NoahsArk

HI dksea. Thank you very much for your response, and for your help in the past as well. It was helpful to read your post and get a more clear headed perspective on the situation. The advice related to my daughter and job is very practical. I will give some more thought to the whole situation, and may post again in this thread with updates.

Hello. It's been a while since I've been here, and this is the only place I knew of to turn to. I'm moving with my family on Tuesday, and I've been in a constant cycle of obsessions. I feel like any decision I make will be the wrong one. Interestingly, I've just got over a year of bad health that I thought I'd never recover from. Finally I met a great doctor who understood what was wrong and told me the right treatment. I am appreciative of this, and I've felt like I've been given a second chance at life. Nonetheless, the obsessions are taking over again. Have you ever felt that when you have ocd during a conversation with someone, you get distracted and end up saying things that make you embarrassed? I have a friend who is studying physics in graduate school. We've met a couple times a year over the last three years or so. It's fascinating to talk with him and for me to learn what he studies. I enjoy learning about science as a lay person, and he's good enough to meet with me from time to time for casual conversations about it. I hadn't met with him in about a year, and we had finally planned to meet again today. The first half of our meeting was good, but then I started obsessing and things didn't feel right. Then I started getting tense thinking that maybe he notices I'm not focused on our conversation anymore, and I would need to force myself to say something. In the car ride on the way back, I brought up the net flix show Black Mirror. He watches it as well, and one of the episodes he brought up involved a disturbing scenario where a woman is repeatedly tortured in her next life for having committed a horrible crime in her previous life. I was a bit out of it at that point, but felt the need to keep the conversation going. I some how turned the conversation into a philosophical one about how torture, just for the sake of it, is unethical and can't be justified regardless of how bad the person was. I also talked about how it seems most people think torture just to get back at someone is ok which is strange since our constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment. It was a little out of place but maybe not so much so in the context of what we had been discussing. Then, though, I said "I'm unlike most people in that I think it's better to shoot ten people in the head if they die instantly than to torture one person over a long period. For me it's more about quality than quantity." He responded with a few words to keep the conversation going, and at some point, not knowing really how to express myself anymore due the the OCD, I repeated myself and said "For me it's more about quality than quantity" ! I think this is a very important issue with big social consequences, but the way I expressed it I think just was off. Then I think I started to sound even more off: "My favorite movie of all time is a Clockwork Orange. Some people think I'm strange for liking a movie that has that much violence. They miss the point. The point of the book which the movie was based on is that if the characters are engaged in dialogue that is interesting enough, and the music in the background is good enough, people will be distracted away from the violence". I didn't express myself well at all, and think I may have even sounded like a serial killer. At that point, if I were him, I'd be like what am I doing in this guy's car. I also said the movie was a combination of the best director, Stanley Kubric, and one of my favorite writers, Anthony Burgess. Anyway seems like my day was ruined for no reason, and I may have lost a good person as a friend. I just want to live quietly as a decent person without harming people. My inner world is a mess though. My work can be toxic. I am a collection lawyer meaning I have to go after people who have judgments against them but conceal assets to avoid paying. It's very stressful sometimes and I think this feeds into my ocd. When we move, my daughter will be entering a new school. I'm so afraid of the things that could happen- e.g. what if she is bullied or doesn't adjust etc. There are all kinds of stories on the news here of kids being bullied and how bad it is for them. I actually have a half brother who will be in her school (he's in 7th grade, she's in sixth). We were away for five days together over the holidays, and I observed he was quite unfriendly to her the whole time, and even pushed her into a jacuzzi which could have been dangerous. I'm worried about what if he bullies her or gets other people to. I just don't know what to do. Sometimes I wish I did something more creative for a job. That's one of the reasons it's refreshing to talk to someone doing physics since their job is discovery and creation, whereas mine is chasing people and dealing with people yelling and cursing. I even sometimes wish I could move with my family to somewhere like Norway where people are chill, and where the social system is good, but I heard it's very hard to get permission to move there. I need to make some serious choices since things aren't working. Please advise. Sorry I know I've been jumping around a bit in this post. Thank you for reading this.

Thank you very much Hal. Something told me that moving wouldn't be the right choice. I will work to try and accept the what ifs and move forward with doing my work.

Hello. I initially posted this a few months ago. Now Im not so worried about him stealing something as I am about me possibly bothering him if I am talking on the phone too loud. He put his desk right on the other side of the wall as mine. He hasnt said anything yet, but I've seen in the past that he can get annoyed easily, -and has shown it. Should I just rent somewhere else so i can focus on my work?

Hello Battlethrough. Maybe a combination of mindfulness (i.e. telling yourself these are not legitimate thoughts, just OCD false alarms, followed by refocusing on something else that you enjoy, like a hobby, for as long as you can), and just letting go of the past and trying to go easier on yourself. I recently did a youtube search for "letting go" and found this very helpful. He's in a monk's robe and all, haha, but speaks very well.

Hello. I've written about related issues before, but this time I think my concern is much more legitimate, and might not be all ocd: I play in chess tournaments, and there is this guy who is not a good sport who I have to face often. After every game he looses, he never says "good game". Instead, he gets up and swears the F word and says he should've won. On one occasion I had been talking to him after he lost a game with someone else, and he said "I wanted to start throwing chairs". "What if an altercation gets physical and I get stabbed?" There really was a case I read about where a player stabbed his opponent after loosing. Now every time I play him my thoughts are not on the game, but I'm thinking about what if I win and how will I face his anger? I ask myself questions like "should I just leave the room right away?", "should I tell him he should act like an adult?" All these thoughts make me play poorly against him. I do much better against players who are stronger than him, but who don't get so angry when they loose. I know I've had other concerns in the past about other players, but in those cases I think it was more OCD because in the other situations it was less overt behavior on the part of the opponents that bothered me, whereas here he acts clearly inappropriately when he looses. It's so hard for me to take my mind off the thoughts- it's almost like my mind automatically goes there into survival mode. Then I feel even worse that I'm letting it get to me. Please help.

By he way when I say "obviously" I didn't mean that in a negative way. Things which feel like legitimate concerns are never obviously ocd to the person suffering. It's only clearly ocd to people on the side who also have ocd and can recognize others symptoms as such.

This is obviously ocd so I'd refocus on something else since this is wasting your time right now. There is nothing you could've done to prevent the thought from thinking she looked lovely, all you can do is to try and redirect your focus now. Trigger thoughts are automatic thoughts that just pop into people's heads. It's the obsessing over it that is a problem. It's not like your thinking about how to get her phone number or anything.

Hello. Two months ago I got a new office mate who moved to the office right next to mine. We now both share the same suite with a third man who is our land lord. When the office became available, I recommended the new guy to the land lord because I new he was self employed working from home and coffee shops and probably wanted the space. I new him from before since he was a computer tech and repaired my computers in the past. Although he is very smart, I am worried about him being in the office and am regretted a bit that I told him of the availability. Last spring, for example, he did work on my computer for about $100 worth. In the past whenever he's done work he's sent me a bill and I've always paid on time- usually by giving him my credit card number. On this occassion he didnt wait to sent me a bill- he just used my credit card number that he had from last time and charged it wihout telling me. I told him by text that in the future to please first send me a bill so that I can decide whether I want to pay by check or credit card or whatever, and so I make sure I pay from an account that has funds so i don't bounce. He said ofcourse and from then on he always asked before charging the card. One more example of why I feel uncomfortable is that another guy we know one time had been behind on payment or maybe was refusing to pay for his work (I dont know why but I think he eventually paid) and the new guy wrote on his facebook never to trust this guy or do business wih him. Also several times I've seen that the remote user software that he uses to get onto my computer to do repairs was still not logged out of even the day after he finished the work. He gave some reason for this. There are several other examples but I wont get into them. The problem is now I'm obsessing that he has access to all my bank account info. Befofe he came to the office I was so motivated to work and save and had been working long hours a day. I had been coming to work earlier than usual and leaving later. One of my goals was to finally own real estate. Now I'm not motivated because I think he's just gonna steal everything from me as soon as I save something up. He can or may alreay have installed a key stroker on my computer that would tell him my online bank account info. Yesterday I only got about an hour of work done. I'm thinking he might also come into my office and access my check book to forge checks payable to himself or to a company he created. He just strikes me as the brilliant but somewhat disturbed type. In counties where there is a lot of crime and stealing, people become poor not just because of the theft, but because they don't even have the motivation to save up in the first place knowing they are at high risk that they'll loose it all anyway. It's a nice office in a good area at a very good price, and looks like the new officemate isn't planning on moving. I thought about moving but I've been there for over two years and would definitely want to stay if it weren't for this situation. How can I get back on track? Thanks

Thank you! i will try and fight this and get back to reality!

I don't know what's going on with me lately. About 14 years ago, when I was 23, I was playing soccer in a field with tall grass. Another guy who was playing lost his cross that he was wearing on his necklace. Players from both teams had been searching for it. I don't know what came over me, but I just developed this strong feeling that I would find it. A few seconds later I saw the shape of a cross in the grass and picked it up. Everyone was happy. I remember that one girl who I thought was kind of pretty said "You have the power" hehe. Then last Monday night, on New Year's day, I was walking into the building where I was playing a chess tournament. My score was 3 out of 3 and I was about to play the last round. If I won or even drew the game, I would finally become a chess master which has been a goal of mine for many years. On my way back into the building I saw another player, who I know from the chess scene, outside with his cell phone flash light on looking carefully at the ground. I almost just walked back inside, but something made me want to help him. I asked what he was looking for, and he told me he'd never find it. It was some cylinder shaped thing (maybe something that he also wore on his necklace) that had clear whitish color. There was snow and ice on the ground so it would have blended in. I remembered the soccer game a long time ago. I turned on my cell phone light and shined it on the ground. A few seconds later, he spotted the cylinder on the ground, in the spot where I shined my light, and happily thanked me. I felt something special at that moment and wanted to share with him how I found the cross years earlier. I decided not to mention it, though, because I told myself in the past that if I experience something that I feel is auspicious and mysterious like this, I don't have to share it. After all, if there is some power out there, it will be there regardless of whether I mention it or not, and it's not my job to convey this information. I feel crazy now even thinking this. After walking back into the building I felt immediately bad about not having told him, and all the positive feelings that I had minutes earlier were gone. I then played my game and lost. Now I think I should have told him about the soccer game. I feel like the fact that I found something twice like this is meaningful, and I should've shared it with him. Today I almost called someone and asked if they had his phone number. I was going to make up some excuse for calling him so that I could then tell him about how i found the cross. Now I feel like I can't succeed until I tell him. What is going on here. Am I just being superstitious, obsessive, or both? I want to try and understand myself better and improve. Thanks.

Thank you Paradoxer and Ashley. Your words are very helpful. It's true that OCD does use any way it can to get at me, both in this case and in lots of other ways, and I will keep that in mind for the future. I appreciate you helping me in trying to resolve this long standing problem.

I should've written this post a long time ago since it's been bothering me so long. When I was 20, Jeffrey Schwartz's book, Brain Lock, saved me from severe OCD. My grades in college completely turned around, and I got started to get a handle on my life. He is one of my heroes. Back in around 2007, I looked up his email and wrote him a thank you note for how his book helped me. I wasn't sure if he'd respond, but he actually did and thanked me for telling him. Then, about two or three years ago, I decided to email him again. I don't know why, but this time I felt the need to comment on some of his philosophical views and try and engage him in a discussion. I don't know if he ever read that email or, if he did, if he remembered from writing back in 2007. He never responded however. Dr. Schwartz is a defender of free will, and frequently writes about it. He also believes in God. I had been listening to lectures on line by Sam Harris about how free will is an illusion, and how there is no way that we could have chosen anyway than the way we chose things in the past. I told Dr. Schwartz that while I believe in God, I don't believe in free will, and that it's actually a comforting feeling not to believe in it, because it relieves pressure over feeling guilty about past decisions. My comment was unnecessary, and I don't know why I thought I should write Dr. Schwartz that email. First of all, now he might think that I did really bad things, like harming someone, and that I'm trying to let myself of the hook by not believing in free will. Although I've done things that I feel guilty about, they did not involve physically harming others, and some of it was also OCD guilt. Also, I feel like I insulted him by making making a comment against free will when he believes in it and writes about it. What makes this all bad is that now I feel like one of my heroes is against me, and it takes my confidence away. Even though I don't know him personally, just thinking about his work and his words of encouragement to people inspires me. He's like the encouraging and supportive voice inside my head. However, now that I feel he's against me, it's harder to feel encouraged and supported. What should I make of all this? Thanks

Great!

Thank you Ashley and Polar Bear. It makes sense that I should be looking at the broader issue, and not whether or not to look at him. OCD has consistently interfered with my goals and values. I used to have ocd issues about taking a test in school. Fortunately I was able to overcome those for the most part. With tests I would start to have confidence just by telling myself that I prepared, and because I prepared I'd be fine. Doing well in chess also involves preparing and obtaining knowledge. Unfortunately though, for my ocd, in chess there is someone sitting across from you. Now that I think of it, one of my previous posts was about fearing that my opponent would use a weapon on me if I won lol. I got support on this forum for that which really helped. Now it's about a particular spectator:) Is it possible to overcome this by just not doing anything about it at all (i.e. not caring whether next time I look at him or not), and just strictly focusing on the game itself? I can't count the number of games I've lost because of OCD and having obsessions during the game- some of which are totally unrelated to chess itself. For example, there've been times where during the game I spent a lot of time trying to remember something totally insignificant and irrelevant. From my experience I know that I'm my most difficult opponent when it comes to excelling.