phillev

My mum now is so riddled with illness that her OCD can't dictate any more due to the pain she is in, she just tells me to keep fighting it, sorry to hear your mum passed away at an early age.

You too.

I'm going through a bad spell at the moment but what I can advise is that this ******* of an illness can take anything you think, say or do multiply it by a ridiculous amount and then use it against you and bring on the guilt and rumination. No need to mention anything to your partner and try not to dwell on it as it will only give you another reason to confess and so the cycle will continue.

I could do with help on how to cope with this issue as regards trying to move on, I'm trying to get back into my hobbies to take my mind off it and when it does crop up turn my attention to other things but I'm still getting massive anxiety pings, thanks all for your support.

True but why would the base station do It at that particular time when it's never done it before and I happen to be having the thoughts? That's what I find so awful

As I said the phone didn't ring as such but made the noise it makes when you put it back on the base station and it was like three or four minutes later, but my OCD immediately picks up on something out of the ordinary which I've never heard before that's related to what I thought. Can you all understand why I'm so worried?

Those last six words sum it up so perfectly

My mum who is in her eighties now suffered when I was growing up from OCD mainly related to compulsive tidyness and housework, she more or less said the same as yourself albeit because of her age that she's just too tired and frail now to do what the OCD demands, from a personal standpoint I'm just mentally shattered and the happiest part of the day is bedtime sad as it may sound.

It's what makes this illness so frustrating, deep down I know what the answer is but my brain refuses to accept it! It's almost like I'm looking at a blue car, my mind is saying it's green and I'll doubt it's actually blue believing my mind instead of my senses. Now I can tell the difference in that instance immediately and have no issues but with this magical thinking BS it creates doubt when I know it shouldn't! If that's a **** anology I apologise.

As I said in my first post, all my old obsessions are returning such as checking, magical thinking and the horrible harm thoughts.... I'll give you an example of what I'm up against. I got up for work a couple of weeks ago as usual and was just sitting on the sofa with a cuppa and the TV on.... Out of the blue I get a thought "If the home phone rings you are going to hurt someone" the usual basically, after about five minutes then phone makes the noise associated with when you put it back on the charge port. This sends my OCD into overdrive as it hadn't been touched and it had no reason to make the noise, I'm now constantly fearing the worst because of this and it honestly just makes me wonder what's the bloody point! One worry goes another replaces it and this one is like all the more real because of what happened... Just like the other day when listening to the radio the other day and the same thing occurred when I guessed a callers name on a phone in. How am I supposed to deal with this? It just makes it more real and frightening.

And that's why I'm weak as I always end up taking what it says seriously

No ACT was involved and it was basically just CBT therapy. My therapist was a great bloke and we really got on well but yeah perhaps you have a point in that maybe I wasn't mentally strong enough at the time to face my fears so to speak.

Regarding the ERP and I'm not going to knock it as I know how it really helps the vast amount of sufferers but for myself it just didn't break the cycle and I really tried with the exercises and going to those deep dark places that we never want to go too. I never got to a point where I felt that working on a particular issue caused any respite from the problem by using the treatment and the longer I tried the worse it got. I had massive brain trauma as a baby with a vitamin K deficiency causing a massive bleed on the brain, the doctors said I wouldn't survive the night and my parents should get me christened and expect the worst and if I did survive I'd be basically fooked! Turns out I survived with only a lazy eye, brain scarring, Epilepsy and I'm sure OCD is also a bi-product of what happened when I was six weeks old, my mum and dad had the docs out numerous times before I was diagnosed with one claiming I had a head cold and finally when I turned blue they decided to take me to hospital.

As I said in my first post, I've had this illness so long I don't know what normality is any more and that's awful. Every day another worry or one from a while back comes back to haunt me . I cherish the moments when I feel relatively calm but they don't last long believe me. I have been deliberating over a name for my OCD and have finally settled on DD for obvious reasons lol, hopefully it'll give me some more distance from my thoughts and the OCD ones, as I said I'm at the point of trying anything atm.

Thanks for the replies all . That's something I've never thought of deValentin and I'm prepared to try anything atm. It's just the constant barrage of mental noise and OCD insisting on it's importance that I must listen to it that is pushing me ever closer. I've tried so hard to beat this illness and I'm pretty annoyed that people don't actually get how debilitating "Proper OCD" is, and how some just use it as a label, if they actually had it they'd understand! It's like a nightmare version of Groundhog day, another worry bouncing into your head from that stupid voice which talks utter **** but you still find yourself listening to it.