Lynz

This post and your previous one before that was again the result of you ruminating. You really need to try and nip that in the bud. Whenever you catch yourself ruminating in any way on anything to do with your obsession don't engage with it any further, and try to refocus your attention on to whatever you were previously doing before you started ruminating.

Ruminating over cheating in general is still related to your obsession and would still be a compulsion. I guarantee "normal" people wouldn't ruminate to the extent that you do over this, if at all.

Sometimes we say things without thinking them through. The fact that you are now so torn up about it shows that you are a decent human being who cares a lot about his loved ones. If I were you I would really try and let this one go, and get on with your day as best as you can.

I think your OCD is making this into a big deal when it's not. There's nothing wrong with finding an adult female who is not a blood relative attractive, nothing at all, but you make it sound like you've committed a grave sin.

You mustn't be so hard on yourself, Em. Yes you're in a bad place now but there is always tomorrow available for us to make a fresh start. What support are you getting at the moment, medically speaking?

Also, if your OCD is truly as mild as you say it is, then I would argue that it is far better to get help for it now before it gets worse. Most of us here probably avoided getting help for many years until we were quite severe, and it is harder to recover (not impossible, just requires more work) from a place of severe OCD than it is if it's milder, so please don't feel that you have to be a really bad case in order to seek help.

Hi Dorden and welcome to the forum. Obviously none of us on here are in a position to properly diagnose you, but from what you have written you definitely have a lot of what I would call "textbook OCD", e.g. obsessions to do with harm, the compulsions surrounding handwashing when cooking etc., and the anxiety that comes with all of that. It's up to you whether you see a doctor or therapist about it. I guess it depends on how much you feel it is affecting your everyday life. However I would assume it's affecting you quite badly for you to post on here and also because you say your girlfriend is frustrated with your reluctance to seek further help (our loved ones are often better judges of our mental state than us sometimes, and if your girlfriend thinks that you have a problem with it then I would take it as a given that you do). I will say though that you have nothing to fear about going to a GP to get some help. OCD is very treatable with the right therapy (CBT with exposure and response prevention (ERP) by a therapist who specialises in OCD), and I promise you that life is so much better once you start on the journey to recovery .

This book is great. I have it. I highly recommend it.

I notice the rankings are measuring how disabling the illness can be, so I'd imagine the difference is because in the majority of countries younger women do most of the child-rearing/running the household/looking after elderly relatives etc., and if they get an illness such as OCD then the effects are more devastating not only to them but to the wider family and children.

So true, PB. The World Health Organisation classifies OCD as the 5th most debilitating mental illness in the world. That's bad enough for me.

Again you're catastrophising. They can't do that as that would be illegal so don't worry about that. The most important thing is to get you well again. That should be your main focus and priority right now. In terms of therapy I would wait and see what your GP says as waiting lists do vary a lot. One time when I went to my GP a few years ago I was told it was around 12 months, then more recently it had been reduced to around 13 weeks. Even if the waiting list is long though there is still no harm in putting your name down for it and looking for private therapy or alternative therapy e.g. online etc. in the meantime.

Well done on booking your appointment, Headwreck! Don't worry about the "what-ifs" for now. Worrying about what may happen with your job/therapy in 12 months time is pointless and will only make you feel more anxious. The best thing to do for now is to try and focus on your day to day activities, keeping busy etc. and not casting your mind too far ahead into the future.

I honestly think you're catastrophising. I'm a student nurse (final year) in the NHS. My current placement is in paediatric emergency services. I've always been upfront and honest about my OCD and Trusts have been very accommodating and supportive. I've even had the ward manager of the Trust I'm in now offer me a job because she wants me to work there. There's absolutely no way employers can discriminate against you based on mental health issues. To my knowledge the only employer that is allowed to do so (i.e. turn you down for a job) is the armed forces. However I also think you really truly need to be honest with yourself. Can you actually perform in this job the way you need to if you're this mentally unwell at the moment? I think if you carry on the way you are without any help, support, or even just medication you will experience burnout in a few months and then all of your hard work will have been for nothing. I mean you're even talking about suicide for goodness sake. How is this scenario that you're in now more ideal than going to your GP for some help? It's not about hiding things from employers, it's about being upfront and honest with them so they know how to support you. But having said that, just having one GP visit to talk about your current issues probably won't even make it onto their notes. By all means talk to your GP about your concerns regarding your job too. They will be able to help and advise you on that front as well.

Sure they have worries all of the time, but they don't obsessively worry over and over again about something that they have very little evidence of it actually happening to the extent that you do, where it is making you ill and is negatively affecting every aspect of your life. You have a major issue with this OCD, Headwreck, and I know I probably sound like a broken record but you need to see your GP and get some proper help for it. I really hope that you do.

There is absolutely a reason, Headwreck. It's called OCD. OCD can convince you of absolutely anything. In my worst moments, and you can check my past threads I made years ago, I was 100% convinced I was transgender and that for my entire life I'd been lying to myself and denying who I really was. This is despite me never having worried about this previously, and that I was a normal female person and was comfortable and happy with myself. Then one day "bang", I got an intrusive thought that I might be transgender after reading about something to do with transgender issues in the news and it was like a switch had been flicked and I was flooded with anxiety. There was nothing you could say to me that would make me change my mind. I was 100% convinced and it was awful. I thought my distress was due to the fact that my family and friends would reject me if they knew the truth, so I "came out" to them all one by one. Even though all of them were accepting of what I was saying to them this didn't make me feel any better at all, in fact it only made me more anxious. Only by realising that what I was doing were compulsions and stopping them did this worry eventually loosen its grip on me. I also went through another obsession where I was completely convinced that I was a lesbian, which again came from an intrusive thought that popped up when there was a scene in a TV show of two women kissing and I got the thought "what if deep down I'm actually a lesbian and I just don't realise it?". This is despite me never having any interest or attraction to women previously and up until I became obsessed with this I had always fancied men and the thought of liking women had never even occurred to me. I even broke up with my partner because I didn't believe that I was straight anymore (luckily he saw it was OCD and stuck around, and we got back together as I started to recover). But now that I've recovered from that and other obsessions I look back and can see that they were 100% OCD, and it feels like what happened to me happened to someone else. In other obsessions I've had for example I've been utterly convinced that a mark on my body was skin cancer (a birth mark that didn't bother me at all until 4 years ago) even though I'd had it checked out by 2 different doctors and a dermatologist. I was so convinced I had cancer I'd even looked into how to make a will as I was certain that I was going to die within 12 months. However, I eventually recovered from that too, and I've still got that mark on my body today but it doesn't bother me now at all. I just wish that even if you don't believe what we are saying is true (that you have OCD), then for you to at least accept our advice and start putting into practice some of our suggestions. You don't believe that you have OCD and that's OK because when we are at our worst none of us believe we have it. All you have to do now is entertain the possibility that you MIGHT have it, and start putting into practice some of the techniques you've learned such as cutting down on your compulsions, challenging core beliefs and doing ERP. Only by doing that will you have the clarity needed to properly see things the way that they are. Trust us when we say that we've seen it all before and know what we are talking about. Also, please see your GP. I still think you are overstating the risk of going to your GP about this in terms of your future job, believing that if you do so then your entire career will be ruined which is obviously not true, but you believing that is to be expected given your current mental state.