Ashley

I love this question Andrea.... can I borrow this on the charity's social media channels? Unfortunately I can not answer because my answer is of an adult nature 🤣

I look forward to hopefully chatting to one or two of our Edinburgh based friends this Sunday. I have the biggest and heaviest suitcase full of leaflets and booklets I have to get on the train somehow and across Edinburgh tomorrow

Ok, so we have uploaded the conference agenda today to - https://www.ocduk.org/conference/#conference-agenda We are delighted to publish our conference agenda for the day, and for the first time ever we are running a parallel mini-conference especially for parents of children with OCD (CAMHS age children). The Northampton OCD Conference was carefully planned by members of the OCD-UK team, all of whom have lived experience of living with and seeking treatment for OCD, and in collaboration with health professionals to ensure that we created a conference programme that offers exactly what our audience needs and wants.

And OCD is of course very complex, but generally the main reason someone will notice groinal response, or rather notice and fixate on it is because the OCD makes us hyper-sensitive to the body reacting and that in turn creates all sorts of meanings and feelings for us. Those meanings are alien to us, so we worry every time the body does react and that reinforces the negative meanings. So the body reacting is not the problem Bluestar, it's what the body reacting means to you that is most likely driving the OCD.

When was that on? We need to log and complain.

Are you suggesting people should meet someone with OCD and they would do just fine? I really, really, really hope that is NOT what you're suggesting.

Not really. It's not about if other people can 'deal' with our OCD, it's about learning to cope, deal and overcome our own OCD.

I don't think that would be an unpopular opinion Gemma. I think a lot of people would struggle challenging such comments face-to-face. To be honest some of the 'challenges' of misuse on social media are OTT in my opinion and don't do the cause any good, but I understand the frustration that drives that. Which I guess brings me back to the original question, what makes individuals think it is ok to joke about OCD. If we can identify that, then we should target our resources at that cause... although we may still have to address the misconceptions already caused with people like the one I encountered.

So yesterday the sight of this jersey prompted another cyclist at the Ride100 event to make a joke about the "OCD guys are here to 'check' the course". I was upset, but not totally surprised. I don't believe that individual intended to cause offence, he clearly doesn't understand I reflected over the following 100 miles. I want to start a conversation to understand and importantly learn why people still think it's acceptable to make jokes about #OCD? I was also momentarily unsure what to say as we were surrounded by lots of people so I didn't want to get too arsey and I don't work well pre 8am so I didn't say anything and turned away, my friend (Paul Salkovskis brother in law) who doesn't have OCD just laughed with the guy, not knowing what to say as he doesn't have OCD or understand beyond my conversations with him. So I wanted to brainstorm what is a good response in such situations, where we can educate but not in an aggressive or argumentative way? Nice story from the day below ˅ A happier interaction came about 50 miles in at a feed station. A young man tapped me on shoulder to say thank you. At first I assumed because I was about to let him into the flow towards the exit, but he said it again thank you for riding for OCD, I looked bit surprised to which he said I have OCD, thank you. That really helped make my day after that earlier interaction.

Well intrusive thoughts are with people every minute of the day, Rarity is exactly right... 'Will I be late for work', 'What shall I have on my breakfast', 'will my boss be happy with my work' or 'I miss my partner whilst they're away, I love my partner'... are all examples of intrusive thoughts. But if you mean OCD related intrusive thoughts, then I am not sure that's the right question to ask, because for most people they will be somewhat constant on a daily basis (otherwise they would not have OCD) and as mentioned above intrusive thoughts are always with us, some are good, some are negative and some are bad... the difference is they don't usually stick unlike those associated with OCD. I think a better question to ask might be 'How do I change the focus of my intrusive thoughts'? So what this means is we don't want to get rid of intrusive thoughts (well ultimately we do), but for that to happen we have to change how we respond to those OCD thoughts. Your beliefs around the thoughts, your interpretation (or misinterpretation) of them, your emotions at a particular time are all good examples of how and where the OCD is impacting on you processing the intrusive thoughts with anxiety. This is where good CBT can help of course. I wanted to highlight this point too. I think this is a good example of something a lot of people fall into the trap of, where they believe or think they are controlling their OCD because it's not bothersome. In my experience it's actually the other way around, we never control our OCD, it's nearly always fooling us and it's actually controlling us. Because usually when we think we're controlling it, we are just avoiding or neutralising thoughts so it's less bothersome. As above, think of it like a playground bully, we pacify it for a while and whilst the bully is picking on someone else it's there in the background but not bothering us. Until one day it gets bored and returns it's attention to us and then BANG it's right back in our face. We can't control OCD, we can only live with it or go on the attack and fight to eradicate it... only that will give us non OCD peace.

Further Details - https://www.ocduk.org/ocd-roadshow/ Launching this year, in addition to our annual conference we will be bringing our OCD information roadshow across England, Wales and Northern Ireland throughout the rest of this year and 2020. Our free open day / roadshows give us the opportunity to travel to parts of the country where our conference won’t reach this year and be there to offer attendees presentations, information, advice, local treatment signposting and support about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Whether you have a specific question about OCD treatment or more complicated advocacy needs, we aim to offer practical advice and support on the day. We can put you in contact with local and national services, as well as recommending top self-help materials and offer our highly acclaimed information booklets for you to take away free of charge. For those of you in the Edinburgh area please do pop in and say hello I am also checking out a couple of OCD themed shows at the Fringe whilst I am up there if anybody wants to join me.

I see one of my moderators had to remove a couple of posts earlier today... I had hoped this thread had served its purpose, but clearly this piece of advice from my original post still needs practice

What's Picup Angst?

CBT and treatment to overcome OCD is not just about staring at children, is that what you think CBT is?