snowbear

The OCD-UK conference is coming up in November. I'll check the dates and venue with @Ashley and get back to you.

It often does. If you are the victim of any kind of abuse it is something you may wish to discuss with your therapist.

Nonsense. That's twisted OCD thinking. Thoughts do not have the power to do anything. You can safely shrug them off and ignore them and nothing bad will ever come of it. Typical twisted OCD thinking, convincing you to keep worrying. Let it go. True or not, real or not - a thought is just a thought. Anybody can experience a thought about anything and it means nothing. You can even deliberately think 'bad thoughts' and nothing bad will come of it. Thoughts do not have magical powers to make things happen.

Hi jpico and welcome to the forum. It's all OCD. Resist the urge to keep asking him for reassurance about it, and practice not engaging with the doubts when they arise in your mind.

*****DO NOT FLUSH BABY WIIPES DOWN THE TOILET***** There's a risk they'll block your toilet, but far, far more devastating is the harm they do to our rivers. Maybe you're not aware just how much sweage gets released into rivers untreated? As in every time it rains the UK water companies just let everything go straight into rivers or the sea with absolutely no filtering or treatment whatsoever. If anybody does resort to using baby wipes as a compulsion to avoid using toilet paper, they should be aware that it creates more problems than it solves as you'll then need to (bag and) pocket the dirty wipe. Surely that's worse than getting a drop of urine on your hands - which you then wash anyway.

Compulsions never solve OCD problems. As you've discovered the OCD justs morphs so that the compulsions you did before are no longer enough. This will keep happening, even to your rule-based structured compulsions. This attempt to set rules around your compulsion is in itself also a compulsion. Case in point. OCD always finds a way to make you think you need to do more compulsions. Trick is not to engage with these thoughts. Another compulsion. Everything you're describing is just standard OCD with standard compulsions in response. You need to learn to recognise an OCD thought and deliberately choose not to engage with it. Shrug it off as 'just a thought'. There's no need to perform any kind of compulsion or ritual to prevent bad happening. Thoughts do not have magical powers.

Nope Yup

Interesting that you heard a sarcastic tone, Garfield. What I heard was Handy being supportive and encouraging, just stating facts in his usual literal-factual way. Once again a reminder to us all that how we interpret things can be influenced by where we're at in our own heads and how we ourselves are feeling at the time. Especially so when we're maybe feeling fragile or vulnerable. And can also depend on how well we know the other person. And again, a reminder that if there's something we don't understand in a reply we can either ask for clarification (as KC rightly did) or we can let it go without worrying what that one person meant. This is fabulous, KC! I hope I don't sound condescending when I say this is the most 'adult' and mentally together I've ever heard you talk. Keep thinking and acting this wayand your life will feel much better in no time.

I know the NHS is in crisis and GP surgeries are really overworked and under-staffed, but that's no excuse. I'[m really sorry you've experienced that response from your GP. It's really hard not to just give up hope when faced with such obstacles, but please keep fighting to get what you need. Even in these dire times, the help is out there. It's just sometimes harder to access.

Flipping heck!! You're very gracious saying that it's not the GPs fault but that's pretty unforgiveable on 2 counts. However clueless the doctor is on the ins and outs of OCD they still ought to know the dose of any medication they're prescribing, and in particular the maximum dose. As for prescribing diazepam as any kind of solution when there has been a medical practitioner awareness policy in place for 30 years that benzodiazepines should only ever be prescribed as a last resort, at lowest possible dose and for a short time only - since when did 'try this first' become a 'last resort' option? !! Is there another GP in the practise you could ask for a referral from? Or how about contacting NHS Talking therapies direct? Especially as you did so well with CBT intervention before. (Well done, you ) Have you tried any anti-anxiety techniques alongside the OCD-CBT techniques? What about simple relaxation, meditation and relaxation exercises? I'm not suggestion it would be 'the' solution, but every little helps.

That's a really helpful summary, @mithrandir Thank you for sharing it. And well done for making and maintaining such good progress!

@Angst is right. It is a compulsion. Actually it's exactly like handwashing - you can't get away from having to wash your hands, but you can stop the compulsion of washing for hours. Breathing compulsions are exactly the same. You can't avoid breathing completely, but you can stop the compulsive part of it - the shallow breathing to avoid polluted air, and the choice to focus on your breathing rather than to think about something else. I'd start with trying to change your perception about the air. Change your internal dialogue where you're telling yourself the air is polluted and dangerous to something more normal eg. 'I can smell something bad, but it will dissipate soon. I'll just keep breathing normally and it'll be fine.' Then refocus onto something else so that your breathing is back on autopilot. I don't think 'breathing exercises' help. When I got compulsions around my breathing I tried doing slow breaths, shallow breaths, deep breaths, counting as I breathed... All of it just kept the cycle of feeling like I was suffocating going for longer. I'd lie on my bed for hours struggling to breathe notrmally. The only thing that worked was to switch focus away from breathing completely and think about something else. That will be much easier to do if you stop reinforcing your fear with thoughts like 'The air is polluted, it's dangerous, I need to avoid breathing it any more than I have to.' Remember that kind of self-talk is a compulsion too.

Ok, so let's say it was irresponsible. Let's say you made a HUGE mistake and the consequences could have been DIRE. Everybody has moments in life they wish had never happened, but - being realistic - we can't turn the clock back. So what are your options? 1. Beat yourself up over it forever and allow it to devastate you for the rest of your life. 2. Acknowledge the mistake, learn from it, forgive yourself and let it go. But really the choice you're making isn't even between those 2 options at all. It's 1. choose the mentally unwell response and condemn yourself and your family to misery 2. Or choose the mentally well, 'normal', resilient option (call it what you will) and get on with the job of being a good parent again. Start looking at some of the alternative ways to view this, and consider all the many ways you have of responding apart from allowing yourself to be 'devasted' by it.

That's what I wanted to say, but Jonesy has already said it better.

It's more than something, it's fabulous! Well done you. Resisting compulsions when you're reasonably on top of things generally is a minor challenge. It's when we are truly tested that we find out what we're really made of. Clearly you're made of strong stuff, Simonsky. So remember that when the going gets tough.

It's extremely common for OCD symptoms to flare up when you're stressed, for any reason including disagreements. The trick is to recognise that you are vulnerable to OCD at those times and do whatever you can to nip it in the bud. eg. - take a moment to just breathe and relax your shoulders - if you've tried mindfulness techniques before, you could do a 30 second 'pause' meditation - label the thoughts as OCD 'That's an OCD worry. It's happening because I'm stressed, but I'm not going to go there' (Don't engage with the OCD.)

It's important to stress that flooding doesn't work for everybody with OCD and in some cases it can be traumatic and make things much worse. Not something to try unless you've discussed it with a specialist and unless you already know that you react well to the challenges of regular ERP.

What about trying a self-help book on CBT while you wait for therapy? Then you could absorb the techniques at your own pace and maybe jot down some self-reminders to apply so you don't get so easily overwhelmed. You mentioned poor concentration earlier - have you spoken to your GP about trying a different anti-depressant? (As sertraline didn't suit you.)

Some therapists see a client not improving as 'failure' and then they put the blame for the 'failure' on the client as a way of avoiding feeling guilty themselves. It's all so unnecessary too - there's no 'failure' involved and no need for blame. You just something tried that didn't work. A decent therapist would have asked why it wasn't working and would have dug a bit deeper, then tried a different approach. I'm sorry you didn't get a good therapist. (As for her sharing her personal life, let's not even go there. ) Is this in writing anywhere? Medical notes? Therapy report? Would give you some clout for getting referred on to secondary/ tertiary care if you have, but if not it's still worth speaking to Ashley about further options. What would you like to happen next? Is referral to a specialist OCD centre something you think might help? Whatever you decide, try not to lose heart. Things are changing, albeit slowly, and therapists are becoming more open-minded about trying alternative approaches and treating clients as individuals instead of doing everything by rote. Hang on in there!

When you relapse do you apply any of the techniques you learned in CBT? Was the CBT just for OCD, or was it for depression and ptsd too? What's the plan going forward - with your GP, your therapist, and in your own mind? What do you want to happen next?

It's not silly. He probably could make you believe anything at all - while in the hypnotic state. But sooner or later you'd have to be brought out of the trance and that's when people go back to normal and realise that zombie apocalypses aren't real.

Taking back control. Good move, KC.

Thanks for asking, Scott. Don't worry, you've not done anything wrong. Ultimately it's the job of the Mod team to decide what to allow and what links should be removed. It's often a difficult decision as there are many good podcasts out there, but they often come with advertising for particular therapist or therapy company, and some also have links asking for donations - both of which go against OCD-UK guidelines. The relevant guidelines are: For anyone who wants a reminder the full guidelines can be read here (Can also be accessed at any time via the link in the blue browse bar, just to the right of where it says 'Forums') If we restrict ourselves to no ads and no donations of any kind we'd be depriving our community of some excellent material on OCD, so it's a case of being as flexible as possible without flagrantly breaking any rules. Personally I think the OCD stories podcasts are mostly very good and worth listening to. Understandably they have to promote their sponsors, so it's just a matter of reminding people that the links under the podcasts are not a recommendation or endorsement of any specific therapy or particular company offering therapy. The advertising is intended for an American audience (prices are in $) so hopefully Brits get that it's not for them anyway!

I know you mean well, Terry, but this approach of ''getting sick doesn't happen very often so carry on regardless'' is even less use than a chocolate teapot when the OCD is about feelings of disgust rather than fear of getting ill. For SJM (and many others) giving a rational explanation about what the body can physically cope with doesn't change the feeling of disgust. It may even make them feel more 'mad' because what they feel can't be rationalised away. A useful reminder that 'one size doesn't fit all' and often a tweak to the standard CBT or 'just be rational' approach is needed.