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A man of your advancing years is allowed a life outside of the charity. [ ] No shame in needing to reschedule now and then. Own it and be happy.

Snowbear, don't give my secrets away, I can't fib and pretend it's for official work business now. lol

Is there anything that triggered this obsession with you cat's health and activities? You said you have been diagnosed with anxiety and depression, is there any reason why you are focusing so much on your cat? Cats are resilient and often seem to know exactly what they need to heal themselves.

Thanks Ashley - very helpful advice

I've just started doing some research(out of my own curiosity) into long term use of anti depressants and other medications. Firstly by going to manufacturers sites and reading the common and less common side effects. The indication is that long term use is okay, but from a sceptical point of view, the body and mind utilise a complex range of chemicals and I wonder how the balance is affected long term. Also it's patients themselves who take these long term that are the ongoing study group. So if you can try to organise some therapy, possibly a psychiatrist, and try to reduce your reliance on paroxetine. Because there are long term problems with using most medications in that they can damage organs they pass through and where they are excreted via the liver or kidneys. My GP just asked me if I'd be interested in taking and ACE inhibitor, but after visiting manufacturers site, seeing side effects, I've decided to try a series of natural alternatives. Also just picking up on something @Angst said, I realised that many mental health problems in countries are as a result of whole generations suffering the worst traumas possible, not getting the right help and being unable to talk about it(or even advised not to), which then perpetuates mental health problem through following generations. Which is another reason that greater resources need to be aimed at mental health services.

I'm going to put in one vote for Wednesdays if possible please. But I'll try to attend whatever day it is and appreciate some months it does have to change day to accomodate your other commitments. [ ]

I totally get that. We were both in 12 year relationships before we met (spooky I know) and I got cheated on at the end so I know where my trust issues come from. My partner would never cheat on me as he knows what we have both been through and I know this deep in my heart. I wish I could listen to that instead of my head when situations like this arrise

Handy, how does this help Cam? Even if you're talking about the 'rose-tinted spectacles' effect of being in love, your response implies that Cam's problem is based in a lack of trust. It isn't. He has OCD. His thinking is skewed, and he does compulsive behaviours to reduce the anxiety that skewed thinking creates. I know you mean well, but please try to keep in mind that this scientific stuff you like about the workings of different parts of the brain aren't always relevant. It's OCD that is the real problem.

If I remember right, you've had therapy? Did you cover catastrophic thinking and look at alternative thinking styles?

Your poor cat! All those unnecessary blood tests. This is classical OCD. You treat it with CBT. First off, you need to identify ALL your compulsions (monitoring, googling, asking for tests, and probably ruminating, mentally checking etc) and then resist doing any compulsions. Easy said, not always easy to do. So you most likely also need to do some cognitive work to change your thinking around this as well. A good self-help book will explain how to apply CBT yourself, and if that doesn't help you can ask to be referred for CBT with a therapist who will guide you through the process. There are lots of books to choose from which you can check out and read up on here. Or you could read some forum posts to get the idea and try applying what you learn to your own specific theme. (Theme doesn't matter, the process is the same.)

Yes, good advice. I shall keep well away from the library, and be busy doing other things which I have planned. As you say going to view the documentary will be a compulsion, reassurance seeking, and could set me back to Square 1 again.

I am 51 !!! Can’t believe it 😂 either day is fine

I didn't relish hitting 50 either, it sounds terribly grown up 😂 I still feel 25 but when I look in the mirror I realise that I'm really not lol. Either Tues or Weds are fine with me. Cheers

I find that too. As soon as an actual problem comes up, the hypothetical ones seem insignificant.

Me too... im not handling it well and was in denial but the team got me a 50 balloon for the office to remind me Joking aside, I will set the first group up, I am away in April but will see if I can squeeze in, if not perhaps for early May. Any preference for what evening of the week people prefer. I usually do a Tue or Wed.

It sounds as if your therapy consists of medication without any talk therapy (good talk therapy includes doing therapy) such as CBT. It is understandable as you were in crisis and attended a psychiatric ward. Under such circumstances medication tends to be prescribed answer as it can steady a person. Also as medication resulted in a ‘cure’ in the past it is natural that the doctors would recommend an increase in the dose. I am not advocating that you should not up your dose. Far from it but it should be accompanied by therapy. I believe that stress can aggravate a mental health problem or cause a mental health problem. An example at the extreme end of the stress spectrum - many soldiers and civilians in war have long lasting psychiatric problems.

Looking through his phone infers you two have trust stuff you need to work on. I don't believe you can blame OCD for the phone snooping. A lot of people do it that don't have OCD but do have trust stuff needing work. First 2 months of a relationship the brain turns off the amygdala, or red flag center, & by month 3 it's back on & red flags appear.

I think number 1 . The problems are all real , but that’s the nature of my ocd . It’s all real but where everyone else is calm or indifferent my mind goes to the worst outcome and I break down in fear, fear of it been my fault . I know I have to learn to respond differently but I just don’t know how . thank you snow bear you haven’t hijacked pepper , it’s good if a post can help others too .

Hello everyone, I've been diagnosed with anxiety several times but never with OCD. I've been on prozac for looong years and here it goes. Focus of my "thing" (can't tell if it's considered OCD) is mainly my cat. About all the time I'm awake I'm observing her behaviours. How often and how much she eats, how often she poops and pees, how long she sleeps and how playful she is etc. I'm keeping a track on all these and with the slightest change I'm all down. e.g. she pooped at 13:00 one day and if she doesn't poop at 13:00 the day after, I start googling "how often should cats poop" "why doesnt my cat poop in 24 hours" etc etc. It goes the same with how much she eats, how many mililitres she pees. as if that isn't enough, I read academical veterinary articles and try to make a diagnosis. When I'm home, I spent almost all my time observing her and find it hard to function sometimes. When I'm not home, I'm checking on her through petcam every 30 mins. I make excuses for taking her to vet like every 3 months and ask for bloodwork. Anyone had the same thing? How did you manage?

This was me to a Tee. I am still a work in progress, but I'm now able to let go of most grudges in an instant and shrug off a lot of stuff that once used to drive me crazy with the sense of injustice and anger it created in me. I started to change my response after (separately) coming across mindfulness and positive psychology. The mindfulness taught me to live in the present (instead of the past) and the positive psychology taught me how to generate positive feelings on a whim so I can choose how I want to feel and am not at the mercy of what's just happened to me. I also learned about metta meditation - sending good wishes out into the universe for those who have hurt you. Truth be told, the first time I heard about it I rolled my eyes and thought ''yeah, yeah...psychology '' But after about 2 years I revisted the idea and discovered it genuinely works! Exactly the same as forgiveness works, it's all about changing how you feel and nothing whatsoever to do with the other person or what they have done. Just thought that might be of interest if you're looking for somewhere to start with changing things.

Thanks for the response Snowbear. I know it sounds petty but it feels very personal. I get that people restrict what strangers can see on social media for security reasons but to restrict a close family member (but not other family members) can only be taken as personal. She said it was an error so I accepted that on the surface, but deep down don't believe it to be and now will have a problem with forgiving and forgetting going forward probably. I do agree though that I am holding on to lots of hurt and disappointment from the past and getting overly angry at anyone's misdemeanours now. I need to change this mindset for my own happiness and peace of mind. What hurts is that I am always mindful of the feelings of others, I hate hurting anyone, but find so many people do not reciprocate this decency. I need to learn to put my happiness first and accept that not everyone has the same moral compass as me. Not particularly talking about this incident but lots of stuff in the past. I am in therapy for my OCD and GAD and it's going pretty well but I do have a tendency to hold on to grudges, i literally have a list in my head of everyone that has wronged me or hurt me and the list seems fairly long at times. I make things really big in my head and can shut off feelings for people when they hurt me, i dont think I am wrong for feeling upset with things that have gone before but I know i need to let go of so much negatively for my own sake. I ruminate lots, I am getting better but still struggle to let things go and get quite angry alot. Really though, beneath the anger is quite a bit of pain at how shallow and unkind so many people can be. Thanks for listening

I first had ocd when I was about 24 , I had the constant worry of being gay ,it was like the worst nightmare for me ( no offence gay folks out there) it's just the way it started with me I would just constantly be going around and around in my head non stop , I turned to alcohol and drugs which just made the symptoms worse after , it got so bad that I wanted to take my own life but couldn't because I had a partner and a child ,but life was like a living nightmare you all know what it's like ,I went to the doctor and after a trip in a mental hospital because I couldn't cope I was referred to Dr noamie fighnburg and she put me on paroxetine 60 mg after two or three months my symptoms pretty much went away so long story short ( or not !! ) I said I was over it or cured but like in the post complacency is a big boo boo , I'm 48 next birthday and it's come back , I think we'll know why !! I've been dealing with a lot of stress over the last probably 4 or 5 years probably more and it's culminated into ocd symptoms being really bad , I never completely came off paroxetine I was on 20mg for years then 30mg for a while with other supplements like n a c and cannabis gumming and another one which I can't remember now sorry , I recently went back to the doctors and asked to raise my dose which I already had done now I'm on 50mg but I'm going to go up to 60mg ,that's the highest dose and I'm praying it works this time , is anyone else on meds ? Hope there's some peace for everyone

I don’t want to hyjack so please tell me if not allowed. But I’m literally experience number 2 right not and I KNOW it’s not OCD because I’m dealing with a real thing that happened. So maybe that’s how you know the difference, if you’re asking the question it’s probably number 1 right?

@determination987 hi determination, thank you so much for taking the time for this reply, it really helped me put things into perspective. Funnily enough I’ve had a lot of work stress the last couple of days and that means I’ve had minimal thoughts about my ‘theme’, makes me feel it isn’t real anyway. Or that my brain is at a level of stress where no other thought can get in lol!