Marionn

Hello. Hope you are all well. Sorry for my late reply. I was doing really well until yesterday. I have got a few questions about compulsions. So basically, most of my compulsions are mental repetitions, rumination and neutralisation. For example when I have a 'bad' thought then I have to replace it with a 'good' one. Since yesterday, I got a bad relapse and got stuck in endless circle of compulsions. The thing is everytime I do my compulsion I get a feeling of temporary relief that lasts for a couple of hours and then another thought pops into my head and I have to mental check the whole ritual again and if I find something that I don't remember exactly then my ocd tells me that I had to do it again and be sure 100% otherwise all these bad things will happen to the children. The most scariest part at the moment is that my ocd is telling me that since i am doing my rituals, i deliberately bring the thoughts and the trying to change them by doing both physical and mental compulsions. The thing is that because i am so anxious to find the 'good' thought then most of the times some bad thoughts pops in and then i have to start all over again. It is so exhausting and I am really sad because i was doing really well but since yesterday i started doing this compulsion again and again and after a while a new doubt popped in as to whether i have done it correctly. I had to do it again in the morning and write things down as to remember the process of the ritual but again another doubt came and i don't really know what to do. I don't want to do another compulsion because it makes me so anxious but my mind tells me that i have to be 100% sure and it is going to be the last one. Has anyone experienced something like this before?

Caramoole, this is the best advice anyone could offer me right now ? I am really grateful for your reply. Honestly, reading your comments brought tears to my eyes. You described everything I am experiencing right now. Yes, I have started reading Break Free from Ocd but i don't really know how i could put all this theory into practice. Also, my therapist is doing behavioural therapy (erp) and not really "cares" about the thoughts, and this is something that makes me a bit confused. Could I ask a few more questions? First, how can I delay a ritual? For example, when I am on hurry to leave for work, usually my thoughts appear. Then I have to do all the things very carefully. For example, lock and unclock the door until I found the "perfect" thought or open and close the door having specific "good" thoughts in my head. Also, today while me and my therapist were doing the exercise my anxiety level was through the roof and it didn't go down. I was waiting for almost 3 hours but then I called her again and decided to undo the exercise and do my compulsion. Although, she didn't answer my call I did my compulsion although it wasn't perfect. Having said that, I would like to add that sometimes my ocd tells me that I have to do the compulsion in a specific way to be perfect. What I am trying to say is instead of doing exactly what my ocd is telling me to do can I change the rules and make it more simpler at least for the the beginning? When she called me back I told her about the anxiety and the compulsion I did and she said just to leave the things as they are and that we are not going to have the exercise again so as to have the right thought. I real appreciate your time to help me

Hi Caramolee and thank you very much for your reply. I can understand that the problem is not the thoughts but how I respond to them. Although I can understand this, it is so difficult to change the way I respond to the thoughts. My ocd is telling me that the year is almost gone and you won't have any other chance to fix or change your thoughts and this is the root of my distress and anxiety. And if I don't do my rituals the catastrophe will come. So, what can I do everytime a thought pops in my head? Just ignore it and going on with my day? I really want to change and start my journey to recovery as I have come to realise that the more compulsions I do the more obsessions I get but it is so hard to break the cycle. Also, I have this idea in my mind that I could engage to therapy after this year has passed so I can do my compulsions for the next days in order not to make myself anxious or miserable for the rest of my life. I don't know if this makes sense to you. Again thank you for your help

Hello. Hope everyone is well. I have just started therapy but I am quite confused about it. So, my therapist advises me every time I have an intrusive thought not to do a compulsion and stay with anxiety.The thing is that I am not quite sure if this method works for me because every time I have a thought, automatically I feel fear and must do the compulsion immediately otherwise my fear will come true. Also, my therapist insists that I have to take the risk and not perform the compulsion if I want to get better. My main obsessions are harm coming to other people, especially children. For example, if I touch the door and the thought pops into my head then I have to touch the door again and cancel out or change the thought with a good one. The most scariest thing is that my ocd is now telling me that this is the last time you can do it and you won't have a second chane to "fix" your thought so you have to do it NOW otherwise bad things will happen or even if you don't do it you have to cause harm to someone else. I can understand how illogical is this thinking but i feel i have no power to control my thoughts or behaviour. I am so scared about the fact that this is my last chance, and i will have to think about it forever for the rest of my life. So, today I had therapy in the morning and my therapist told me to touch the door and stay with the horrible thought and try not to do any compulsions. Even if I understand how stupid it is i can still feel nervous and anxious about what if my thoughts come true, what if I can't tolerate anxiety and think about it in the future? What if I lose control and do something horrible to another person because I didn't perform my compulsion? Could you please advise? Many thanks for your help!

Hello, Hope everyone is well. I would like to share my story because I am really struggling at the moment and I would like some support on how to manage this. I was diagnosed with OCD in 2015 and received CBT. For a couple of years now I was completely free of symptoms until the past month. My OCD mainly focuses on Magical Thinking and how can my thoughts cause bad things to happen. My story is quite complex. So, basically my main trigger was a photo of a baby that my best friend sent to me a week ago. I had a really bad thought (the worst you can imagine) when I saw the photo which made me sick to the stomach and really anxious. I had to change the thought in my mind in order not to cause this bad thing to happen to the baby. The bad thought was there during all day and I couldn’t help myself out. Then another bad thought popped in my head like you need to do something very bad to another person in order not to cause this bad thing to happen to the baby. This new thought literally set my anxiety out of control. I went to my sister and told her everything that was going on in my mind. Of course, she told me that people’s thoughts can cause bad things to happen. I was ok for a short period of time but still anxious. After two days, I was preparing my lesson plan and all of these thoughts were in my mind and for taking my anxiety away I had to change my thoughts in my mind for good ones or less disturbing and then doing the slides in the presentation again. The worst thing was that after I finished, I had to sent out my presentation to the headteacher with the right thought. My anxiety was so bad, so I told my sister to send out the email instead of me. I was trying to think only good things but the thought of something bad will happen to the baby again popped in my head. This made me again so anxious and miserable and after a while I had another thought to send again the email. Instead of doing so, I went online and started searching for Magical Thinking OCD symptoms and stories to get some relief. I found an article of a psychologist about Magical Thinking and how some people have to do exactly the same things in specific times every day in order to prevent bad things to happen. He said something in his article about pure magic and rituals and my silly mind transferred this to my obsession and another thought popped in my mind like what if I put some kind of magic or even I curse the baby and now all is gone? I know how silly this is and I am aware of the fact that things like these cannot really happen but thinking of this only gives me a temporary relief and then I start panicking again. Anyway, my OCD told me to send the email again the next day. So, I did. I told my sister again to help me sent the email. She was reluctant at the beginning and she told me that this will make the things even worse, but I finally convinced her to help. While she was in my room sending out the email, I was trying to think only good things but after a while the same thought appeared in my head again. This made me feel really depressed over the weekend and my OCD is telling me now that I have caused this bad thing to happen to the baby and it is all my fault. I am super stressed and hopeless and the moment. I saw my therapist yesterday and she told me that it is the same old OCD and not to send again another email trying to find the right thought in my mind. Logically, I can understand how silly this is but why it doesn’t offer me any relief? I am also thinking that I will never get out of my head this thought that I have cursed the baby and this thing will definitely happened which gives me great anxiety. This also leads to another obsession like what if I lose my mind because I will never find peace? What if I will kill my self because of all the guilty thoughts I have now? I know that all this is just nonsense but at the moment it doesn’t really help me. Could you please offer some help because I am really struggling right now. Thank you. Maria

Hi PolarBear, Thank you so much for your reply. So, do you think this is still OCD? And how do I know for sure that I am not going to develop schizophrenia? Also, I would like to ask you how can I stop my compulsions? I have a hard time at the moment not responding to the thoughts. I am going to see a psychologist next week and hopefully start CBT. Is there anything I can do to educate myself about OCD because I have a little insight about how it works. Thank you again for your assistance!

My name is Maria and this is my first time on the forum so hello all and hope you're all having a good day. I am 26 years old and diagnosed with OCD two years ago. To make a long story short, when I was 24 years old I experienced repetitive intrusive thoughts about causing harm to others. I used to have checking and health related OCD as well as magical thinking previously but I didn’t know at that time that it was OCD until I got diagnosed. The psychiatrist that diagnosed me prescribed me Zoloft which I never took because I was afraid of the side effects. I started seeing a psychologist in order to have CBT sessions, she helped me to understand some aspects of OCD but she didn’t offer me CBT so I quit. Thanks to my work and being busy all the time my symptoms almost disappeared for two years until now. My current theme is about developing Schizophrenia. I have intrusive thoughts about “what if people want to harm me” “what if I am starting to have hallucinations” “what if the food is poisoned” “what if I see objects that aren’t real” and the list goes on. I am fully aware that these thoughts are not respond to reality but everytime I try to figure them out logically and provide my arguments I find some sort of relief but eventually they come back more strong and severe. I am afraid that I am going to lose my mind because of all this pressure and stress and I will start to believe them. I also spend half of the day googling about the symptoms of schizophrenia and read stories about people who have schizophrenia and also take schizophrenia tests online to see if I match the criteria. As a result, I have some moments of relief and then I am starting to experience all that I have read previously. In addition, I ask my parents all the time if we have a close relative with schizophrenia and they always say no. These thoughts have really taken a leading role in my day to day life. I feel anxious all the time and in a state of panic. I have terrible headaches and I lost my appetite too. I am afraid to leave the house in case I am going to lose control and start screaming at people or start seeing things that are not exist. I have never experienced such things before. Can anxiety and OCD create all these or am I starting to develop Schizophrenia? If only someone could tell me for sure that I am not going to lose my mind. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration. Best wishes, Maria.