Tez

Hang in there. You will get over it in time. As Ashley says, even people without OCD might experience flashbacks to unsettling ideas and images before they relinquish their power in the mind. I have seen "Happy Tree Friends". I have a friend with a quite vicious sense of humour who used to watch it. But as someone with a soft side, and a collection of soft toys etc, I also found it upsetting. It will go if you allow the thoughts into your mind and try not to react to them. Their power will wane and you will be able to move on and think of something else.

Hi there. I can only speak from my personal experience, but I found that personally, medication was much better than meditation for getting my OCD under control. I had a psychologist who encouraged me to go to meditation sessions, which I did do at the local Buddhist Centre. They were very nice there, but the classes I went to did not help me. These were unguided mediations and the silence and unstructured nature of the sessions actually just made me ruminate more and more on my OCD symptoms. When I was put on olanzapine by the psychiatrist, that really helped calm me down, get my brain under control and has allowed me to live a much better quality of life these last seven years. All that said, I do have a CD produced by Bristol Buddhist Centre, which features a body scan meditation, where you lie on the floor with a pillow under your head and just follow the instructions to focus energy and attention on the different parts of your body. That I DO find of value. Hope that helps. As said, these are just my experiences. Tez

All helps to get the message out there that mental health is something that affects us all, and that anxiety problems are very common. Plus Zayn is a good role model for youngsters.

Hi All The world's largest single largest broadcasting station is China Radio International. Like Radio Moscow in the seventies and eighties, it broadcasts round the clock in many languages, including English, and can be heard online, on FM and AM in many cities round the globe, and on shortwaves via powerful transmitters in China and Europe. It is "soft propaganda" for the Chinese authorities - showcasing the country to the world. I was listening to their evening service in English directed at Europe on Monday evening, and was surprised to hear that the round table discussion programmes was on checking type obsessions. They started with a good example of how everyone has experienced obsessions - like when you go down the garden path and cannot recall whether you locked the front door. And they discussed how this can be come a clinical problem for a small subset of people. I thought it was a good stab at understanding OCD, but the language used was imprecise, and they soon started on "perfectionism" and "perfectionistic" people, which is of course, not accurate clinically. Even so, with over a billion Chinese people, there are going to be a considerable number of people with OCD. Any attempt to understand and discuss the condition is to be welcomed. Best wishes Tez

Yes, a good press release. It's lazy and irresponsible journalism from the gutter press that perpetuates stereotypes about people living with mental illhealth.

Hi All Just broadcast in our area, I wanted to just note that local Bristol media have been very good over the recent Mental Health Week organised by the Mental Health Foundation. "Made in Bristol", our local TV channel, did a great piece on the charity where I work, and included yours truly plus several service users talking about anxiety disorders and depression and their continuing recovery journeys. BBC Radio Bristol, a regional station broadcast from the BBC studios on Whiteladies Road in the City, has a health show with Dr Phil Hammond on a Saturday morning, and featured a colleague of mine talking about depression and anorexia (which of course, some experts believe is a close relative to Obsessional thinking). BASE Radio - a community radio service in South Bristol - featured our service user production group with a programme about Mental Health Week, and looking ahead to coping with the summer. And to round off the week, we also had a slot on B.C.F.M., a multi-ethnic community radio station based at Lawrence Hill, where we delivered a show of "recovery tunes" with Heather from Bike Minded, a project which promotes mental wellbeing through cycling. So, a great MH Week in Bristol and hopefully opening doors and support for people who came across these broadcasts as well. "Made in Bristol" TV - Freeview Channel 7 plus Sky and Virgin packages BBC Radio Bristol - 94.9 FM, DAB and Freeview Channel 719. BASE Radio South Bristol - www.baseradiobristol.co.uk BCFM Community Radio - 93.2 FM and DAB digital radio. Tez

Superb issue. My copy dropped through the letter box on Friday and I found it very interesting. The most interesting feature for me was the well researched and thoughtful article on OCD preoccupations with sexuality, sometimes known informally as H-OCD. We really need to work to get therapists to untangle the various strands of identity and OCD accurately so that the most appropriate support can be given to people: at the moment, a lot of the people interviewed, including those who I respect such as Pink Therapy's Dominic Davis, seem to misdiagnose this subset of OCD as a crisis of sexuality, which is a totally different issue. Tez :original:

And on Sunday evening I had my shortwave radio tuned to a very strong signal from China Radio International, the overseas service of the Chinese state, on 7345 kHz. They had a report on a new suicide prevention strategy implemented at Beijing's tube stations, with a listening ear provided to assist people in emotional distress.

Hi All Not specifically OCD focussed, but of general mental health interest all the same: the new national newspaper The New Day today (Tuesday 5th April) leads with a story about children and young people who self harm. Looks to be interesting. The paper is available from newsagents at 50p. Best wishes Tez

Hello All The New Scientist magazine has long campaigned for better treatments for people with mental health issues. In this week's edition, an intriguing article from researchers who have been working with people who can recall past days in what is often called "photographic" detail, and who may have a sub-category of OCD. Here's a link to the free to view article. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2082771-people-who-never-forget-their-past-could-have-unique-kind-of-ocd/ With best wishes Tez

Hi All My experience of OCD books is quite odd: I have quite a few of them on my shelves, but when I was last very ill - some seven years ago, my psychiatrist told me to not use them as my OCD was too severe and that I needed to focus on the therapy the NHS was providing me with (as incomplete as I felt that to be at the time). I have never really followed the course of treatment outlined in any of the books that are commercially available, for this reason, and I agree with Ashley that sometimes a professional's input is the best thing for OCD - they can respond to the nuances of your particular obsessions and compulsions and give you moral support. That's just my opinion and experience though - others may have very different things to report on the self help book front. Best wishes Tez

Yes, I am a firm believer that we can gradually rewire those neural pathways - the brain is, after all, a living computer. Cognitive therapy is a good tool to this end, and can help people with OCD, particularly where there is inflated ideation in the context of the obsessional thoughts, where it can be more efficacious than behaviour therapy (according to the reading I have done). Tez

Hello Lotty and All I would like to tell you about my medication. Apols to people who have already read my previous posts on this subject as I do tend to repeat myself. I have seen several psychiatrists, and I have been pronounced as having "severe" OCD. However, I have never really had systematic CBT, cognitive therapy or any talking intervention, so I believe that diagnosis might be slightly premature. Truly treatment refractory OCD can only be diagnosed when several courses of CBT have been exhausted plus several medication regimens. And even then, there is still hope, as you can get brain surgery for really severe OCD, so there's always hope. ALWAYS. That's my mantra. I take 40 mg of citalopram and 10mg of olanzapine. It is of great help. I do still struggle, and that's why these forums are such a lifeline. But my moods are so much better than before, as is my ability to cope with obsessive symptoms. I am a firm believer in medication, but as Taurean says, it is better if it goes hand in hand with talking therapies. CBT primarily (although some other talking therapy can help people with difficult types of OCD). Does this help? Tez

Yes, it is a sad case. OCD has come out of the cold in the last thirty years, and people now understand that the issue exists, but with that has also come all the misinformation and unscientific use of the acronym "OCD". All I can say is - at least we're not alone. There are lots of clinical terms that are misused regularly - "Schizo", "Psychotic", "Depressed". All these phrases have a precise medical meaning but get mistranslated into every day life. Some of the media are better than others at trying to convey the correct terminology over mental health issues. It depends who you get producing a programme. Tez :original:

I am a firm believer in the National Health Service. Yes, it does make mistakes, and there are some dreadful practices, but in the UK, if you are ill, you WILL get seen (eventually!) and this makes our system much preferable to some of the other models of health care on offer. That's my opinion anyway. Thanks for sharing this campaign Ashley. Cheers Tez :original:

Well done for chasing this up, Whitebeam. As you say, at least Good Morning Britain did take the time to reply to your letter. Gentle pressure, I am sure, all helps get more understanding among programme makers.

Hi All Just been thinking about how our charity might make its case more forcefully about the misrepresentation of people living with OCD on the programme "Obsessive-Compulsive Cleaners". I am sure that everyone is aware both that the show trivialises the condition and distorts what it is really like to have OCD, and that only OCD-UK has stood up to Channel Four about it - the other charities working in the anxiety and OCD fields have been reluctant to so as not to sour any relations they had with the broadcaster. Well, you may or may not know that the government is thinking of privatising Channel Four. The background is that C4 was launched on Tuesday 2nd November 1982 as the product of years of planning and lots of politics from both Labour and Conservative governments. The channel was to be a new commercial network, but at the same time was to fulfil a public service broadcast function. The compromise between these demands was a network that was owned by the government but self - financing through the sale of advertising. The first Chief Executive of Channel Four was Jeremy Isaacs, who had worked for ITV and commissioned the award winning "World at War" series in 1971. In its early days, the station flew in the face of public opinion and was very challenging. They broadcast Britain's first magazine TV programmes for older people, black and Asian communities, gay people and championed the avant garde arts and comedy. Attitudes were different in the 1980's and it was radical to make such departures. The station was also governed by the IBA (Independent Broadcasting Authority - the now defunct body which monitored commercial TV and radio in the UK up until 1990) which kept standards high. All this began to change in the 1990's as the airwaves opened out and more and more stations began to take to the air through cable and digital platforms. A new softer touch regulator, OFCOM, has arguably not helped standards remain very high in some quarters, and it is often said that Channel Four has lost its way, commissioning some very populist programmes. Anyway, now the government, looking to make cash savings across the board, has proposed that Channel Four be taken out of public ownership. The debate is raging across media websites, and in the pages of papers like the Radio Times where many people are arguing that the station should retain its public ownership and have a commitment to public service broadcasting. I thought that we might generate some column inches and some minor influence by arguing that Channel Four needs to prove its commitment to good quality broadcasting by ditching Obsessive-Compulsive Cleaners, which is an example of the worst excesses of tabloid TV. C4 might be more readily influenced now that its future status is less certain than previously. Best wishes Tez

That's great Ashley. If people are following this story, S4C is on Channel 8 Freeview in Wales.... BBC Radio Wales is on 882 kHz Medium Wave and 95-97 FM in most parts of Wales. The Welsh language station BBC Radio Cymru is on 92-94 FM in most parts of Wales, but some relay transmitters are in the region 104-105. Both BBC Radio Wales and Radio Cymru are on DAB and Freeview platforms in all parts of Wales. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/info/frequencies.shtml Usually, however, Ashley, both S4C and BBC R. Cymru do not bother dubbing English speakers into Welsh. This is because there are very, very few people who are monoglot Welsh speakers - most converse in both languages. So you will have to wait to hear your voice rendered in Welsh!

Hi All An interesting article demanded attention over the weekend which I spotted on my trawl through the Saturday papers. Linda Gask, who is both a mental health professional and someone with lived experience of mental health problems, writes a full page spread for the left wing daily Morning Star. It should be available free to read on the paper's website. For those of you from outside the UK, the Morning Star is a small circulation daily, initially founded by the Communist Party in 1930, when it was known as the Daily Worker. After the Second World War, ownership transferred to a workers' co-operative and since then it has reported on the labour movement, and the many strands of protest movement in Britain. Best wishes Tez

Dear All This afternoon, I was listening to China Radio International, the international broadcast service of the Chinese state, on shortwave radio. CRI is one of the world's most prolific broadcasters and offers a 24 hour service in English from transmitters across the globe. A light hearted round table discussion was taking place on "psychological problems and their impact in relationships" - something that had been prompted by a piece run in one of the London newspapers this weekend (they obviously shift copies in Beijing and Shanghai!). Someone asked what it would be like to live with someone who was an obsessive-compulsive, but sadly, none of the guests had anything accurate to say. One of the gathered participants said "oh well, wouldn't a man with OCD be good for many women to live with as, because obsessives tend to be neat and clean don't they?". Pah! I know the entire piece was light hearted, but this mis-representation or just plain misunderstanding of serious mental illness as just a quirky character trait is one of the obstacles that people living with the condition have to deal with on a routine basis! Harumph! Tez

I am very pleased to be able to tell you that on Tuesday afternoon, (17th November) local mental health charity Second Step’s Service User Led Media Group will be delivering their latest programme for local community access radio here in Bristol. “Coping With Christmas” is the title of the programme, which will be broadcast in the regular Tuesday afternoon “Wellbeing” slot on the Lawrence Hill based station B.C.F.M., between 3 and 4pm. The show is the culmination of several months planning from our service users, and will feature: · A feature on making decorations · Specially selected poetry on the festive season. · Exclusive interview with Ed Reed from Caring at Christmas (a night shelter open over the holidays for the homeless and distressed) · An exclusive interview on financial planning and top tips for Christmas on a budget, with Pennywise/Cashpoint (local money advice charities) · A discussion on what Christmas means to our service users · Sources of free food during the festive period · An eclectic mixture of Christmas music from Beat Street, Mariah Carey, James Brown (you will love his special funky Christmas track!), the Jacksons, and Boney M. The show is packed, and if it might seem slightly premature to be thinking about the Christmas and New Year period, our team felt that getting people good advice in November would empower people to take charge of the festive period before it gets on top of them. We invite you to listen, as follows: · At 93.2 MHz on the FM waveband - you can find B.C.F.M. between BBC Radio Three and BBC Radio Four. This service can be heard throughout central and urban Bristol. · NEW!! On digital DAB Radio – search for “BCfm” on the display. This service should be audible throughout greater Bristol, but you may need to rescan your digital receiver to pick up BCFM and other local services that are new to DAB. · And online wherever you are at www.bcfmradio.com The show will be later podcast for posterity at the Second Step website. The Media Group’s final broadcast for 2015 will take place on Wednesday 16th December at the African-Caribbean community station Ujima Radio – we’ll look back at a year of new mental health services in Bristol and have some special Christmassy reggae vibes which you will love. Thanks for your time and attention.

Hi Dandy. Yes, it's clearly a case of OCD. Anyone would tell you that, although I know that from where you are standing it is difficult to see "outside" the obsessive thoughts, so to speak. But I deal with many people of all sexualities and the bottom line is this: if you were attracted to girls, it would be pleasurable for you and you would want to pursue that. The fact that you do not, and the idea of it fills you with anxiety and dread, is proof that what you are experiencing is OCD, nothing more and nothing less. I know that we are not supposed to give reassurance in cases of OCD, as this can itself be incorporated in a new obsessional cycle, but you're just not gay. Simple as that. I hope this helps in some small way, but do keep using the OCD-UK forums. They are a friendly and considerate bunch and these forums are moderated 24/7, so you can always get a reply if you need one. Best wishes Tez :original:

Hi there. I am certainly no expert on teenage psychiatry, but I can tell you that I was a teen once with OCD. [strangely, OCD develops in boys earlier than girls according to most research and this is probably to do with the structure of the male and female brain]. I had full blown OCD symptoms when I was 17 going onward. I think I would definitely have taken olanzapine then if it had been offered to me. As I understand it, olanzapine and other atypical anti-psychotics are used "offlicense" for OCD. This means that their approval by the (USA) F.D.A. (Food and Drugs Administration) is for schizophrenia and hearing voices, but researchers have found that at lower doses, these drugs also stabilise mood and increase rational thinking, taking away some of the worst obsessionality. In terms of sleeping tablets, yes, there is that question, but sleeping pills can bring with them their own set of problems and side effects. Certainly, your daughter will be able to sleep well with an anti-psychotic. You might find that she is a little drowsy, at least whilst getting used to the drugs. I have occasional what I called "Olanzapine moments" (a term I nicked off a friend with HIV who used to have "efaverenz moments" when he was spaced by one of his meds). This means that I get drowsy at work occasionally, and have been known to nod off in meetings!! I usually find that an energy drink and strong coffee counteracts this. I do not know what classes of drugs are licensed for use in people under the age of 16, but there is growing awareness of OCD in children - again, as I say, boys tend to develop symptoms earlier than girls. If in doubt, try the OCD UK switchboard (details on the charity's website), and they may refer you to the charity "Young Minds" (for adolescent mental health) or Sane Line. Keep the faith. OCD is a ****** illness, but it can and does respond to treatment, therapy and long term support. Tez :original:

Yes, I would also say that it is important to hold hope for the person you are supporting with OCD. Sometimes our own hope goes down the plughole, particularly when we are stressed or in the midst of an OCD type thinking period. It is especially important when someone has a "belief" in the context of their OCD thoughts - something the experts call "Overvalued Ideation". As other posters have said, persevere: it is worth it. Indeed, not pursuing treatment and therapy is not really an option, as OCD will probably become progressively worse until it takes over the whole of the family's life. But, with treatment and (sometimes) medication, people do improve. There is a lot that can be done, and a lot of exciting research into areas like deep brain stimulation and other treatments. For those of us with OCD, these are always hopeful days, that there is a lot of stuff happening on the research front. So, keep fighting for good treatment, and share experiences with other people affected by OCD: that's my advice. Have a good weekend. Tez :original:

Dear All I was looking at the press for work. I am always struck by how well the Guardian newspaper covers mental health and wellbeing. New articles are uploaded to their comprehensive website nearly every day. This week, a piece was published by Norman Lamb MP (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk). It was a revealing piece inspired by his son's battle with OCD and blasts NHS cuts and red tape. I have pasted a link below. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/04/ocd-mental-illness-services-wellbeing-families Mr Lamb has also signed a petition, which is linked to in the article, calling on more parity for mental health services in NHS care decisions. I hope you find the article of interest and value. Best wishes Tez :original: