Jump to content

All Activity

This stream auto-updates     

  1. Today
  2. PolarBear

    Back again

    PolarBear replied to don't know's topic in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

    You are only wasting your time. You spend all your time figuring this out and you get nowhere with it. That is a hallmark of OCD. You don't have to be anxious. You spend so much time trying to convince yourself this isn't OCD but that just strengthens the evidence that it is.
  3. taurean

    Lightbulb Moment

    taurean replied to Lost_in_a_Dark_Maze's topic in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

    Don't think of it as "back to square one" - falling down all the snakes without being able to climb onto a ladder. That approach is defeatist. Think of it more as a temporary blip, with normal service to be resumed again shortly. And those intrusions - well they are just "my silly obsessions" - not to be believed, not to be thoughts with which you connect. This should halt the fall, enable you to grab the ladder, and climb back up to the gain line
  4. dksea

    Back again

    dksea replied to don't know's topic in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

    This is what OCD does, it fills us with doubt. Again, very common in OCD, more doubt. "But my situation isn't the same..." is a common refrain heard from people with OCD who doubt they have OCD. Also perfectly common thinking in someone with OCD. You are making a faulty conclusion: Having these thoughts means X. You are ascribing meaning to something without considering the myriad of other possibilities. Black and white thinking. Very typical in OCD. I understand how frustrating and scary this can be, pretty much all of us here do, because we have been there. Any frustration we feel is not because you post a lot, its because we want you to feel better, we want to help you, but we keep seeing you choose the path that leads to more suffering. Its like this, you are standing in a hallway. Trapped. Its hot, its loud, its uncomfortable. You want to get out! There are two doors, one to your left, one to your right. The one to your left has no obstacles in front of it, nothing in the way, all you have to do is walk through it. The one to your right is harder to get to, you have to climb over some obstacles, do some physical work, it looks hard. Which door should you choose? It seems obvious right? But we are in the crowd, we are telling you, desperately shouting for you to choose the door on the right, because we know whats on the other side of the doors, we can see it because we have already been through the same maze. We know that if you go through the door on the left it will lead to another hallway just like this one, only a little hotter, a little more unpleasant, and the obstacles to the exit will be a little harder. We know the door on the right leads to the exit. It leads to a less hot, less humid, less unpleasant hallway. That if you keep going to the right eventually you'll get out. We are frustrated and sad because we keep seeing you choose the door on the left, the seemingly easy path that just leads to more suffering. We keep watching you make the same mistakes over and over and there's little we can do about it. We can keep trying to tell you to go to the door on the right, but we can't make you. So yes, the recovery path is a hard path, its challenging, it will not be easy, especially at first, but the alternative is to not just continue suffering as you have been but for that suffering to get worse. We understand, really we do, how painful and real the doubt and anxiety you feel is. You don't think you have anxiety? Its crystal clear to me you do! You say it yourself "You hate this", you post here constantly about how much you don't want this to be true. If you didn't feel anxiety, if you didn't feel doubt, you wouldn't be here, you would be happy. You wouldn't care. Literally everything about your behavior on this forum matches what we have seen from ourselves, and from other sufferers of OCD. All of it. You may doubt it, but I don't. Polar Bear doesn't. Which leads to two possibilities: 1. You have OCD 2. You don't have OCD but are a highly skilled actress who is incredibly well informed about OCD and OCD behavior, enough so that you can masquerade as an OCD sufferer on this forum and fool all of us into believing you have OCD. For the record my money is on #1. If you were as skilled an actress as it takes to pull of this level of ruse, you'd be a super Hollywood star by now, not spending all this time posting on a forum on the internet. So take the leap of faith, decide, that for now at least, you are going to treat this as OCD. If it turns out that it is OCD (which it is, trust me) you'll get the treatment you need and take the steps you can to get better. Life will improve for you. If it turns out to NOT be OCD (very doubtful) then you'll still learn valuable skills and it won't make your life anyworse. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by treating this as OCD. And you don't have to be certain that its OCD to do the work! You just have to decide to do it. Decide to, for now, treat this as OCD. If you wait until you are 100% certain about this (or anything) you'll wait forever and continue suffering. Don't do that, don't let yourself suffer any longer than you have to. You have the power to change this, one day, one step at a time. Why not start now?
  5. Lost_in_a_Dark_Maze

    Lightbulb Moment

    Lost_in_a_Dark_Maze replied to Lost_in_a_Dark_Maze's topic in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

    I seem to have lost the insight I had now and am back to square one. Feeling rather foolish.
  6. dksea
    Honestly thats probably the best idea at this point. 19 pages in and we are exactly where we were on page 1.
  7. dksea
    Phil, this entire post is more rumination, more compulsion. You keep describing your thoughts and how you continue to think about these questions. You need to stop trying to answer them. You need to make a choice.
  8. don't know

    Back again

    don't know replied to don't know's topic in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

    Yeah, sorry for wasting everyones time. I don't know anything anymore. I never feel like this is ocd. It feels like this is who I am. I don't know, maybe it was repression and now this is what I have to do now. Or do I actually want to do those things? I don't know. A family member hugged me and I felt something, that I backed away quickly. I'm trying to see the difference between me and someone who's into this type of stuff. I don't activiely think this stuff or 'like' it. So, it would mean that I'm not into it. But, others have suddenly felt into it or felt empty or asexual until they got off to the idea of it. Is that me? I hate this! I wish I had some type of anxiety because I don't and it feels real. Why am I saying it feels it probably is and I don't know what to do. I don't want to do these things but is that what I'm supposed to say? You know people don't know until a lot later and they think they are normal. Was that me? Also I keep getting 'groinal responses' it doesn't feel like arousal but it happens instantly and is different. Was I feeling arousal differently? Was I blinded by society expectations? I could honestly not say. I'm a freak, and I'm sorry for wasting everyone's time.
  9. Yesterday
  10. malina
    Phil, OCD is about control and afraid of losing it. Of course you're afraid that you're not in control because it's the nature of your condition. I worry about this stuff too. The more you allow yourself to think about it, the more anxious you will be. Accep that it's OCD and stop ruminating, that is the only thing that will help.
  11. taurean
    What you can do Phil is resist those compulsions and ride out the pull of them and the resultant anxiety. I should think that everyone who has managed to recover from OCD, myself included, has had this challenging battle to face - and by hook or by crook and a lot of dedication and determination, done so. I can recall times I felt half dead from anxiety, yet still picked myself up and got myself to my therapy session. It's up to us to do the homework, tackle the exposures, change our thinking and our behavioural response. No therapist can do it for us. And it saddens helpers here when, as often happens, we have given lots of help and advice yet the sufferer seems frozen in time - like a rabbit in the headlights - seemingly unable to apply that advice, do the work, make those changes. Phil you know what to do.Aside from guidance and homework from your therapist, it's all been given here. There isn't more guidance to give. Sympathy of course - but you have to wean yourself off those compulsions. You know they make OCD worse, strengthen it, encourage it. It isn't the therapy that isn't working. The therapy does work - as I know well. But only if we steadfastly keep working it, reducing compulsions, carrying out exposure, learning to refocus instead of carrying out compulsions, make the changes. You can do this Phil. We all can.
  12. PolarBear

    Happy New Year! Update

    PolarBear replied to ocdsufferer85's topic in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

    Yup, and you keep doing it until the words lose their sting.
  13. PolarBear
    We give you support Phil. I don't know what you're looking for but we guve you and everyone else fact-based strategies to get past this. You come back with this long diary of qhat OCD is up to today and what compulsions you've done or contemplated. What support are you looking for?
  14. PolarBear

    Back again

    PolarBear replied to don't know's topic in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

    Well, bluegas... You say 'if posting numerous times helps...' It doesn't. Not in this way. And how numerous is too numerous? I've been around for five years and I can tell you that there are people posting the same things today as they were five years ago. And hundreds of times in between. They're stuck. We want to get them unstuck and out of their OCD cycle. Those of us who have been here a while can recognize when someone is spinning their wheels and we urge them to change course. Reassurance is bad. Period. In the beginning, a little is okay but at some point, after X months or years, as a helper, you have to realize you are enabling the disorder and not helping the sufferer. Hardline? I suppose. Know that every person here was or is a sufferer. We were all the hamster on the OCD wheel. And our words never come with anger. We do this because we want to help. And because we know there is a way out. I talk very plainly and factually. It's not what some people want to hear. I try to tell them what they need to hear. It's too bad you think you'll suffer forever. It doesn't have to be that way.
  15. Phil10
    Yes I have issues I rebuy iron boards, rebuy rucksacks and don’t feel any relief I don’t know if I will take them back or what I will do. I feel frustrated the therapy isn’t having any effect people say be patient but the reality is it might not work. I can’t seem to stop myself buying stuff I mean yes I post when I have worries but I also need some support because I am battling away and needing help to try and cope with this.
  16. don't know

    Back again

    don't know replied to don't know's topic in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

    Yeah, I just don't know. I feel as though I don't match up with anyone and I'm just genuinly confused over this. I don't want to do these things but again why would they be there. I was in one of my classes and they were talking about repression and they said that it builds up until you can't ignore it anymore. Is this me? I don't know my real feelings anymore. Am I into all this stuff and I'm not acknowledging it? I was also watching something that had one of my 'triggers' and I felt really conscious of all my movements and everything. I felt like people were thinking that was me. I don't know really. I understand how frustrating it is to see me constantly posting. But, the thing is having ocd doesn't necessarily mean that this is why it is happening. It's like even the touch of something makes me go into questioning - doesn't matter who it is. I thought I had gotten over this! I don't know my feelings anymore and I'm scared.
  17. bluegas

    Back again

    bluegas replied to don't know's topic in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

    Hi I don’t think you should apologise . This is after all a mental health forum where we all struggle and if posting numerous times helps then so be it !!I’m sure people mean well but I’m not sure if I agree with some of the hard line approach that I often see on here. Advice is easy to give when your coming from a Better place. As much as I agree reassurance is a very bad idea to give somebody with ocd they still need to feel understood so the only advice I can give you is just try to accept your thoughts instead of fighting them. Easy for me to say!! It’s only taken me 20 years but I to suffer with sexual themes and I always needed to have them resolved which just made them 100x worse . I now except that I will have ocd for ever and these horrible thoughts will always be there but I have more piece of mind this way than ever before. It’s not easy but it dose get easier. Stay strong 💪
  18. taurean started following Why Me? - And Why The What Ifs?
  19. taurean
    So often we come across people on the bulletin boards here bewailing the fact that they have OCD, and treating it like a life sentence. Well it's not a nice illness to have, that's true. But to answer the question, since around 1% of the population experience significant OCD at some time in their lives, then why shouldn't we only too easily be one of those? So why not me? When we suffer from OCD we will very likely encounter "what if" questions. In fact, once we learn how OCD works in the cognitive side of OCD, we start to associate OCD as being behind those "what Ifs" and that helps us to see the issue as OCD - to "uncloak" it. How do we get to grips with a what if question? Simple. Once we recognise that it is signalling an OCD origin, we look for the OCD false exaggerated or revulsive core belief that underpins it. Then we open it up and show it to be the work of OCD - it won't escape the CBT approach applied to it. CBT turns a "what if?" question into a what is statement, with the guts of the OCD opened up and laid bare, like a dissection. OCD is not a life sentence - it is a common or garden mental illness affecting the masses - and modern clinical psychological methods can help us recover from , or at least manage, it.
  20. taurean

    I have been so busy this week that I reckon I have already achieved what would normally take a whole week! 

  21. taurean
    Phil again let's say you don't need to use the thread as a compulsion, to write down all your intrusions here If you carry on doing so it is likely the moderators will close the thread. Let me just say now that carrying out compulsions empowers not diminishes OCD. So we do need to trim them right down, then stop them. One of the commonest forms of compulsion is rumination, and here is a quotation I came across which sums up why this is worthless in tackling OCD. "The word ‘rumination’ comes from what cows do when they digest grass: they chew it again and again before they swallow it, and it doesn’t end there: they then bring it back up … and chew it again. That’s what we do: a lifetime of chewing"
  22. Orwell1984
    You need to shift your mindset. Compulsions are never a good thing. Compulsions make the obsessions stronger Your obsessions are now so strong BECAUSE OF THE COMPULSIONS. Your compulsions will not take away the anxiety anymore and won't seem to take it away even for a short time. The compulsions will however CONTINUE to make your obsessions stronger and more horrific. The only way to stop this whole thing is to stop doing the compulsions.
  23. Phil10
    Yeah I mean I had a breakdown in 2016 and I never wanted to get out of bed felt like giving up and felt I needed pushed around to get by. I get what you are saying I can’t give in to the ocd and I have to believe I have my own mind. Logically it would defeat all science and purpose of life. Life would have no meaning if it was all controlled. And if there was a god why would I be telling everybody? Is everybody controlled? Is it just me? I seen a video on YouTube which says it takes a lot more to believe stuff doesn’t exist than does. Some of my ocd has become a little abstract I’m worrying about more questions that few ask, my compulsions are failing again very little litriture of this online. It’s like an ocd bully continues to beat me down. I’m guessing you don’t believe the world is all preplanned and controlled? Perhaps this theory can be placed in the flat earthers list or did a celebrity really die conspiracy theory. And logically not every conspiracy theory in life can be true and so many lack evidence and are only based on lack of 100% certainty.
  24. Phil10
    Also I left the house with a whole list of ocd today.. Did I lock the door? Was the toilet blocked? Was my clean t shirt dirty? Was my clean socks dirty? Are my thoughts controlled? and I wore old shoes just in case, washed my hands a few times, avoided trying new shoes on, then the rucksack issue and I worried if I touched it my hands were dirty anyway. So yes it is tiring having ocd that’s my average routine right now..not great
  25. Phil10
    Thanks yes it may be a bit of magical thinking going on. I don’t really get what that means with ocd though. But yes it’s defo ocd at work here. Challenging the thoughts is hard perhaps writing it down will help challenge them. But yes I hope it gets better soon the existence questions really trouble me but I guess as I see with all ocd whatever the topic the anxiety seems to be the same.
  26. Phil10
    So I replaced the rucksack sadly my relief was short lived as my partner went near the bin on the train with the shopping bag and new rucksack. This is the issue at the moment doing compulsions have failed. I was tempted to return the bag but so far resisted the urge.. The iron board issue hasn’t gone away I’m still using the old one determined to still buy a new one however after taking two back and 3 irons my relief may be short lived. I have spoke to my theripst about it and also read books there doesn’t seem to be much information on compulsions failing and this is very new to me in past few months. I can only assume as my ocd is that bad it’s not working? So yeah I’m looking for this rucksack to be perfect but like the iron boards I’m going through too many and in the end I just need a rucksack for the job so I can’t keep replacing?
  27. jamie2011

    In need of help

    jamie2011 replied to jamie2011's topic in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

    Oh, not feeling great. I initially felt good to be having contact with my sibling and being open, but now I feel like I made a mistake by being more open. They asked me what I wanted out of life, I said the things I wish to do and they said all of this is possible. At has just hit me really badly. Because my mood had been better, had changed the routine, eating better, thinking more positively, I had kind of forgotten about the anxiety around things. So some of the things that I would like are employment/study/travel/relationship/Have children. I don't know why, but I had completely dismissed these this past week. Relationship - I can't live with anyone (contamination issues), no kissing/physical contact (contamination issues) Children - Obviously with no relationship/physical contact I wouldn't have my own child. If I did have children I wouldn't cope if they were ill (contamination issues). Employment/Study - Worry about travelling, needing the toilet, leaving my belongings anywhere not near me, contamination issues, anxiety around others (performance/having a conversation) It has just hit me and right now I have become very aware that by trying to look forward I have now started to think about illness/injury/dying (myself and others). I knew at some point this was going to hit me and now I regret opening up. My mood has just dipped big time and the hopelessness has set in. I just wanted to connect with those around me and move on with my life. Not what I wanted to happen. I am now fearful that I won't make the changes that I need to live life and do the things that I want to do. This is just a mess now.
  28. ocdsufferer85

    Happy New Year! Update

    ocdsufferer85 replied to ocdsufferer85's topic in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

    Horrible being made to think things I really don't want to, and the fear that if I do God is mad. But I really don't want the thoughts and dont mean them which is why I'm afraid I feel horrible and I have to replay it over and over and over
  1. Load more activity

  • Newsletter

    Want to keep up to date with all our latest news and information?

    Sign Up
×