Atlantis

20 hours ago, Heartly said:

I feel really sick with this ocd. It’s making me feel like I’m going mad and I don’t know anything anymore. I just want to be me again. I’m in the process of being referred as my private therapist realised she wasn’t enough so now I’m on a psychiatrist waiting list and there was even talk of the crisis team getting involved 

I just want to be me again - I can’t believe I’m in this ocd nightmare again 

when will it end

honestly, if it wasn’t for my girl I would have killed myself by now 

Have you done any form of exposure therapy?

2 hours ago, NJ321 said:

This is just bad. I don’t know how I’m going to get over this due to the entire situation. Why did it feel like in my mind I didn’t want to move even though I did but it felt like I moved slower than I should have. 

Because that's what OCD does, hijacks and distorts your thoughts and movements/lack of movements so that in the moment you believe you want something to happen. Then you'll get some kind of thought that says you're a bad person - trigger, then you'll ruminate more and more until you hit a downward spiral. 

I have the same thing happen to me a lot, only difference is, I've done ERP for it so I've learned now when this kind of thing happens, to just ignore the compulsion to check my behaviour and after a short amount of time, the fear/guilt/shame subsides because so long as I'm not giving into compulsions, I'm able to recognise it for what it is. OCD. Nothing more. 

During the 1990s, what you've described was very common in the social groups I was hanging around with, I knew girls that were 14/15 and had older boyfriends in the late teens, 19 included. No-one batted an eyelid. Older lads were always viewed as desirable, especially if they had a car, even if it was just a Vauxhall Nova with a subwoofer. I remember feeling guilty about a similar experience to you, and I confessed to my Aunty about it, even she said that in her day it was completely normal for it to happen, and that would've been the late 60s early 70s. I'm not saying what happened back then was legal or morally right, but seriously back then it was never an issue, no-one made a big deal out of it, because the word "Paedo" wasn't thrown around like it is these days - which is probably why these days it may not happen as openly or freely as it did back then. If I was 19 in this day and age, especially having the knowlegde I do now, I'd be far more selective about age differences purely because of the way society has changed since those times. Just like it has moved on from Victorian times when it was perfectly acceptable for grown men to marry 12 year olds without their parents consent. 

Relationship OCD, without a shadow of a doubt. It's totally normal to be attracted to another person, just because you're married, it doesn't mean that part of the brain switches off, it's called being human. The OCD will pick up on that and turn it into a cardinal sin, then you'll start ruminating and feeling guilty. I have experienced relationship OCD in the past and I felt the same as you just because I found other women attractive, and of course, some I found more attractive than my girlfriend at the time. That would make me feel like I'd cheated - but looking back it was just classic OCD thought patterns, always attached to guilt and shame, vicious circle. I felt so bad I started confessing to my girlfriend, which just made everything worse. My girlfriend was obsessed with Channing Tatum, and I guarantee she found him more attractive than me, but did she feel guilt? Not one drop, why? Because she didn't have OCD bleeting in her ear, and again, it's completely normal. 

17 hours ago, Cora said:

Thank you, @Atlantis. 

But what if there is enough proof out there to show that I am indeed a disgusting creep? What if there are certain actions (and not only thoughts and feelings) that show my real intentions? I'm not sure anymore. 

"what if?" classic OCD thought pattern. The target of exposure therapy is learning to live with the uncertainty. Indeed "what if there's enough proof...?" is a huge question right now, but over time, this question (which is really just a compulsion to check yourself)  will lose it's power, it'll lose the urgency to be answered, you'll start to feel like you can't even be bothered addressing it, because you'll be so done with negative core beliefs that in the end, you'll automatically turn the "what ifs" into "so what?" so questions/compulsions will end up as nothing more than farts in the wind.

17 hours ago, Cora said:

I've been trying this week to do a lot more exposures and just let the feelings and thoughts be, but it honestly feels like this is not possible to change. 

I feel like my brain has not one single ounce of normality left in it. Everything is seen through a creepy and sexual lense. Today at work I made it obvious that I have had weird thoughts and feelings about the young colleague (he's 17). I kept being clumsy around him, and damaged a scanning device when dropping it after grabbing it from his hand. I'm convinced he knows what's up. I've been wearing makeup to work this week (it gives me some confidence) and today I kept thinking that I would impress him or make him look at me in a romantic way. I couldn't stop thinking about that - it was neither intrusive not non intrusive but weird and wrong nonetheless. 

And this is only one example. I don't know how to behave like a normal person even around my family. I can't take a hug or a kiss from my parents. I can't sit too close to my brother. I feel like I'm going insane and it's growing like a mycelium. I don't want to exist anymore. I'm not a normal person and it's pointless for me to be alive. 

I just can't make it stop. It's one thing after another and, like I've said before, people are starting to see me for what I really am - a freaking disgusting creep. 

You sound a bit like me a few years ago before I began exposure therapy. I had similar problems, intrusive thoughts around minors, OCD convincing me in real time that I was acting in a certain way in order to gain attention from women other than my (at the time) girlfriend,  which the OCD would later convince me was "cheating".. and the longest running theme, was not being able to hug, sit next to or be close to family members, or basically anyone I cared about through a fear of being sexually inappropriate. 

After suffering with this paritcular theme for over 20 years, I dealt with it through exposure therapy, it was absolute hell for me, but in the end I was able to overcome it. I even did something one day last week where I said to myself "you couldn't have done that 5 years ago". The thing with exposure therapy (in my experience) is it's the most effective way of proving what a liar OCD is when it comes to your core beliefs. Thing is though, exposure therapy is never over for me, I have to keep doing it every time the OCD finds a new theme, but I can safely say that a lot of my old themes are so dead through exposure, I can't even remember what some of them were. 

Imagine it like this, you believe you are a disgustng creep - because over time, OCD has imprisoned you behind massive mirrors which reflect back your negative and false beliefs about yourself, you can't see anything other.  But, when you counter attack with exposure therapy, you will notice cracks appearing in the glass, slow at first, but if you continue to ride that storm, and give it all you've got, those mirrors will shatter and you'll see what lies beyond, and you'll realise that everything OCD told you was a lie, especially your negative beliefs about yourself. 

Get your game face on, you can do it.

Thanks for responding PB, however my issue is that I had the thought to pick it up to commit a crime and then did pick it up whilst agreeing that's what I wanted to do - but to be honest I did feel uneasy / guilty straight away so on reflection if I felt like that then it's highly unlikely that I would've done anything evil. 

I've suffered with OCD for years and experienced most themes but the most troubling so far is Harm OCD. I know a lot about the condition and have done some ERP with minimal success, so I know that the mantra "It's just a thought" doesn't work well for people that experience powerful urges and micro-movements. 

I'm really freaking out about something that happened the other day. I was doing some DIY in the garden and using a hammer to hang things up. I am very cautious when my neighbour is around as my harm OCD focuses on her, so as I had the hammer in my hand I was getting obsessive harm OCD thoughts about harming her if she came outside. I also have a big crush on her which again is undoubetdly the trigger for the harm OCD as well as hyper responsibilty OCD (as I always have to make sure the house is safe so a fire won't start whenever I leave the house and harm her etc etc) Obviously because I have a crush on her, I do worry a lot about the day when she ends up with a boyfriend (another recurring obsessive OCD worry) because I know I'll feel sad, angry, jealous etc so this is a recurring worry which ignites the harm thoughts i.e. I will want to harm her if she gets a boyfriend. 

So I am outside, half worrying about if I would see her leaving the house dressed up to go on a date I would get jealous and try to do something awful like murder her with the hammer. I was nervous, of course hoping that she wouldn't come out whilst I had the hammer in my hand. Sure enough, in a total and typical sods law way, I heard the door open and felt instant fear that she was going out on a date, I had my back to her and at the time this happened the hammer was lying on a bench next to a box of nails which I'd gone over to. I had the thought to grab the hammer in case she was going on a date so I would kill her and I felt that this is what I would want to do under those cirumstances, because in that second of thought I agreed with the rationale.. and in a nano second I physically grabbed the hammer! I remember feeling a little shock that I'd picked it up and was panicked a little bit, I also still had my back to her so couldn't see if she was dressed up, so I turned around nervously to check if she was dressed up, although I was more focused on that than doing anything with the hammer - she was in her work uniform so I felt instant relief that she wasn't going on a date, but then I still felt very panicked and stressed that I'd actually picked up the hammer as a result of the thought process I'd had leading up to grabbing the hammer (kill her if she's going on a date). 

I feel in whirlwind of guilt and I feel like I cannot trust myself, why did I act on the thought of picking up the hammer? It felt impulsive. I know I only picked up a hammer but it felt like I was ready to do something sinister and I worry what I would've done if she had been dressed up and going out on a date. 

I know this incident is very specific to my situation what with the crush / fear of her dating someone, but I wonder if anyone can relate to having an evil thought, agreeing with it and then starting a movement or action, or just acting on impulse?

thanks

Been a while since I posted and I'm loathe to be in a position where I'm posting again, but I wanted to share an incident to see if anyone could help me with good advice. 

One of the many OCD themes I have is making sure there's no fire risk in my apartment. This includes things like making sure nothing is left on charge, or switched on like the oven or hobs and making sure my laptop is not left charging whilst on my bed. The other night the girl who lives below me upset me over something and I felt very low and a bit angry. I remember waking up too early and decided to get another couple of hours sleep after messing about on my laptop for a while, the transformer unit was lying next to me on the mattress. I had an angry thought that I was leaving it there on purpose so that the transformer would cause a fire which would kill me and the girl downstairs, but then I had another passing thought that I would obviously wake up in that situation and put any fire out, then I just drifted off to sleep. 

I woke up 2 hours later and felt that the transformer was quite hot so immediately unplugged the laptop and put it on the floor. Didn't even think about it until later that day when I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt towards the girl who lives below. I've not been able to get it out of my head since, and although I did think "well I'll wake up if it catches fire and put it out", I cannot stop focusing on the initial thought of feeling like I wanted to cause harm and also the inaction of deliberately NOT moving the transformer / unplugging the laptop before I fell alseep. At the time, I was on a high dose of quetapine and feeling pretty groggy too. 

I don't know why this gets me down so much, especially if had I known 100 percent that an action I did or didn't do would cause a fire, i.e. deliberately setting fire to something and leaving the house, that's obviously something I wouldn't do, but I feel bad because of something that "could've happened".. 

any advice would be appreciated. thanks

I've had SSRI's in the past and they've never worked out. Prozac and citalopram mainly. 

23 minutes ago, taurean said:

My own preference in this environment, and with such a theme (mine was harm) goes down the route of cognitively understanding that OCD is telling us we are something we are not, that we could act against our true character values - however I was told in CBT to remember this is an OCD lie - my true character values of love care kindness always remain intact. 

This was a breakthrough in my ERP. 

With me they say that I have to accept 1% uncertainty that I want to do something bad.. and I have to live with that because look where arguing with it has got me...

I'm on a load of meds now, none of which have been tried before. I have been given benzo's (Tavor in Germany) as a short term measure to get me through the last week, but the long term stuff is called "tranylcypromine" or Jatrosom, in addition to Risperdal.. 

Not asking about the benzo, because I know about this stuff, but just wondererd if anyone else has experienced tranylcypromine ? 

thanks.

My ERP has been straight in at the deep end, however I'm only about a third of the way through it with only 3 weeks left at this so-called prestigious clinic in Germany.. the hard work starts this week, i.e. getting on buses full of kids and holding a baby (the latter I am strongly against). Bearing in mind my therapist speaks excellent English, as do most there, there are some parts of it I feel are lost in translation. 

One thing I have learned to do on my own and have only put it into practice once last week is when I'm in the situations I normally avoid, I start to take the 'P' out of the OCD thoughts for example - If I am moving through a crowded bus full of school kids and obviously it's inevitable that bodily contact is made when you're pushing through a crowd to get off the bus, I will always get the urges and thoughts that I'm deliberately making contact and I want to sexually assault - so I'll be forced into believing that's what I want. So lately I've been forcing the thoughts of "oh OK here comes the OCD, ok here we go - yes I'm sexually assaulting that kid when I brush past her, ok I am being a bad person, whatever.. come on lets brush past this kid to exit the bus and yes, OK sexual assault blah blah blah" and then before I know it, I'm through the situation without resisting the compulsion to desperately not do anything bad (like usual) and the anxiety didn't even spike as much as it would in the usual panic situations... 

Yeh I'd say so, perhaps at the moment it might be wise to steer clear of this forum because you're not taking any advice on board and you're clearly using the forum as an outlet for your confessions which is quite simply, a compulsion. Of course confessing to us is better than confessing to your wife, but nonetheless, you're still pouring fuel on the fire by posting the same stuff. I know because I have been there, in fact I came online here today because I wanted to share an ERP experience / confess to something that happened during my therapy today but have since decided not to engage, and live with the uncertainty that I might be a bad person.. although the insatiable urge is to confess to someone special, I am putting her welfare needs first by not opening up and allowing the OCD to cast any doubt about me or uncomfortable feelings in her already fragile mind. 

2 hours ago, battlethrough said:

My god this is so hard,every minute of my day has been filled with rumination,I'm exhausted trying to not and finding it near impossible and the thought and Feeling to confess is overwhelming.i know I can't ,but a voice keeps saying she deserves to know as I was pursuing and it was real.i promise I'm trying but I'm finding it so hard

 

How do you look on yourself? Do you feel that it's more that you need to punish yourself by telling her? Rather than setting her free of the devious, potential cheat / horrible husband you really are in the eyes of your OCD? 

Thanks Roy and GBG, the kid was sick so didn't happen today.. maybe tomorrow. Or next week. 

8 hours ago, taurean said:

 

Believe in what your therapist is doing, take on the distress and remind yourself OCD lies, it is attacking your real true core character values ; and ride the storm. 

Thanks both, but they want me to not distract myself by saying such mantras.. my OCD involves movement and strong urges so it's not just thoughts I feel I am dealing with, so for example when I'm holding the baby's bum I am going to have very tense arms and hands and that's where I'll get sudden jerky movements along with the usual "I am doing this to abuse..." etc... 

OK so tomorrow my battle against POCD will go up a notch. So far it's been getting on buses full of school kids and my therapist is always there making me walk up and down the bus even when it's rammed.. hell.. not done that for YEARS as I've not been able to. But tomorrow, I'm going to hold the infant child of one of his colleagues.. I feel like throwing up as I'm writing this. 

He said the exposure it to let the thoughts come, i.e "I want to cause harm, I want to cause sexual assault" etc and allow any movements that usually accompany the strong urges in these moments of absolute terror.. BUT, instead of immediately trying to calm myself down by engaging in compulsions, I am to stop in the guilt and fear zone. Then, after the exercise I am to record what I believe I did i.e. some kind of crime, and then listen to it over and over again until the fear dies down... seriously cannot see this happening fast, but apparantly it will.. then once it does, I am to repeat this exercise again and again until it no longer provokes fear. 

The point of this is to reflect on the situation again when there's no fear raging in the background so that I will see this condition for what it is, a lying irrational, posessive bully that's taken 37 years of my life, ruined jobs, relationships and friendships, along with ambition and opportunity. 

so watch this space. 

Has anyone ever done ERP like this? If so how did it make you feel and was it successful? 

29 minutes ago, battlethrough said:

Thanks for replying

Tough morning,woke up with crushing guilt,managed to get to work, trying to delay rumination,it's so so hard,it's like a stain on my character

It's not about delaying but at least you're not engaging. Stick with it. This is what OCD hates, the lack of attention. It is tough but this is the right thing to do for the sake of your health and marriage. 

On 12/11/2018 at 10:15, battlethrough said:

Thought I was over this but it's come back 

7 years ago I was drinking slot,on 1 occasion my sister in law was asleep,I drunkenly led on her bed,I then got up and left.

On another occasion,I was drunk,I remember seeing my sister in law in the kitchen,I think it was raining and I tried to get in the house but it was locked so I went home.

I feel so guilty that my intention was to cheat,as I have said other stuff about this subject before,I can't take the fact that it could have been my intention,things are better with my partner now but I feel so guilty,I know that telling her would not benefit my relationship at all but this is killing me,the themes change every week but this is something I actually did,drink made me into a total creep,I'm scared I'll confess and lose my partner for good

Look man you've got ROCD, the only way through this is living with the uncertainty that you may have had bad intentions, because whether it was 7 minutes or 7 months or 7 years ago you will never EVER be sure that this was your true intention! I'm doing ERP at the moment and no amount of compulsions will bring peace because when you think you've solved one riddle of OCD another one will pop up in its place. You know how this works, you have been told this countless times but yet you still allow yourself to fold and get swamped. I know I sound harsh but I've been where you are with every girlfriend I've ever had, believing I wanted there sisters, best friends, more than them and as a result getting intrusive thoughts about infidelity and then trying to work it out a long time later and because I didn't get certainty I would have the feeling " oh well just confess because it's easier to get reassurance than it is to work out what really happened" therefore a double edged sword. 

Maybe look at it like this - if you truly love your wife then use that as a weapon against the OCD and live with the uncertainty whilst at the same time paying these issues no mind so much that you'd be finally able to convince yourself more that this really is OCD. So you had the thoughts of temptation, so what, you didn't do anything ?? 

Or you can carry on engaging this BS and ruin your relationship, because that's how it's going every time you engage in compulsions - granted it's not your fault because you're ill, but if I can live with uncertainty with POCD i.e. did I do something that time on a bus in 2009 then I'm pretty sure you can. Save your marriage. Fight.

1 hour ago, lonelygirl91 said:

But it most trans people say that they want to be the opposite sex from a young age. Why would I just say that? 

I used to obsess over my mums high heels when I was very young... does that mean anything?  If I allow my OCD to dictate on it and ruminate enough by 9 pm tonight I will probably be posting up similar to yourself. 

What if you do what to be a trans? So what? 

At the moment your OCD has picked up something from when you were 3 and turned it into an obsession - personally when I was 3 I used to eat mud, maybe I thought it was chocolate mousse - who knows? But I'm damned if I can remember exactly what I thought that day when I chowed down on it's eartly goodness. Pretty sure you can't rememebr exactly what you thought and why but the bottom line is, YOU WERE 3! 

Most of your post is self assurance that you're a normal hetrosexual woman with no signs of being remotely interested in becoming a man, you're engaging in 'what ifs' - you will only get through this by not seeking certainty so get used to living with the uncertainty that a part of you might want to be a man, at the moment because you're ruminating and obsessing, you will feel 90% certain that those thoughts are true, but if you stop the compulsions i.e. mental checking, that will go down to a 0.1 % chance and I'm sure you can live with that because nothing in life is certain. (except death and taxes) 

Hi, I wrote a topic similar to this a few months ago. 

In a nutshell, I developed a crush on my neighbor / friend after we started hanging out a bit more. At the time I was grieving the loss of my Nan so my OCD was going crazy sending me into a deep depression, so as well as a crush, I became emotionally attached to this girl. Both the crush and the emotional attachment were and still are enhanced by OCD but at the time I began having the same worries as you, "Am I stalking,  am I a creep?" etc. Whilst behaviours were a little bit obsessive, they were also quite normal crush behaviours like hanging out in places where I knew she'd be just so I could run into her and talk to her, but I started worrying too much over it and it went out of control. I began worrying if she didn't smile at me, or didn't say "hello" in a friendly tone, I became obsessed with trying not to annoy her and ended up doing it because I was always checking with her if she was ok with me - all reassurance seeking of course. 

Don't forget that OCD is at play here because you're over analysing and checking for signs that you've annoyed him or what he might think about you..  I know it's hell, but it's OCD manifesting causing you to ruminate and seek reassurance on a forum so there's your evidence right there. The best advice I can give is just ride the wave of this crush and do not under any circumstances analyse your feelings or behaviours because that's what I did and it caused me to inadvertedly spook this girl out by carrying out compulsions by asking her. 

Thanks x

Thanks for the reply - not reassurance although I'd be lying if I said I didn't need it. 

I'm just hoping someone else with the same or similar experience in their past had conquered this OCD theme via ERP shared their experience, not to get reassurance that I'm not a monster, but to reassure that this can be beaten.