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Sodovka

Bulletin Board User
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  • OCD Status
    Sufferer

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    USA

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  1. NicoletteCB, sorry to hear you’ve been struggling with health related themes. Those can feel really terrible, like all OCD. I can only really speak about my own experience, but I have found that it’s been really helpful to be on an SSRI, and I’ve been on a number of different ones over the past 24 years. There are definitely some side effects for a lot of people, but I believe they are a part of the solution for many of us. I’m currently on duloxetine 60 mg per day but I’ve also taken paroxetine, sertraline, and some others. My only advice is to make sure you go to a psychiatrist who understands something about OCD, because that has been the most helpful for me.
  2. I’m so sorry you’re feeling bad, BelAnna. It sounds like you’ve been having some good times lately, which is great. My advice is always the same, and I struggle to take it myself, but I would say that mindful acceptance of the bad things you might have done and the other bad things that might occur as a result is the first step. So I’ll just recognize that they’re coming up and get back to whatever you were doing before. I know that when my mind gets fixated on an obsession if I refuse to argue with it or even have a conversation in my head about it, I start to feel better quickly. Later, if you’re working with a therapist, you can try exposure and response prevention to tackle these fears even more. Hope this helps!
  3. So sorry to see you’re struggling, VoidSeeker. My best advice is to always try to do what your OCD tells you not to/don’t do what it tells you to. This weakens the disorder’s power. If it’s engaging with content about a hobby you like, keep doing that. I know how much it sucks when you’re deep in an obsession so I hope that eases up for you.
  4. Thanks for your thoughtful response, lostinme. I probably wasn't clear in my question. My problem is how to handle intrusive thoughts in the "right" way. Some therapists encourage sufferers to expose ourselves to the fear by imagining it even worse than the OCD does. For example, you'd say "I probably did swallow the pin and I'm about to die right now!" to shock the OCD into submission. Some therapists might encourage a gentler approach like telling yourself "could be" or "that might happen" before returning to your life. I struggle because I get into getting the perfect response. I'm seeing now what the problem may be...
  5. Thanks for your post, and Taurean's that started this off. As someone who's had OCD for 20+ years, it's wonderful to (virtually) meet other survivors like you. Rumination is my biggest issue, but I'm finding it hard to distinguish between what's healthy in accepting my intrusive thoughts and falling into rumination. Working with a new therapist, so hope he can help me on this too, but any advice would be welcome!
  6. Sounds like you and I have a lot in common. I also struggle with harm obsessions and they're awful. But the truth is, the content of your thoughts doesn't matter; what you do about them is what counts. For me, the key is to do exposure and response/ritual prevention (ERP) at least 10 minutes per day, and whenever the obsessions return, to agree with them or let my mind imagine the worst thoughts I have. Just once. Then I get right back to life. This shows my OCD that I'm not going to fight it, but I'm also not going to spend any more time than I have to dealing with it. Does this make sense to you? Happy to explain further if it's useful.
  7. Thanks for the encouraging words, @Danielle_l I've got some good books and resources, though I haven't yet read that book.
  8. Hi Danielle, Welcome to the forum. I haven't been an active user in some time, but it's one of the places I'm turning to now that I'm having a rough spell. There are so many good people on here and I hope you find them and they help to alleviate your loneliness. Boy, can I relate to that and I completely understand the guilt that accompanies your OCD because I have much of it myself. I struggled a lot with relationship-focused OCD when I was first married, which is 18 years ago now. But I made it through that and managed to let go of that to a great extent. My particular fear was saying something I didn't want to say and which would be hurtful to my wife, and I kept obsessing that I would blurt it out and ruin our relationship. I never did, but speaking of someone who's been dealing with this disorder for more than 20 years, I can say that pretty much all my obsessions have been as painful as all the others and the content doesn't matter. What matters is your willingness to accept the uncertainty that OCD tells you is intolerable. I'm telling myself this as much as I'm telling you, so I hope it doesn't come across as condescending. Hope this is in some small way helpful!
  9. I saw a video yesterday on how we can use ACT to live meaningful lives even when we have anxiety. I haven't mastered this skill yet, but I practice a bit every day.
  10. Hi all, I haven't been too active on the forum lately. I wouldn't say it's because I'm completely recovered, but more due to the fact that I've been in the midst of buying a new house, selling an old one, and moving my family to a new town. I seem to have time for the quick social media check-ins that Twitter allows, rather than the more involved discussion threads that this forum facilitates. If you'd like to connect about OCD and see some of the visual memes I've created, please give me a follow and I'll do the same for you. I'm on Twitter at @ArthurMcBride77 Best, Sodovka
  11. Completely agree here. Meds work on the things we cannot change (our biology) while CBT helps us change the way we think and behave.
  12. gamma knife surgery is still in its experimental stages but I believe it shows some promise. I think that here in the US it's necessary to have tried and failed repeatedly at CBT before a doctor will recommend you for the surgery. But I think a cure like this may be only years away, as opposed to centuries. A guy can dream, right?
  13. Love to see all these positive posts. I am definitely still a sufferer but I have gotten more or less over OCD before and I hope to do it again. Which brings me to a question for you all: how do u avoid falling into an OCD episode? I find that without doing any compulsions, or at least any I'm aware of, I just start feeling that familiar old dread in the pit of my stomach. And it's like I'm spiraling downward into what I know will be a pit of despair. It might only last a few hours but it could drag on for days, even though I'm doing my best not to compulse. It feels like an outside force takes over my body-mind and I can do things that will help but I can't make the awful feelings go away immediately, and so I have to call myself a sufferer.
  14. Just a quick note to say what a great thread I think this is. My two cents: I think you all have defined compulsions well. Jeffrey Schwartz is criticized a lot by experts here in the USA because the Four Steps (particularly the first one) become compulsive rather easily. All you have to do is doubt you actually have OCD, and you're off to the races. If you take that first step as gospel, you are locking into certainty that can create a nasty OCD feedback loop. That said, I can see how taurean could find this method highly useful/effective, as long as he's using it the way Schwartz probably intended it.
  15. My friend who is a sufferer swears that ACT is as powerful as CBT, and is in some ways, an extension of CBT. However, I also got lost in the complexities of the literature on it, so can't say from firsthand experience how effective it is. As far as I'm concerned, it's worth exploring and I intend to do so, but for now, I'm going to keep doing ERP because that's been the best treatment I've had yet.
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