Angst

You saw something on google search and then checked on instagram. That’s two of the most profitable firms in the world. Thousands of people you say liked the posting on instagram. So morally a crowd of people - thousands - liked the posting therefore it is okay? The click bait includes the liking and not liking option. Think about the info about you that you have revealed to the two corporations. Doubt if you will get a knock on the door - millions upon millions are involved in similar scenarios. A lot of people with OCD get paranoia with their searches. Why do you think that you will?

Sounds if you fell for click bait. It is not the internet as such but the big tech corporations that control it who are manipulating you. The blurring system is just another click bait game. You are feeding information to them about your interests. They make huge profits from this to sell advertising and to organisations to target you including interest groups and political parties. If you don’t pay for the product you are the product! Canada tried to impose a tax on the big tech corporations but failed to implement it after trading talks. Europe is negotiating this now. As accountants and independent journalist say _ follow the money.

Sometimes building up a cv is important with work experience sometimes unpaid or with very little money. To be a barrister you need work experience before you will be admitted to a practice. In jobs where there is a lot of competition like clinical psychologist you need relevant experience to help you be shortlisted for a training course. AI does a lot of shortlisting nowadays.

Yes the debate stemming from Sapir/Whorf which was a reaction to the behaviourist view of language. Chomsky and Pinker are dubious about the hypothesis. Interesting idea of native language rooted in childhood and thus being more emotive. Lots of work in education about children speaking fluently in more than one language. Don’t know whether any work has been done in therapy.

Very interesting. You think in English and your obsession was expressed in English. You then had the thought in your native language which caused alarm but when you had the same thought again in English it ceased to bother you. I don’t know why this might be the case but I think it needs exploring in those who think in more than one language. It seems to be for you a partial remedy for obsessional thoughts to code switch in languages. I don’t know whether this issue has been researched. But if it hasn’t it needs to be researched in the borderland between psychology and linguistics -psycho linguistics. There is a long standing debate on the extent to which language determines or influences our perceptions of the world. There is a whole series of potential research doctorates in this area.

In all walks of life there will be moral dilemmas. There are certain jobs that I would rule out in say the unofficial job market such as being a mercenary or being a member of a criminal gang dealing in drugs. Most people work to get money to put a roof over their head and food in their belly. Most of world does not have social security systems and if the extended family system cannot provide money then the future can be quite bleak. Why not begin by volunteering in a organisation whose cause you consider moral? I did a lot of volunteering when young when the organisation provided food and shelter. I learnt a lot. There will still be moral dilemmas. Such volunteering will build your CV and provide references for gainful employment.

Hi Beckym The checking up could be interpreted as a compulsion. The feeling that if you eat or do fun things then death will occur has the potential to become a compulsion. In the real world you have no power to determine someone’s death by eating and having fun. This is called ‘magical thinking’. It is akin to superstitution - when we do things to stop bad things happening. I have experienced something similar when for example I felt that I had to walk down one side of the street or something bad would happen. I decided to ignore the thought and walked down on the ‘wrong’ side of the street.Nothing bad happened.

I think it is a good idea to discuss with your therapist tomorrow your options. You yourself know better than anyone else the nature of your family. As said by Jack, no need to go into specifics. For example if the physio asks questions you can give general answers like I’m under pressure or whatever. It is your decision whether or not to ‘out’ yourself about your OCD and your theme. The danger of OCD is overthinking things. Try to switch your attention to other things.

I suppose one way to view the situation is to count up the times there has been good advice and times there has been bad advice. Professionals and tradespeople are employed to give advice whether they are lawyers, accountants, surveyors, gas safe engineers, surgeons, dentists, medical doctors. Sometimes the professionals give us options and we can talk through the pros and cons of each option in the context of our desired goal. I think therapists can offer advice. Once a clinical psychologist said to me that she doesn’t offer advice in case she was wrong. She did not offer to talk through the pros and cons of each option. In all my examples of professional advice giving the ultimate decision is taken by the client. The exception is when a person is detained under certain clauses of the Mental Health Act or under a compulsory treatment order. In these cases compulsory treatment can be given. That is why legally, under these circumstances, the client has recourse to a professional advocate. Broad contours of advice are given under the therapeutic model the therapist is operating under - psychodynamic, CBT, behavioural activation, person therapy, schema therapy etc. For example the advice under CBT for OCD would be to do cognitive therapy and behavioural experiments. If you have problems with upsetting memories then the general advice might be memory re scripting, substitutions with positive memories or learning not to dwell on the memories. The therapeutic advice would depend on the therapeutic model.

Over the years there had been a recognition of forms of abuse - emotional, financial, mental and its effect of our psychology. Misrepresentation and fraud is now the major crime. Teens spend on average 35hours a week on their smart phones with 200 notifications a day with the threat of cyber bullying. There is now the legal recognition of ‘coercive control’. Social work departments and community mental health teams are aware of ‘cuckooing’ where vulnerable people’s homes are taken over by gangs. Initial friendly overtures are made to vulnerable people and then their homes are taken over for nefarious activities. I think such things have always happened but there is greater recognition of these things now. If you are an elder person then Elder Abuse is a good support and if you believe that you are being abused then I would contact Social Services.

Being ‘set up’ is in part cultural in many cultures there are arranged marriages. Gandhi and his wife for example had an arranged marriage at 13. I think it is a good idea to talk over your concerns with your therapist. Sexual identity themes are quite common in OCD.

Have you found diazepam has helped with sleeping? You were prescribed the medicine for a week. As said long term use is not recommended. I have only ever been prescribed such medication for very short periods. I would aim to get another GP to do a medicine review. If you are in England there is the Talking Therapies route as detailed above. GPs are very variable especially when dealing with mental health issues even if it is quite a large proportion of their work. Take care.

It seems to me that you have a breathing compulsion when you perceive bad air. Is the solution trying new breathing techniques or changing your perception of the air?

The decade old posts are correct — suppressing or trying to stop the thoughts are bad ideas. Let them drift away. If I told you not to think about a pink elephant then an image of a pink elephant will more than likely appear in your mind’s eye.

You had really good therapy with the clinical psychologist. It is unusual for them to visit a house. You say it worked well. A problem with therapy is organisational and budgetary. When a course of treatment ends it is difficult to re engage with the same therapist to have top up sessions within a reasonable length of time. So that the lessons of therapy can be reinforced. Good therapy can involve going around a supermarket with a client or visiting a train station with a client or whatever. A context provides real triggers and real responses of fear or disgust and having an objective and supportive therapist can help. Eventually we have to learn to do it ourselves.

I would discuss the issues with Ashley which I think you might have done in the past. There’s always pressures in CMHTs as there is always throughput - the discharge of patients to allow new patients. Good luck of getting the appropriate therapy!

I think it’s probably best if you tell friends and family that you have concentration issues. And I think with any therapist in the future it would be best to mention that you have concentration issues so that you can both work out how to solve the problem.

Will your therapist allow you to record sessions? With some it’s standard practice whilst others seem intimidated by the process. Has your mind always wandered off? People are very observant in interactions and notice things like gaze and other body and facial movements. We respond to what people say and they respond to what we say. Have you thought about doing group work to enhance your skills?

Hi Mini You can have therapy for both at the same time. I did. For me and the therapist the best measure of depression is the depression inventory by Beck. It is easily located. I had depression and OCD in the same period with each one alternating in a day. OCD energised me with checking and depression de energised me with staying in bed. Both have rumination. One of the worst periods in my life. So my experience is a bit different to north Paul’s. Our experiences may be different but the remedies are similar. For me reducing stressors, therapy and medication.

A good book on paranoia is Peter K Chadwick ‘Understanding Paranoia’ 1995. It is out of print but you can get it on eBay. The second chapter is particularly good on why certain people experience paranoia. I had some paranoia some years ago when a line manager was out to get me. I ‘overgeneralised’ the threat. Peter was an experiencer of paranoia and recovered. He was lecturer in psychology after being a lecturer and researcher in geology. And has published in the prestigious journal, Nature. Coincidentally the person who wrote the preface to the book is Peter Chadwick hence the use of the initial K for the book. This other Chadwick has also written on paranoia and has formulated a CBT approach to the subject. The book is an easy read and suggests treatment options. As I said, written by an experiencer who recovered.

Hi Dinosaur There are diagnoses and there are diagnoses from completing a standard OCD questionnaire and then having a clinical interview with a psychiatrist who specialises in OCD to a diagnosis by a psychiatrist/clinical psychologist to a diagnosis by a GP to a diagnosis by a therapist to a self diagnosis. If you get a book such as Break Free from OCD then you self diagnose and follow the book. Why do you want a diagnosis? You need a medical diagnosis from a GP or psychiatrist to apply for a student disability grant in England. If you want some employment protection from unfair discrimination then a medical diagnosis or a clinical psychologist diagnosis would carry more weight I feel in an employment tribunal. You do not need a diagnosis to start therapy. In England you can self refer for therapy in the Talking Therapies scheme. I do not think that this scheme operates in Wales. David Veale a psychiatrist who specialises in OCD and BDD runs Overcoming OCD consultation service where clinical psychologists provide therapy including Vroom therapy.

Hope the session with your therapist went well. I think that it does help to remember the time when you didn’t have these thoughts. You have something to aim for and can compare your thinking then and now.

If you don’t pay for a product then you are the product. We use search engines and social media for free so how come the tech firms make such big profits - we provide information about ourselves so sellers and others can target us. The idea of people watching us through screens started in 1948 with the publication of 1984. There are pictures of the owners of big tech covering up the camera and microphone on their laptops. With smart doorbells, smart speakers, smart fridges…..are we sure the information is private? Stories regularly appear in the press. I don’t mean to intensify your paranoia. But this evening I am shredding documents with my details on them so they cannot be used for fraud. There are security breaches, witness several large retailers over the past few months. Good that you are talking to the therapist about your feelings. The very fact that you can write paranoia and open up a discussion about it shows you have insight. I do think leaving your property with a tinfoil hat is a going further than you need. But you know that!

I agree with Garfield. Do not contact them at this stage. If offered the job then think about correcting the figure. It sounds as if you are reviewing the interview conversation in your head. I don’t think that this is a good idea as you could enter a period of profound rumination. No point beating yourself up with regrets.

Hi Simon Good examples of ‘flow’ activities such as playing a musical instrument and chess. My PA has on his list of clients a dementia experiencer with whom he plays chess. The client has played chess since he was a boy and there has been deep learning of the appropriate skills. Singing is a good activity as well, especially in a choir. OCD can make us very egocentric where we pay too much attention to our internal thought processes. Since I moved from an inner city flat it is a pleasant form of mindfulness to watch the birds and bees in their activities in a very green spot surrounded by trees, plants and flowers.