snowbear

Are you receiving any CBT or psychotherapy for this? Or for the OCD component of your problems?

Calling it by other names is most likely an avoidance /self-reassurance compulsion. Yes. Call it what it is and get on with treating it as OCD.

Your brain is no different to anybody else's brain. But you are currently giving more meaning to 'things I hate' than the average person does to 'things I hate'. Which is why your brain won't just let those things drift into your head and out again. The 'sticking point' is the meaning you give to the things you read/ see. When you change the meaning you give them your brain will work perfectly well again without sticking on things. So you need to stop trying to work out if things you read are relevant to you, stop worrying there's something wrong with having weird thoughts (everybody gets weird thoughts.) Start treating 'things I hate' as just a moment of realising that you don't like something and shrug it off instead of treating it like it's already true/ happening/ totally hateful/ insurmountable discomfort etc. Have you had any CBT, Mini?

Fine. Thanks for clarifying. That brings me back to my original point:- - you've been given a medical reason by a medically qualified person - specifically tailored to you - suggesting quetiapine and not 'the usual stuff you hear about more often'. If you have doubts, would you not be better raising them with the psychiatrist? 'Why have you suggested this particular drug for me when most people are given xyz?' (Actually she gave you the answer already - quetiapine has some sedative effects which would be useful in someone experiencing insomnia.) Medication is meant to be tailored to the individual. What applies to the average person / most people doesn't apply to everybody. If it did we could get rid of doctors, let everybody google their symptoms for themselves and get a monkey to hand out the same pills to everybody. So asking on the forum for other people's experiences regarding medication has limited use to the individual asking. I'm not just saying this to you Summer. I repeat it often on the forums to lots and lots of people who ask questions of forum users - if they have doubts or questions about the medication they have been prescribed (tailored to them) then they should ask their doctor (and get the response tailored to them as an individual).

So, the psychiatrist has given you a valid medical reason why she's suggesting a particular treatment and... ...the first thing you do is come on the forum and ask for non-medical opinions from people who can only share their personal experiences (and everybody's experience is unique with these kinds of medications.) What is it you are hoping to hear, Summer? Is it possible you are just using the forum to express your immediate feelings of doubt? I'm not saying you can't use the forum that way. I am aware you don't have much in the way of other support/ family support. At the same time I would like to see you begin to work on your self-confidence and start to tolerate a few doubts now and then without rushing to get them off your chest like a child rushes to tell a parent everything that's happened in their day. I really hope that doesn't come across as condescending, it's not in any way meant to be. I know how much you've grown-up the past year and I merely wish to help you transition to the self-confident, resilient adult you are already becoming. So, I'm going to ask again... What is it you are hoping for by posting this, Summer? (Just want you to think about your motives and needs, that's all. )

That's your OCD thinking head making that judgement, RocketSky. What Taurean is suggesting is that you apply normal thinking and instead of buying into the ' my concerns are valid because playing it safe is better than being sorry' thinking of OCD. With normal thinking all those 'yes, but' type questions OCD raises to convince you that you ought to feel worried disappear. So if you're getting caught up in feeling your concerns have merit then you can take that as a sign you're still thinking about this with your OCD hat on. Take this feeling as yet another sign you're still thinking about the situation from an OCD viewpoint instead of a normal perspective. Start to recognise the doubts and discomfort as the result of your OCD thinking, not something genuine that you ought/ need to consider. Label these doubts and feelings as OCD and it becomes easier to let them go.

Then you need to look more closely at your belief that clean = good. What you're actually telling yourself is 'Feeling satisfied that everything is OCD clean = good and normal cleanliness isn't good enough.' The key words there are that it is a feeling, not a fact (the feeling of safety and satisfaction you get from obeying the rules and demands of OCD) and that you are equating normal cleanliness with OCD clean, when they are two totally different things. OCD clean is the cleaning you do because of your distorted (obsessive) thinking, and the feeling of safety you get from compulsively ensuring something is done to your OCD clean standards. Normal cleanliness is how clean you believe something has to be to be safe/ healthy when you are thinking normally (without the distortions of OCD.) Changing you thinking around what it means for something to be 'clean' is something you could tackle with your therapist as part of cognitive therapy.

I'm sorry you had this bad experience, ecomum. Seems to me you have 2 options: - let it go, say nothing, and carry on as normal as if today never happened - try to find an appropriate moment tomorrow to have a quiet word with them. Explain you were upset by their laughter and ask them how they thought laughing at you would make you feel. (Maybe they were trying to make light of it to show you were worrying about nothing. Maybe they were being unthinking and unkind. You don't know.) If it was me I'd ( Briefly! No ruminating on it for hours!) picture each scenario in my head, imagine their reaction and the outcome based on how well I know them and then choose the option with the outcome I most hope for. There's no guarantee things will work out how you imagine it in your head, but at least you'll be a bit more prepared to face whatever does come next. Just remember, you don't have to confront them. Think of it as just having a calm chat to put forward your point of view without getting angry or upset. (The upset was yesterday. Tomorrow is about sorting it or moving on, not revisiting the upset. ) Whatever you decide to do, I hope you have a better day tomorrow.

Hi Gingham, Exposure in this instance is simply leaving something undone despite it feeling incorrect. But doing any kind of exposure with the intent of 'sorting it later' simply undoes all the good you just did, which means you made yourself stressed and miserable for nothing. Therefore an important part of the exposure is to commit 100% to the idea that you will not under any circumstances 'correct' the thing you're leaving undone. A good way of thinking about this is, 'I'm changing my life for the better. From this moment on I do not need to make things feel correct. I permit myself to leave them unfinished or undone. This is my new life going forward and having things incomplete or feeling wrong is ok, because I understand there is actually no such thing as them being 'right', it's just a feeling.' If that's difficult for you then you perhaps need to do more cognitive work around why it's hard to do, what you fear will happen, your beliefs around what 'correct' means and so on. Here's a good example. You could do some acceptance work around the idea that you may indeed never forget - and that that's ok. It's ok, because you're challenging your old belief that the thing had to be done a certain way in the first place. You're comitting to making a change in your life and going forward 'with your new head on' these things that bother you so much now will not matter. Are you having any CBT at present, or who is helping you devise and manage your exposures?

Summer, this is a ridiculously huge sum of money for a simple medication review. I don't fully understand why you've chosen to go the private route on this. Who suggested the addition of quetiapine? Why not simply approach your GP and discuss it with him/ her? GP's are allowed to prescribe antipsychotics, it's just a matter of whether your individual GP has the experience or confidence to do so. If a psychiatrist has made the suggestion and written as much to your GP in a post-appointment update letter, the GP could start you on a low dose and ask for an early medication review by the psychiatry team - all on the NHS.

Still time to register for the presentations you'd like to join live everybody. Recordings are made of most of the presentations and will be available 2-3 weeks after the conference ends. You don't need to register to watch the recording. The OCD-UK annual conference has been held online for the last 2 years and it's been fabulous for those of us who are housebound, have difficulty travelling, or for those who simply live too far away to attend a weekend in person. Make the most of this opportunity to hear some of the top experts in their field (some the top expert in the world ! ) speak on the sorts of issues OCD sufferers and their loved ones face. Hope to see you there!

Our in-the flesh support groups have been mostly put on hold since covid, but until they resume there are online support groups available. We even have a special part of the forum set aside for support group users which you can explore here. LauraOCDUK runs the groups which are held via zoom on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She will also have all the latest information about when area specific support groups are restarting for London and other regions. There is up to date info on the groups here or if you still can't find what you're looking for then you could email her using laura@ocduk.org

You can't automatically tell if someone has a lot of intra-abdominal fat just from a regular abdo examination. You need a CT scan or MRI to confirm it. But it's something that a good GP ought to have thought about and probably ought to have mentioned as a possibility. Bloating from IBS comes and goes. If you're bothered by it raise the possibility with your GP of it being fat around the internal organs. I'm not saying it couldn't be a side-effect of Sertraline, just that you're not likely to find answers to a physical stomach problem on an OCD forum. Even if someone replies saying they've experienced bloating on Sertraline too, it doesn't follow that the drug is causing the swelling you describe in you. Best to discuss such things with a doctor. I am sorry you've not had much success with doctors on the issue so far though. These days it seems to be, 'Are you going to die from it in the short term? No? Then we're too busy to care.' Meanwhile try dieting by cutting down drastically on the alcoholic calories. It'll benefit your health and it just might reverse the bloating problem too.

Numb, you need to discuss this with your GP again, not be asking for opinions about medication side-effects on an OCD forum. If you've been drinking quite a lot on a regular basis, this is far more likely to be the culprit than Sertraline. Possible causes range from liver enlargement to gaining intra-abdominal fat. (Skin fat layer doesn't look any thicker, but internally there are fat deposits around the liver and pancreas.) This is particularly a problem for men from their 30s onwards who regularly drink beer or a large volume of spirits. If you've already had a medical examination and tests then discuss the 'bloating' again with your GP and disclose how much you drink honestly (if you didn't before.) Did you know that a pint of beer contains as many calories as a Mars bar? You wouldn't eat a multipack of Mars bars every night and not expect to gain weight! Cutting it out for just 3 weeks won't remove all the fat that's accumulated over months. Intra-abdominal fat deposits are way, way more likely to be the cause of a swollen tummy that 'pushes hard out on the abs' than IBS with its wind and 'bloating'. Go see your GP and get it sorted properly. Don't be fobbed off if your GP seems clueless.