Headwreck

Thanks Dragonfly. It really is excruciating, I never really understood how much mental and emotional pain can hurt until the past few years. I will try the exercise you mentioned, thank you again for sharing 🙂 Unfortunately if I flag this up with my GP and it goes on my medical records then my new possible career will go down the pan. It's a horrible predicament but I can't throw away a career I've always wanted for this, it's robbed me of enough already.x

Okay, thank you. Won't do it again as feel it could turn into a compulsion.

Sorry to be a pain, can I just ask one question regarding techniques? I have asked myself the following questions: Do you have OCD? Yes. Did this worry start in replacement of another OCD worry? Yes. Did you have this worry before nine months ago? No. With your knowledge, could OCD conjure up these ideas and images convincing you this worry is true? Yes. Does the current focus involving this worry change to the point where something else will worry you and this will feel irrelevant until next time? Yes. Do you feel sometimes that this worry is silly or blown out of proportion? Yes. Do these answers indicate that this could be OCD? Yes. Then I tell myself, "this is OCD and working out the unsolvable is not helping me". I won't ask the questions again to myself, just have the knowledge that I answered them once already. I then change focus to work, chatting, etc. Is this okay or is this reassuring myself etc.? I am struggling to see how this is OCD at the moment so I need to give myself some form of reassurance that it is OCD I am suffering with. I don't feel strong enough to just assume right now. Hope this is not pointless to ask, I'm trying to be strong when it comes to posting, only posting things of benefit so I don't keep posting inane garbage and rehashed fables for everyone to sift through.

Thank you for putting this together, it's very kind of you. Had a very bad morning already and feel very mentally weak but I'll try to do as you have advised. I've saved it on my phone to refer to.

I really am trying but I'm at my lowest ebb. I'm going to call the Samaritans on my lunch hour in work as I feel like the only way out is to end everything. Don't have close family or friends to rely on. I will try to stop repeating myself.

It's strange how many forms it takes. It would be so much more simpler and easier to comprehend and maybe buy into treatment if there was just set symptoms and everyone's disorder looked the same, like a cold or something. Mine has always been predominantly about certainty and doubt ie. checking compulsions for the majority of my life and now this. I'm not sure I can afford the therapy anymore even though I think I should go back. I think I need to keep trying the self help books. It's difficult to buy into it when you are even doubting that you have the thing you are trying to therapise.

Thank you for being so patient and understanding. I can't help but feel like I abuse this place but I honestly can't thank everyone enough because I don't know where I'd be without everyone as I am at my absolute lowest. I can't see wood for the trees at the moment. For many months I thought I had done something more serious (sexual) but as the days go by the more preposterous that idea is. That's because now it's focusing on something else from that night. That alone should tell me what my mind is capable of. I have no memory of the acts themselves, always just the moments leading up to it. Thinking about the "acts " doesn't bother me as it doesn't feel real, it's thinking about the things I remember that I see as a 'lead up'. It doesn't make sense.

I guess that changes the whole perspective of this now.

I believe that my thought processes are OCD but everything else not so much ie the content. I've always known that I was flirtatious with this man on this night and wanted something to happen, I was obsessed with my partner cheating at the time and saw it as a means of escaping the obsession. So this is why I have clung to this, because as much as I hate to admit it, there is an element of truth in the story. I've always been aware of this even before now and I confessed this to my partner over a year ago, the night out I didn't even consider as a big deal. At that time I was happy that nothing physical happened and that I could forget about the whole situation. How wrong I was, I never thought I'd spend nearly a year obsessing about it. But it is all my own fault. I hope I haven't misled anyone into thinking that this is completely unfounded. I thoroughly understand that I can't think my way out of this but guilt paired with the absolute obsessive need to remember/piece it together is keeping me stuck.

I am interested in hearing more about this guy too as I was looking at paying for a consultation with him but it's an awful lot of money!

I play computer games which I enjoy and they let me escape. And also I'm calmer at night because I know I have sleep to give me an escape. I do want to try to do Four Steps etc and generally try not to think about it anymore as I need to see if this improves the situation because if it does then it is OCD. If I don't try this successfully then I'll never know but it is excruciating. I wonder if someone guilty of this would act this way. Maybe if someone just wasn't sure then they would. There are many people who get drunk and worry that they done something. This may be just like one of those.

I think I might have to, I stopped going because of money and thought I would be okay but I am going worse again. But the therapist I had was telling me I was innocent and that's wrong isn't it? I was going to spend £300 just on a consultation with a top dr to see if I definitely have OCD but if I do that then where does it stop if they say I have OCD then I start thinking I tricked them. Or if they say I don't have OCD then I'm ruined.

Well no but people are a lot stronger than me I think. I can't handle anything.

Yeah I didn't ask which was good. But I come here because I don't want to go through it on my own and o have no support from anyone else, my partner said I'm a selfish xxxx so I can't say anything to him.

Did you struggle like this? When I see people say they've improved it's as though they just did this with no problems but when I'm doing it I feel like I want to die. Sorry but that isn't an exaggeration unfortunately.