Ashley

But as you know, this need not be a permanent state. So life may seem grim today, but none of us know what tomorrow or next week or next year holds.

Well done Billy, that is one of the hardest things to do in my opinion, the initial opening up. I think with the gP you don't need to say too much, just tell them you have OCD and need help (through CBT) for it. But when you start talking with a therapist you may be able to gauge by the way they talk about OCD and the questions they ask if they truly understand it. If they do, then that should facilitate you being able to talk openly, and hopefully that will lead to the therapist understanding your problems to be able to help you. If you are unsure perhaps you can start by talking about other aspects of your OCD that you have and you feel are safe to talk about, and mention you have unwanted intrusive thoughts to gauge their reaction. When people tell me that on the helpline I try and help them out by showing I understand by asking if it's a violent or sexual nature and other questions, depending how they answer. Every time I have done this, I can sense the relief in the person knowing I understand it. If you really are not feeling with with the therapist you can perhaps go back to the GP and ask them if they refer you to another therapist and try again. Sometimes people say they want to speak to a male/female instead because they feel more comfortable with that sex. Not ideal to switch therapists, but sometimes works. Let us know how you get on Ashley.

Hi Annie, I do understand why you are feeling uncertain with this, but I am guessing by the fact you have asked the question you are partly thinking this is your OCD talking, is that right? What are your thoughts? Ashley

Her opinion is fine, not one I agree with, but her opinion, the mental illness part is wrong though which I will come to in a moment. Not sure I agree with you Lynz, whilst I am not a royalist, I don't accept that those that are and showing respect to someone should be considered embarrassing? Happy to debate that point on a non OCD part of the forum. But back to your question Felix, the 'mental illness' part really is concerning and not really the correct action of a professional working in mental health, so I might be tempted to raise it with their professional body conduct and leave to them to decide if they have broken any rules. Some of the BPS psychologists comments you see on Twitter are questionable on various subjects, especially when it comes to diagnostic labels it's become embarrassing to see professionals argue so publicly and some totally disregard service user groups opinions, especially over the use of the label OCD which the majority find helpful. But ultimately are their opinions so not much an ethics body could look at there I suspect. It would make me not want to see them though.

Yes, I reported on it in the magazine.

The only people really bigging this up as a treatment for OCD are the TMS companies themselves. In all the articles and stories you read about TMS it's the same one or two gentleman being interviewed as it helping. I am not sure it's widely suggested as a treatment, other then the TMS companies. It's important to be open to new research, but I personally would not recommend it based off the research pieces I have seen so far. Maybe others may comment differently.

The problem is that OCD will latch onto 'what if it was illegal', rather than it was illegal and I must report it. So such links, although well-meaning, are unhelpful in this situation. I am not really clear what advice you are looking for. Ultimately it's the OCD that is causing the problem as you mention, so if you have had treatment for OCD try and treat it like any other obsession using the CBT techniques, the therapy principle remains the same to try and identify what the fear would mean to you and why it bothers you so much, and then look to challenge it by, well carrying on! Not something I thought I would ever write in my OCD forum! Morally, some people would suggest that is a fair comment/advice. OCD wise it would be avoidance I guess

Sorry just seen your post and shooting off out in a moment, but I wanted to reply and say I will try and come back to you in the week with some links to presentations that could be helpful and any other advice I can offer. But on the quoted point, I hear this a lot with adults too sometimes and the first thing I always think of is has the person ever heard or spoken to someone with OCD who is making progress, even if not better yet, to see that things can improve and people do improve can be so helpful in changing such mindsets

If your are unsure if something is OCD or not, then the golden rule is to assume it is OCD and try not to engage in what OCD is wanting. Easier said than done I know. By taking this approach does not mean it will automatically reinforce OCD at all, and is actually an attempt to stand up tot he OCD. Of course it wont always work, but like many others I have found the approach helpful to recogonise actually that is an OCD thought/behaviour.

You are right, the family are thew forgotten sufferers sometimes. Of course it does vary from family to family, but there would certainly be benefits if the close family members are involved in therapy sometimes (learning what to do and what not to do). However, often this can't happen without the adult giving permission due to confidentiality issues. The NHS does involve parents of children a little more, and we offer workshops for parents of children (CAMHS age) too which was lottery funded, but sadly due to expire soon. We are trying to get a presentation together for family members for our online annual conference and we have alos hosted a couple of support groups for family members recently too. None of that is enough, but a start If you feel that your mental health is suffering then in theory you can request counselling/therapy through your local mental health service (IAPT). They won't be able to talk about your son, but can talk about how you are feeling. I can always look up your local therapy service should you want me to. We are actually redesigning our call to action on the NHS and we will include action for families too. Ashley.

It was, but I didn't want to say

I am sure it was perhaps well-meaning, but I am not sure offering somebody with OCD and where the relationship is entangled with OCD the link to a random you tuber offering relationship advice is helpful so I have removed the suggestion.

Well done on this progress Paul, that's amazing and sorry the news as stalled you. If you can, ignore the news and focus on your amazing progress and see if you can go even further with it if you feel you want to. What I mean... I don't know if this helps you or not, but I have had an issue this year in the charity office where I realised I was checking the door lock multiple times, walking away then going back to check. I then found if I tried to check once, I would check multiple times. But actually, locking the door and walking away weirdly gave me less anxiety than just checking the door once. So now I turn the key and walk away 9/10 times. Get the odd blip, but mainly all good. Anyway, checking once is still great and I hope this news doesn't get in the way of your continued success

In your case, but a compulsion is a compulsion and checking a lock or a smart lock just once is a compulsion and OCD. As Polarbear says, some people will be inclined to check their smart lock on their phone. So getting a smart lock because you're a tech geek (like me) is fine. Getting it because of OCD is a compulsion and more likely to make the problem worse, not better.

Hello, Sorry I did not see this before. Due to the workshops delegate participation we can not record them, however I believe Zoe will be shortly launching a new series of online parents webinars for those unable to attend. These wont be recorded, but will be online webinars, free to access (until December) that people can attend from anywhere in the UK.# Ashley