malina

I often have the problem, like you, of associating my anxiety with places. So I've been trying to form new memories in those places. If you keep going to see your family soon enough you'll build new memories in their home. Is there a chance you could start therapy again Cub? Sending you lots of love, hang in there!!

Cora, I would add that the "incidents" you believe that you are causing aren't the problem, it's the fact that you find them to be problematic that is the issue. In fact, I would go down the ERP route and do these incidents all the time. Give your brother hugs and kisses and let these awful feelings come. You probably think I'm insane, but this way you will normalise all of the very normal sibling interactions that you have and learn that the feelings are meaningless.

Hey Cora, please, please seek help. I know it's scary telling a stranger all your worst thoughts and I'm also aware that GPs can be very slow to respond and the waiting lists are huge. But you need help and you shouldn't be afraid to push them a little until you get it. You can say as much or as little as you want, that is up to you, the important thing right now is to be proactive and to take some steps to stop this spiral that you're on. And you also need to get some support from your university, you certainly don't have to tell them all your specific thoughts, but I think it might be worth speaking with your personal tutor about support that you can get with exams and assignments now that you are dealing with a mental health issue. As for your family, I obviously don't know them and can't say how they would react, so this is entirely up to you. I think you previously mentioned that your parents don't have very positive views about therapy and mental health. My family are quite similar, they are not very understanding about mental health or trusting of professionals, yet when I was in trouble they stepped up and they believed me and supported me. So your family may surprise you, BUT this is entirely your call, you know them better than any of us. And just to note, I don't mean that you should have a confession session to tell your family about all the thoughts on your mind. I mean talking with them about OCD and how you're struggling. Once again, I'm sending you lots of love Cora, hang in there and know that no matter how dark things seem now, they can get better, you just need to reach out

I think this questioning is part of the compulsion. You didn't lose control, I think that you did exactly what you were meant to - you showed yourself that you could put your hand around his neck and not hurt him. Now the OCD is causing you to doubt yourself, your actions, your intentions and whatever. Your next step is to prevent yourself from going down this path.

I get you, but it's really all the same thing. Besides, you're meant to be bothered by it, the exercise would be meaningless if you weren't. So just go with it and try to learn to manage this in a constructive way.

Hi @BF2020, I'm really sorry that you're struggling like this, but I have to admit that I felt a bit of relief reading your post because it's similar to what I experienced with ERP and haven't really had a chance to talk to anyone about it. My main worries are about harm with knives too, although mainly towards myself. So in a similar way to you, my ERP exercises involved holding a knife to my wrist...and wow was it hard, I think that it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. So well done to you for doing these exercises! You should be proud for stepping up and challenging yourself!! I then went through exactly what you are going through right now, questioning if I could do this, what would stop me from going a step further and acting out on my fears. For a while, I was really worried that the ERP was going to make things worse because it made me feel so bad. But the point is to see that you can "lose control" as you practiced doing and that still you wouldn't do anything bad. I also realised that the anxiety can't just be limited to the session where you do the ERP exercise, you are going to have to carry it with you for a while. That is part of the process. I was hoping that I'd just hold the knife to my wrist, feel terrified while doing it, see nothing would happen and forget about it and get on with my day. But it doesn't work that way, you feel it for a while, and that is okay. So I think that this extended period of worry is part of your ERP. Now you have practiced this, your next step is to work on the compulsions that you are doing to deal with the anxiety that stems from it. I am guessing that you are ruminating quite a bit about this, for example. The anxiety is going to be there, you are going to worry that you're going to lose control with a knife, and that is all part of the ERP exercise. I think the best way is to accept that these worries will be there and try to avoid doing compulsions and get on with your life. I hope this helps. I think you're very brave!

I hope you're doing okay Cub. Getting therapy where you have to type sounds really difficult, would you consider getting something more comprehensive?

You do it through practice. First, understand that there will be many little new things that come up, this is inevitable. Then start treating them as if they are the same old. To you, every time they seem new, different and more disturbing. In reality, from an outsider's perspective, every time you post about a new event, it adds nothing new. It is just a new scenario involving the same issues that you have described countless times now. When something happens, just take a deep breath and tell yourself "F no, I'm not doing this again" and then go and do something else. OCD is a stubborn ******, it'll try to make you pay attention, but it requires discipline. There will be times, especially at first, when you aren't successful, but just pick yourself up and keep going.

Well firstly, can you see your own bias here? You go on an OCD forum, where everyone tells you that you have OCD, yet you seem to work incredibly hard to find differences in your experience and think that you don't fit the criteria. But you watch a movie that matches the fear you have and you immediately think "this is me!!", even though it's just a film, whether it's based on a true story or not. Well, so what if it was created by you on purpose? Has anything happened? Has someone gotten hurt? No, right? So don't allow yourself to ruminate. Let it go, that is the only way, Cora.

Hey Cora, I can't really add much beyond what has been said already, but I really really hope that you will seek professional help. I hope that you are able to speak to the psychiatrist soon and, if not, you should call your GP again and follow up. You can also tell your university about the problems that you're having so that they can help make provisions for you, they have a responsibility to help with these things. I really hope that you do follow this advice. I understand that this is all incredibly hard and that it is scary, but you can't allow yourself to be complacent when your mental health is at stake. If you had a physical illness, you'd call the doctor and try to get treatment. Mental illness shouldn't be treated differently, just because it's not visible doesn't make it less important or less debilitating to the sufferer. You don't have to believe that you have OCD, but at least acknowledge that your mental health is suffering and that this is cause enough to get treatment. So please try to take care of yourself, to be rational and proactive. Sending you much love and positive vibes Cora

Hey Savy, firstly, I am sorry that you are suffering like this. Your post sounds like a huge rumination. Feeling apathy is very common in mental health problems, yet you take it to mean that you are a sociopath. Also, you're feeling indifferent about hypothetical things, you feel that you don't care about the thought of someone dying, not the actual fact that someone is dying. People don't just turn evil, you OCD isn't "off", in fact doubting that you have OCD is another classic feature of OCD. You have to stop this rumination, stop asking yourself these questions and accept that you just have OCD, plain and simple. Are you getting any kind of treatment at the moment?

Yes you are and it's very common to do that. OCD makes you doubt everything and I think that a lot of sufferers have trouble accepting that they do have OCD, because they believe that it's an excuse. That really they have done something much worse and that the explanation that they have an anxiety disorder is just too good to be true. Well it isn't, OCD is awful and pretty awful to live with and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Hi Cora, nobody has ever said that you are different or weird, except you. You are actively looking for ways to be different, as in the response above. You can believe that OCD produces false physical feelings, but you doubt that it produces that one that you are feeling (even though false sexual arousal is actually very common in OCD). You do this so often too, I could tell you that lots of people report that they enjoy/want these intrusive feelings, but you'd come back and say how it's different to what you feel for some reason. We could have this endless debate about how all your symptoms are very common and not unusual at all, but you would always come back with a retort that you are different from everyone else because of some particular feature, which only you find to be different. And being SO different and weird, you've somehow managed to convince more than one mental health professional and an entire OCD community to believe you have OCD. Not just to believe it, we are trying to convince you of it and urging you to treat it as OCD. That is really interesting. And what if it is OCD? What if you wake up one day and realise that you've made a grave mistake, that you have wasted huge parts of your life suffering, hating yourself and wanting to die all because of a treatable anxiety disorder? I once read this really fantastic article about OCD that stuck with me, where this woman talked about all her fears and how she felt, like you and many others (myself included), that it was dangerous to let them go or ignore them, because there was always a chance they could be true. After spending most of her adult life suffering, she came to the conclusion that out of all these 'risks', very few came true. The only bad thing that had ever really happened to her was the suffering that she had to endure because of OCD. I know that you see yourself as this monster who should be stopped and locked up to keep others safe. What I see is an incredibly confused young person, who is suffering a great deal and is at risk of spiraling further into this mental illness. So that is why I am responding to your posts and why I really hope that you will keep the appointment with the psychiatrist and push towards getting treatment. You need professional help because you need guided and structured support in dealing with this. So as always, stay strong and try not to waste your Sunday thinking about this!

Oh yes, I remember now...the hand washing thing!!! What nonsense, I have experienced a whole bunch of OCD themes in my time and hand washing has never, ever come up for me. As you can hopefully see on this forum, many of us with OCD do not obsessively have to wash our hands. CBT is really the best way, it'll teach you to understand your symptoms and learn ways to manage them. It's really tough being on a waiting list but, in the mean time, there are so many books about CBT that can help you understand all of this better. In any case, I know this is incredibly hard but you are doing so many compulsions and they are making you worse. Trust me, OCD won't ever let you find certainty. Even if you had the answer right in front of your eyes, a doubt would emerge in your mind and you'd need to keep searching. So you have to learn to let this go.

All of your doubts are so typical of OCD. Also, everyone is different, just because you don't experience all the exact symptoms as someone else doesn't mean that you don't have OCD. Are you getting therapy at the moment, or have you ever had any help for this?