one says I safely Can stop. Its just ocd making me feel this. Doing a deliberate thought, doing an exposure of fx thouching people or things and having bad thoughts. I have to do this many times a day. I have a picture of my kids where I need to hold my hands on top and have bad thoughts (this is a horrible one). Go into a Church thinking my kids will be taken. Refocus, dont ruminate or Google. Testing my thoughts like if I Think that my husband will break his leg in 2 minutes and then see if it happened. And so on. Delay the compulsion then you forget.

But as you Can imagine it is painful and I really struggle with full force touching my kids transfering thoughts of such horrible things, I went to my late grandmas House and grave yesterday, I did better than expected but I could not do the exposures right, I avoided, It was too painful to have to run the risk. Stupid of me. There are no risk.

So some days I am better at trying than others. But as you Can imagine its so horrible having to Think this. I just want to love my kids free of those thoughts and feel safe and feel the Real thing that they are never going to be taken, adopted or seperated from me.

[Guest takeacti0n]

Sodovka, thanks for the love and the kind words. I appreciate it...

My main theme for about five years centered around harming loved ones. It completely changed everything for me, I went from a person full of love and being happy to consumed by fear and doubt. I didn't know what was going on with me and I remember just doing whatever I could to get rid of the thoughts (before I knew anything about OCD and the correct way to go about therapy). I would mainly obsess about hurting loved ones, but before that OCD was probably always present. When I was young I would have reoccurring nightmares/thoughts about people breaking into the house every night and would always go to my parents room and sleep with them (seeking reassurance). This went on until I was probably about 13 or until I realised I had the strength to fight off an attacker but I still slept with a baseball bat by my bed everynight. The fears were irrational as we have never had a breakin and lived in a very well secured neighbourhood. Eventually I just maned up and accepted them and they slowly faded away.

Then the OCD took hold when I was in university and everytime I was driving I got reoccurring images/thoughts/ugres to serve my car into oncoming traffic...this bothered me a lot but I was able to realise that I would never do that and it went away...It still bothered me and I had no idea what was going on, but I was able to just shake it off.

By far the hardest one for me to handle was the Harm OCD that came about and is still something I am handling today. I was out fishing on a boat with my dad when I was 21 and we were filleting fish using a knife and the thought popped in my head what if I stab my dad right now...It freaked me the **** out and the obsessions and Pure-O Compulsions began revolving knifes. I couldn't be in the kitchen around a knife, I would wake up in the middle of the night wondering If i would stab my parents while they were sleeping. This knife/harm obsession literally wrapped around me 24/7...everything I did I was worried about it. In the middle of working out the thoughts would come on so strong and I would start to panic and have to stop working out...and just engage in something to take my mind off of things.

This went on for about 5 years, with on and off intensity until I was 26 and I took magic mushrooms. I had a bad trip in which I thought I was losing my mind, and hence the schizophrenia theme began and has been with me for he past year and a half. The obsessions were about hearing voices, losing my mind, paranoia, but lately its been around hallucinating. I know rationally its just another theme, but this one has really freaked me out because I think what if that person is a demon and then I will literally "see" the person become a demon in front of me. I know its all in my mind but it can quite convincing.

I am going to start leading from my heart and leaning into my fears. We can do this...We can get over this. All of us. I am going to do ERP everyday and not run anymore.

Himmel, you have the strength to get over this! And I've heard Denmark is beautiful, I was dating a girl from Denmark for a little while...I'd love to visit sometime.

Sorry for the rambling, just wanted to get all of it off my chest. <3

Edited September 6, 2015 by takeacti0n

[Guest Himmel]

Hi takeaction

What kind of ERP are you doing? What do you do against the thoughts of harm and those of demons?

You have shifted themes like I, and it is strange that we cant see its ocd everytime and just let it go. Like everyone writes here, we have the tools, so why do we keep doing compulsions?

You have a supernatural theme like demons,, and I too have a theme that is not based in reality and can never happen. How do you go against this? And Arent you amazed that ocd can make you believe in this? I assume that you experience that there might be demons and really feel it could be real right?