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.

That sounds like a magic cure! What's it called please?

Having had this absolute ******* of an illness since around the age of ten and now in my mid fifties I've just got to the point where I've had enough! I've had therapy, counselling etc, tried ERP which failed massively and almost pushed me to doing myself in. My OCD at the moment is awful and it's like I've regressed to doing the bad habits from years ago which I won't bore you all with. Basically I've had years where I could cope and keep it under control but now and especially with my main concern being harm OCD I'm sick of the thoughts, the guilt they bring and constantly listening to the mental noise that consumes my mind. I just feel tired so so tired and want it to end! Can anyone relate?

Thanks for the reply and sorry to hear about your bullying episodes, I read this tactic from a qualified therapist basically saying that if you have tried everything else and failed then this method may be of use. Obviously agreeing is used in the loosest sense and of course just say for instance you have a horrible intrusive thought just repeating it consciously and not doing the compulsion which I have found incredibly hard but the more you do it the easier it becomes, basically words in this particular instance are meaningless but repeating them however horrible is helping me get over the need to say the opposite which just doesn't work full stop, it's taken me a long time to realize that just because you are repeating something doesn't mean you want to do it.

As regular forum members will know my OCD covers a broad spectrum unfortunately but harm OCD being the most prevalent and how I react to the thoughts has always been a major problem. I have tried different ways and the one that seems to work for some which is letting the thoughts just enter and pass like a cloud etc has never worked so much so I've now got to the point of just agreeing with them regardless of the most awful content and strangely it seems to work, don't get me wrong when these thoughts are about doing the most awful things to family members it's anxiety inducing but and it's a big but the OCD doesn't have an answer. I remember being constantly being bullied at school due to puppy fat lol and I used the same method, getting called a fat bstard every day and fitty because I am also epileptic I just got to the point when I said "Yup that's me, fat fitty bstard" and they just gave me a look again nowhere to go I'd basically taken their ammunition and used it on myself. It seems to have a similar effect on my OCD and while it's hard it does work. In this aspect words are meaningless and it's taken me ages to realise this, I've had people on this forum telling me this works but I've never been brave enough to try it. I'd be interested in hearing people's thoughts but I've got to the point where nothing else has worked.

My usual OCD process I would imagine is very similar to others on here... Thought enters head, worry about it over time and then it gets old and seems a non issue. I'll get to the point, why do they then come back and then the same scenario happens again? This happens with the thoughts that at the time cause the most anxiety and then as I say the process starts again.... All a bit Groundhog day!

Sorry to keep this running but as a person who probably due to weakness has given these thoughts more power than they deserve how can I turn the tables and reclaim some back? I struggle with ERP big time and just wondered if there is any other way of helping myself.

Thank you it does give me an insight that this isn't just me suffering from this part of the illness.

For arguments sake the promise/vow thoughts are a good example of what I mean.... The idea of making a promise to never kill anyone enters my head and my inner monologue then gets hold and I immediately go into panic mode and say in my head I promise not to kill anyone but at the same time it's as if my inner monologue is trying to say the opposite thing at the same time and sometimes it succeeds. Now I know you shouldn't try and interact with these intrusive ideas etc but why is that? Why is my inner voice doing the opposite to what I want it to and it's like I'm trying to shout over it.

I always value your input PolarBear.

Thank you so much for the excellent reply and it is really interesting to hear your thoughts, it's amazing how a disorder can latch onto certain things and then basically make your life hell and OCD in my case has taken harm and dust, quite funny as they have absolutely no relation to eachother. I still remember the day my harm OCD kicked off and it was the realisation that if I wanted to I could kill someone which scared the **** out of me as I was only about eight or nine. Interesting point about the woman and the school shooting as that is exactly my point and it happens to me regularly unfortunately. The unwanted thoughts as you say pop up from nowhere and are impossible to control in my opinion and it's especially upsetting when they invoke promises/vows to do something awful, I've actually been told that the ERP treatment would require me to record myself saying these out loud but when it involves doing awful things to your kids I'd struggle big time.