rchippex

Thanks for the reply. Well on Sunday the feared consequence didn't happen. Neither has it today but I still feel very stuck with the thoughts and can't get any kind of certainty at all. I have been basically trying to totally cold turkey it though and I dont think that is helping. I know that is the OCD though. I have just sat down at work (I am self employed) and begun to write a heirarchy. What do you think? Is this the right kind of thing? I want to start tackling this before it gets worse because it occupies my mind almost all day and I need to start getting a handle on it. My fear is all based around going crazy or developing psychosis or schizophrenia hence the odd thoughts etc. I have had 3 assessments now by professionals (2 in a&e) who all say I have anxiety and OCD but still I can't shake this stuff. Thoughts/Images Thought of harming someone or myself as a result of my odd thoughts Thought of believing a weird thought that just pops up (imagining harming someone or them being a monster) Thought of believing something I have imagined (like if I imagine something behind me) Thought of believing a weird abstract thing Thought of believing something depressing Thought of being scared about seeing something that isn't there (imagining a shadow is shaped like someone) Thought of obsessing about myself too much and feeling unreal Fear of being paranoid Fears about losing touch with reality Fear that if I don't argue back to a thought then I may believe it Fear of not paying attention to my thoughts just in case I miss something bad Fear of having an image in my mind and believing it Triggers Talking to people Looking over my shoulder Playing on the Laptop Intrusive thought or image Not being aware of what I am thinking Rolling films at work Story time with Evelyn Sitting in the van Becoming aware of myself Shaving my head Doorway in peripheral vision Having a shower Exposure Ideas Imagine someone behind you Imagine something weird and don't try to argue against it Sit and allow any and all thoughts without trying to reassure myself that I dont think they are real etc Sit in the van for 30 minutes with no reassurance Sit with a doorway in peripheral vision for 30 minutes Play on the laptop for 1 hour Do something and keep bringing attention back to what you are doing instead of monitoring thoughts Have a shower and perform no reassurance or thought monitoring if possible - 15 minutes Hold a scary image in mind for as long as possible Agree with the idea that maybe I am crazy - last on the list! Goal To be able to have any thought without being scared of believing it. To get to theory B (my thoughts are not dangerous) and be back to normal

Thanks. I caved in today and have ended up reassuring myself online My anxiety was so extreme and I was worried that I was doing too much. I was worried that that level of anxiety wasn't normal and it didn't seem to be going down at all.

Hi all, So for the last 3 days I have been resisting my compulsions as much as possible when it comes to my intrusive thoughts. I have had a fear of going mad for a while now and so I keep thinking weird things and I have been doing my best to just let these things pop into my mind and then not do anything about them. The first day I tried this I was extremely anxious for most of the day. Then yesterday I had a better day but not perfect and still had to resist my compulsions a lot. Today I seem to be extremely anxious again. I am doing my best to just keep resisting the urge and anxiety to deal with these thoughts or try to argue against them etc but is it normal for the anxiety to be so extreme that it feels hard to function? Am I flooding myself too much? I don't have a heirarchy or anything because I find it very hard to choose something that doesnt scare me as much because all of my thoughts are weird and scary and I know they aren't true but yet the OCD makes me doubt and it really sends me spinning. I am really struggling with it today but I want more than anything to beat this OCD again as I have in the past. Thanks

Thanks both. I am going to have an assessment with them next week I think with a view to starting some ERP so I can overcome my obsessions.

Hi all, I was wondering if anybody has tried outpatient treatment for OCD from the priory? I have spoken to them at Altrincham about getting an assessment and then getting outpatient help from them but its not cheap and I want to see if anybody else has been helped by them or not. My current private therapist doesn't seem to be helping me so I am looking for another option. We aren't even doing ERP. Thanks

Thanks. Im not really sure of the cause but I did start taking fluoxetine 4 days ago and have found that it is making me feel seriously down and so the evenings feeling better could be to do with that too if there is a natural improvement in mood. The downs are so down though that I am considering asking my GP to take me off these and put me back on Clomipramine which I had a lot of success with a few years ago. I don't think I could cope with 2-4 weeks of feeling this down.

Yes maybe. Its something I've found from time to time that when I get home and have sat down for a while and relaxed in the evening that sometimes the anxiety just melts away and im left wondering what I was so anxious about earlier in the day. But then come morning it hits me like a ton of bricks again.

Whats odd though PB is i feel no anxiety right now. Granted I still wouldn't choose to think the thoughts but they don't seem to bother me even though they really did earlier in the day.

Hi all. I hope you are doing well. I wanted to ask a question about time of day relating to ocd. Something odd with me is usually after about 8pm if I am at home my overall anxiety generally drops and as a result the thoughts that were really causing me great distress during the day dont seem to bother me half as much. It makes me worry a little that its not ocd. Could it just be that I am in my safe place at home so the anxiety is naturally lower? Does anyone else experience this? In the morning it all kicks off again big time as soon as I wake up and my mind has had a chance to realise I'm awake. Thanks

I'm right with you on this John. PB is right. We need to let the thoughts pop in and then take it no further. Its much easier I find once the anxiety is lower. When its very high it can be very difficult. If we engage with them then we will just enter into the OCD cycle again.

Thanks PB. I know you are right of course. My anxiety just bluffs me into dealing with them. Im feeling calmer now and the thoughts don't have half the weight they did earlier. Ive really tried hard today to not add anything further after a thought.

Thanks PB. I did have a look this morning. Today has been a little better but I'm still catching myself checking for weird thoughts and of course my mind obliges every single time with weirder and weirder things. Its so frustrating and causes me a lot of distress. I am trying not to add anything to it after it has happened though but then I get scared that I'm crazy and believing absurd things if I don't argue with it somehow or check if I'm believing things.

I do see your point. My therapist said the same thing. I told him im terrified of believing weird things and he said I need to just allow them to roll on through but I get caught up really quickly and can't help but pay attention to them and freak myself out because I cant get certainty about it. Its so frustrating. Its like my mind just won't move onto anything else and I just scare myself more and more. I actually contacted a specialist ocd service this evening so I can start to take the fight back to this. I have looked into the chap who I hope to have sessions with and he seems to have a lot of experience treating ocd and is the medical director of the priory in my area so hopefully with his guidance I can make some progress. My current therapist isn't doing any ERP unless I ask for it and he doesn't assign me any homework or anything which I know is very important if I want to deal with this properly. It feels like I'm just treading water right now and really badly.

The problem is pb I tie myself up with statements like that and scare myself thinking what if I start to think they are etc. Im so scared of losing insight.

Thanks PB. Good to see you are still active here. You were a great contributor to my recovery last time with your helpful reminders. I struggle because the thoughts are so weird sometimes and I think to myself how can anyone have such a strange thought and then it's like I automatically check if I believed it instead of just letting it go.

Hi all, I am having a really hard time at the moment and looking for a bit of support. Long story short I had a relapse that started with fear of psychosis and is now stuck between that and having existential thoughts. I can't seem to shake any of it and it seems to consume my mind pretty much all day until my anxiety lessens naturally in the evenings. I am about to start on fluoxetine to see if that helps at all because I am struggling a lot. 6 weeks ago I was fine but now it is really kicking my backside. The issue I have is I seem unable to stop being scared of my own thoughts in case they drive me crazy or something similar. Even though this has never happened the fear just grips me and doesn't subside until my anxiety lessens. I am not sure what to do with the thoughts when they come along as I am scared that I would believe them somehow if I didnt do anything about them. I do realise that this is the exact same fear I had last time I had OCD but its just so hard to take any kind of leap of faith and just allow them to be without neutralising them or responding to them in some way. I was getting private therapy but he is now away for 2 weeks so this may be playing on my mind also. I feel I need to do some ERP with this stuff which we did at first but haven't for a while. Its like he thinks I am able now to do the ERP on the fly but I am clearly not at that point yet. Fingers crossed the meds begin to work at some point. I am starting on a low dose because last time I tried an SSRI (Sertraline) the initial anxiety was so intense that I stopped after just one tablet and I dont want to repeat that experience ideally. Hope you are all having a good day and resisting compulsions etc. Rik

H Hi Gemma, Thank you for the reply. I really appreciate it. I am still seeing a therapist yes. I seem to still be really struggling with the existential stuff though despite having made good progress with the other theme which was a fear of psychosis. The problem is the existential stuff makes me feel very down too which adds further weight to the thoughts even though I am usually a very happy go lucky person. I have just got in touch with my GP this morning to get put back on clomipramine as this helped me the last time I had a really bad time with my OCD. I tried for 6 weeks to go without medication since this all started again but now I am just thinking that if I need a crutch to get back on track then so be it. If I had a broken leg I wouldnt refuse meds so it makes sense to take the help I had last time. Hopefully over time they can take the edge off things and allow me to start putting my CBT into practise and ignore the thoughts. Its so frustrating to be back in the cycle again but as you say, at least I understand that it is my OCD and can take the steps required to overcome it. That feeling of being afraid of your thoughts really sucks and it feels almost impossible not to attend to them at the moment.

Hi, Yes definitely not alone with this one. In fact my current OCD is dealing with this kind of stuff as well as other things. Its powered by my fear of going mad or losing control. It needs to be treated the same as any other ocd thought and don't reassure yourself. Easier said than done I know.

Hi all. It has been a really long time since I was last on the forum for harm OCD. I guess I am reaching out for some support and maybe some hope that others have experienced the issue I am dealing with and overcome it. I have had a few OCD themes in the past but this current one is really beating me up. Basically it all centres around the meaning of life and things like that and being aware of myself and I just can't get my mind off it. Classic OCD I know. I have been seeing a therapist for a while and did make some progress on another theme (fear of psychosis) but now this one has me hook line and sinker and I am struggling to break the compulsions of reassurance and paying too much attention to my thoughts etc. Just hoping anyone can offer some hope or advice to help me out. Thanks Rik EDIT: I actually realised just now that I had this exact same theme in 2016! I just happened to check my old post history. I knew I had had some thoughts along these lines before but seeing that I had actually had this theme 4 years ago and overcome it and forgotten is quite an eye opener! Surely that means that I can do it again if I did it before.

jampot, I am being plagued by the same stuff as you I think. I constantly question if I am real or if my surroundings are and I have terrible intrusive thoughts that are incredibly hard to not ruminate about. It is crippling me at the moment. I saw PBs advice above and it makes sense to me. I just wish I could put it into practice as I feel so spaced out and weird all the time that it is so hard not to check for thoughts

Thanks Franklin, I am working from home today and I plan to go for a walk shortly before lunch. Something to just raise my mood a little and make me feel a bit less on edge. It is so hard not to look at my thoughts in depth when I have spent the last 2 days doing so. I was doing so well before then. I must just refocus my efforts on resisting compulsions and just try to carry on as normal.

I will try. This has always been my deepest ever fear each time I have had any kind of anxiety issue. It has always been at the core of my fears each time but this time it is front and centre and I am having a really tough time with it. Due to the extreme anxiety I was facing it made me feel really spaced out too which further adds to the fears. It was like a 2 day long panic attack. I am on the list for CBT but I have no confirmed date yet and I am not sure what to do

Hi guys, I was doing a bit better up until I went out drinking with a friend on Friday and the following day I began to have what felt like a near constant panic attack. I became really afraid that I was going mad and started fearing schizophrenia massively again. As a result I spent most of the day reading about schiz-OCD where people are really scared they will get it and so they think about the symptoms etc. Since then I keep obsessing about it and I will have the kinds of thoughts I think they would have and it is almost like I am testing myself with them and of course they cause a big anxiety spike and scare me that I will believe them as I feel like I have to have 100% certainty that I dont and I cant feel that. I dont know if any of you guys have experienced this before? Do I just try to treat the thoughts the same as any other intrusive thought? Have I got something to worry about?

Hi PolarBear, Thank you for taking the time to reply. I have been trying to resist compulsions etc but as you know it can be devilishly tricky at times. I have found it much harder with the DP and DR that came with it this time also as that seems to make me feel so disconnected from things. That came with the extreme anxiety and stress I was under. I am glad to say that side of things has been improving massively for the last few months and I am mainly left with the obsessions again. My compulsions are all mental as they were last time. Ruminating, checking and arguing with the thoughts etc. I can identify them but due to the nature of the obsession (which has always been my worst fear) it has been much harder to resist them. I will keep on trying though. I have had some success with this. I have not really had anyone to talk to about it which does make things harder. That is what led me back here as at least people on here can relate to the frustration of it all. Many thanks again. Rik

Hi All, Some may remember me from last year. I had severe harm OCD but managed in the end to overcome it completely by about June. In December my anxiety returned due to extreme stresses I was under and slowly but surely the intrusive thoughts made themselves known again and I felt powerless to combat them as they chose a different theme and focus and completely knocked me for 6 despite me trying not to entertain them etc. I hadn't wanted to really reach out for help as I thought I could handle it but things got progressively worse and I was left severely anxious and ended up feeling very derealised and depersonalised as a result which I believe is what spawned the two obsessions I now face. Fast forward to now and I am left with existential OCD and what I hope is Schiz OCD. Basically I was terrified that I would become schizophrenic or psychotic and so I would check for certain thoughts or any thought I didn't deem totally normal would go through the fear filter and I am having a hard time in pushing past. I have applied for NHS therapy again but am on the waiting list and it could be some time. I had a psychiatrist assess me and he said I was not psychotic and was just obsessing but of course your mind refuses to let you believe that. I am still able to function at work and am not as bad as I once was but I don't seem to be able to resolve this on my own and am afraid to try to do exposures to these things without having a professional beside me at first as I have the fear that I will make myself believe these things. I am taking clomipramine now as the sertraline I was put on this time seemed to kick start the unreality feelings and when I came off them it felt even worse and I felt I needed to do something. I am not sure what the purpose of my post is other than to see if people can relate and maybe offer a little support in some way. I have been thinking about going for private CBT while I wait for the NHS to get back to me. I am not sure if I should or not. I do feel like I need some help in overcoming these issues. This year has been extremely hard following the loss of both my grandmother and grandfather and I think that too has really taken its toll on me. Rik