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Hi CarysR and to the forums. What you describe is all very typical of OCD. Have you read up on OCD at all? Understanding how it works is an excellent place to begin. In short: 1. Becoming obsessed by thoughts we've had, or obsessed with preventing something (such as making sure no harm comes to your cat) happens because of the meaning we attach to these things. 2. The obsessive thoughts result in unwanted feelings 3. This leads to compulsions - acts performed to get rid of the unwanted feelings The feeling can be anything - fear, anger, disgust, jealousy... anything that makes you uncomfortable. Compulsions can be mental as well as physical. The biggest of these is called ruminating (going over and over the thoughts you've had and thinking them (or about them) again and again. The problem with compulsions is they don't relieve the unwanted feelings for long, and every time we give in to them it feeds the obsession and guarantees further obsessive concerns. Once you can recognise the OCD cycle: thoughts > feelings > compulsions > thoughts > feelings > compulsions... you can decide at which point of the cycle you want to intervene. You can resist the compulsions, learn that feelings aren't permanent and unwanted feelings aren't to be feared, or you can challenge the thinking and beliefs that create the obsessions in the first place. Have you sought any help for OCD at Uni? These days most universities are well geared up to offer therapy and support. Maybe a first step would be to chat to someone in Student Health. See what they offer for mental health problems.

Hi Scott, Can you describe what you think a 'magic boost' would look like? Putting it into words may help you to clarify what you need to do next to make progress. Do you mean your therapist says this to you? If that's all she's offering then maybe she's right that therapy should end. I don't believe people with OCD are lacking in courage. When we hit a plateau or impassable obstacle there's usually a good reason why, typically something we're telling ourselves in our internal self-talk, or a hidden belief that we're unaware of that 'doing xyz means...' Changing what you say to yourself and challenging any beliefs that stand in your way can help. Typically the self-talk and hidden beliefs aren't true and don't stand up to scrutiny, but we simply never challenge them because they're 'just there' and how things have always been. A decent therapist should be looking at why you're finding it difficult 'to dare more' rather than just suggesting you need to push yourself harder. sometimes it is just a matter of being willing to move out of our comfort zone, but even then there'll be a reason why you're not doing so of your own accord. You could list the perceived gains of overcoming your OCD versus the perceived gains of continuing in your comfort zone. Notice I said perceived gains - so it's not always as obvious as 'Of course I want to be rid of my OCD!' What do you think is holding you back? You say no 'significant' improvements. The key to taking the next step may lie in that phrase. What would significant progress look like to you? Again, putting it into words may help you clarify what it is you value more- the 'security' of OCD or whatever the freedom of significant progress might be. Hope that gives you some things to think about. And don't hesitate to raise these ideas with your therapist too. Hopefully she'll be excited to work through it with you and help you make a step-by-step plan to overcome the obstacles currently in your way to 'daring more'.

#tag Just saying ... anything can be a trigger, even words that 'most people' consider safe or positive. Also, the meaning of a word can vary depending on how it is interpreted by the individual, within cultures, and depending on context. Case in point... an affectionate name would call somebody I love in a fun and happy way... Rest > pest (Good idea for a topic Raomi. Just pulling your leg a wee bit by pointing out the flaw in the thinking that it's even possible to avoid trigger words or 'negative' words. )

Ah, I get you. I'm not aware of any such official list, but people might post replies with some good tips. My top tip is to mentally ringfence your work. OCD thinking doesn't apply during working hours and compulsive urges can be ignored completely. I used that technique very successfuly for decades. Not only was it essential (because I had to work) but it also gave me a break from the OCD from the moment I went into work to the moment I left. That made going to work pleasurable and something to look forward too, as well as making it easier (possible) to do my job without OCD causing problems.

I may be reading you wrong but it sounds like you're hoping for some sort of job centre or employers register that guarantees the job is moral? Simple answer is no. There is no such resource. Keep in mind that the problem isn't with the jobs you're considering, but with your own skewed OCD thinking. Getting a job you're able to do will require you to correct your thinking. Or to live with some mental discomfort as you get on with the work in spite of feeling that it is impacting on you morally. The good news is that if you do get a job and keep at it in spite of your OCD thoughts those thoughts that it is making you immoral will fade and disappear in time. So your best possible 'exposure therapy' would be to get a job, even if your thinking convinces you there's something immoral about it.

They are still compulsions. The thinking that you have to keep your 'promises' is also a compulsion. The difference between a morally good person 'keeping their promises' because it's the right thing to do and the OCD compulsive behaviour of 'keeping your promises' is that the 'promise' you are keeping is pointless and unnecessary behaviour. Keeping a promise is about not letting someone else down. The only person you are looking out for with your compulsive promises is yourself. It will help you to resist giving in to them if you label them correctly as compulsions rather than thinking of them as promises.

Definitely OCD latching onto it, giving an insignificant social media message more importance than it deserves. So treat it as you would any other OCD theme - label the thoughts you get about it as OCD, don't engage with them and get busy with real life. Great that you have a best friend (doggie ) and family to help. I agree about the Samaritans, they are indeed a great resource for times of trouble. I hope you get your dizziness and legs-giving-way symptoms sorted soon. If it does turn out to be stress-related then that makes it even more important to let these obsessive thoughts go unheeded and put it behind you. So my advice is don't even think of it as 'an incident'. It's not that big an issue that it deserves the title! Often with OCD it's just about giving ourselves permission to let go of the feeling that we ought to right the wrong. Maybe just knowing that there's no further action you need to take for your friend's or your own benefit, and that you do not have any responsibility to take action against such a vile person (you're not the moral police with a duty to reform every vile person out there) will be enough to let you feel you can let it go.

Label that fear of having poison on your hands as an OCD thought. Then disengage from it and let the idea that there was even a risk of poison go.

Hi Chris, to the forums. First off I need to point out that you don't have 'PureO' at all. Every one of those 'promises' you felt you had to do was a compulsion. Standard obsessive-compulsive disorder. So another way to look at this is that you were spending a huge amount of time on compulsions, and when you 'break your promises' you're actually doing the right thing at last. Standing up to your OCD and not doing any more compulsions. Of course you feel obliged (compelled) to do them. They're compulsions! That you recognise nothing bad will happen if you don't do them is the healthy part of your brain talking - you have insight that it's not necessary to keep the promises you made. Correctly labelling them and calling them compulsions instead of 'promises' should help with resisting the urge (obligation) to do them. Why do any of us give in to our compulsions? Because we hope they'll make us feel better, even when we know that giving in will just make it worse. Recognise that the thoughts about harm coming to your family are just thoughts and have no power to make anything happen just because you thought them. So there's no need to make 'promises' or carry out any kind of compulsive thought or action to keep your family safe. Realise that the healthy thing to do is to not do the compulsions. If you get further obsessive thoughts in future about needing to do compulsions, treat them too as 'just thoughts'. Shrug them off and pay them no attention. The more you follow this the sooner the obsessive thoughts will fade and stop bothering you.

Hi @Kakyoinisbb and to the forums. What you describe is a series of obsessive thoughts - thoughts about the thing you did, then about 'having to make it right', and also thoughts about needing to confess to a future partner and worrying what other people might think. Doing further things to punish yourself was a compulsion. OCD begins when we give meaning to a thought. In this instance that was when you decided you had done a 'bad' thing and needed to make amends or punish yourself. Giving it that meaning triggered all the subsequent worries. You could just as easily have decided the thing that you did wasn't significant in the bigger scheme of things and recognised you are still a good person overall in spite of what you did. Giving it that meaning instead would have put an end to the matter there and then. So a good place to start is to accept that feeling bad about yourself only exists because of the meaning you chose to give to something you did. It's never too late to change the meaning you give to something you've thought or done. So choose now to change the meaning you put on whatever it was you did. Decide that (with hindsight) you now see it wasn't such a big deal and didn't require you to react the way you did. Then just let it go. If you get further obsessive thoughts about it, recognise and label all of these as just thoughts. They don't require any response or action. It's ok to just let them come and go too without engaging (without worrying.)

What you're doing is more like condemning them as murderers, having them sentenced to life imprisonment without a trial, and then turning up at the prison every day to whip them in person. Extreme, eh? But that's what you're doing to yourself. You even need to ask?? Of course you can just let it go. Letting it go is a normal human response too. But... (Well, you come back with a 'but' every time so I thought I'd try it too ) But, even though you've had the reassurance and the explanations and the logic and the reasoning and been told over and over that you're allowed to let it go... You then have to decide that's what you're going to do. Make a stand. Draw a line under it and from that moment on refuse to return to it. We can advise and reassure until the end of time, but (there I go again ) we can't let it go for you. At some point you have to decide to do that bit for yourself. And then stick with that decision. Refuse to return to it no matter how compelling the temptation.

Well, yes. It is. And besides, at some point you have to let it go. (Or stay stuck in this OCD cycle forever.) Maybe you just need to be miserable for longer, until you feel that you've punished yourself enough. Not for a moment suggesting that's what you should do! Quite the opposite. But it's what you are doing - punishing yourself. Creating guilty feelings and returning to it again and again even though you know (at least on some level) that you can let it go.

It's interesting isn't it? How on the one hand you know absolutely and without a shadow of doubt that you would never agree to a blasphemous thought. Never. End of. Yet on the other hand you keep asking 'But what if it's true? What if I did agree?' And you're equally certain that you have to keep thinking it over until you know for certain that it's not true - the very thing you already know with absolute unshakeable certainty! So this isn't about 'needing to know'. You already know - 100% certain, you would never - in your heart or soul - never ever agree to such a thought. We can't prevent words passing through our heads. We hear the words around us, other people saying things we disagree with, all the time. We can't stop the words 'echoing' in our heads and we hear that 'echo' in the same way we hear our deliberate thoughts. When you're well you're able to recognise it for what it is - just words in your head and not reflective of you or the way you feel. So you'd shrug it off without hesitation. But a bit like something catching your eye so you stop and do a double-take, in that moment you paused and thought about the words in your head. It gave you an extra split second to analyse the 'echo' and decide that if it had been your own thought the consequences would be catastrophic. So catastrophic that you took extreme safety measures 'just in case' ... and you reacted as if it was your own thought instead of shrugging it off as an echo of something your brain had registered in passing from the outside world. So now you need to accept you misheard yourself, or got it wrong when you paused to do the double-take. However you want to put it. Instead of trying to 'work it out' so you can 'let yourself off the hook' or 'be forgiven' you need to stop again and do a third take. This time label it correctly as an 'echo' of words that could never come from your heart or soul. Because you never would. Not even in a moment of frustration. It's simply not who you are or part of your moral code. When you can see that there was never any need for that 'just in case' reaction, then you can let it go. Does labelling it an 'echo' from the outside world help? Instead of calling it 'a thought' (which keeps suggesting to you that you are responsible for it and therefore guilty.) Trust what you already knew before this started. Trust what you've always known with the deepest conviction your whole life. Don't waste any more time trying to find an OCD answer you feel you can trust. Another way to think of those words echoing is like a snippet of an irritating song that you heard on the radio and now can't get out of your head. (An earworm they call it.) Just because you keep hearing the lyrics doesn't mean you wrote them. Doesn't mean you 'agree' with the song or want to keep hearing it. With that there's no perceived consequences other than irritation, no catastrophic moral wrongdoing to humming along. So you'd shrug it off and get your mind onto other things until the annoying song snippet faded away. This is exactly the same. It keeps troubling you because you keep on humming the same tune instead of letting it go. Relabel it as an echo or an earworm. Ditch the guilt. Refocus. And get on with your life.

I know! And I so want one. I'd use it a lot!

What you describe is pretty common. People sometimes even bring up some 'catastropic' OCD worry to distract them from the minor worries of everyday life. It can be a perverse coping mechanism (an avoidance compulsion in disguise.) Then the guilt of not worrying about 'routine' risks becomes yet another stick to beat yourself with. Label both the initial worry and the 'worry-about-not-worrying' as OCD. Then disengage from any further thoughts on the matter and try to get on with your day. You've had 3 years in remission - yay! And you're coming out the other side of this episode - Yay! So don't go back to old behaviours of over-thinking it and raking up the past just for something to ruminate over. Find something productive to keep you occupied and focus on living your life in the here and now.

Yes. The annual conferences have been held online since Covid, but this year it's going back to the in person style. I believe it's going to be just 1 day (rather than the usual 2 day event) as we don't know what take-up will be like on tickets after several years 'away'. There's usually a chance to socialise after the presentations end, and of course you might find others who are going want to go out for the evening afterwards, or whatever people decide together that they want to do. I see you're a paid up OCD-UK member, so keep an eye on the Members Section (bottom part of the forums) as any updates will be posted there first.

Writing is a great idea. No need to worry about concentration or getting sentences right - just get your thoughts down on paper (or screen) What kind of writing do you like? Keeping a journal kind of thing, or creative stoty-telling, or what?

Hi, breakfree. I'm sorry to see you're struggling so much at the moment. You've had a variety of good suggestions, especially from Paul, about doing something to else to keep your mind busy - it really does help to reduce the ruminating (and the misery that being caught in that rumination cycle brings.) You mentioned self-confidence issues and social anxiety, but perhaps you could pick up the phone and chat to a family member or friend? Social contact is very important in mental wellbeing. The more you isolate yourself the more time your brain has to feed the OCD. You say you did well before with CBT, and that it was stress that caused this relapse. So have you tried any relaxation exercises, or meditation, or stress-busting measures? Sometimes the most stressful thing of all is feeling like you're not in control. So simply taking a deep breath and taking charge of small things you've been putting off can give you a boost of energy and confidence. What else do you think would help?

Just an update on this: the venue and exact date later in the year is still to be confirmed. Ashley will let us know as soon as he knows for certain.

That we can certainly give you, and with absolute confidence that it doesn't matter and religion based is no different to any other topic when its OCD. Please try to put this behind you now and let it go. Holding onto it is only hurting you and nobody - earthly or otherwise - wants that.

I'm sorry to hear you're in hospital @ocdsufferer85 I hope whatever the ailment is that you get better soon. You're stuck in this cycle of rumination because you're hoping to answer question in your mind, rather than accept it doesn't need answered. You had a thought - means nothing. You reacted in frustration - not significant. But you've convinced yourself that it has meaning and is very significant to your beliefs. It is that idea that is making you feel so bad, not what you did or what you might have agreed to in your head. How can we help you to see that this is all OCD and can be safely dismissed as nonsense? What will it take to convince you?

I'm truly glad you're finding out how much self-compassion helps @Tired20 We do indeed all need compassion, and often a virtual hug I wish you all the best with your therapy and hope that through it you reach a place of resolution, growth and inner peace as you continue your journey to recovery and through life.