SnowFairy

I can definitely relate, I try to avoid being at home alone at all costs. When my husband is there I can distract myself but when I'm alone with my thoughts it's harder.

Thanks Caramoole ?

I am currently in the process of withdrawing from an SSRI after 17 years. (I was put on it for depression, not OCD.) I have slowly tapered my dose over 6 months and took my last dose on Saturday. I am definitely feeling some withdrawal symptoms but nothing too severe. I am hoping these pass with time. From what I've read the key is to do it slowly - a lot recommend reducing by 10% at a time. If you find you are getting severe symptoms you may be tapering too fast. Good luck!

Like I said, just my opinion ? I've read a lot of books on OCD and that was the one I found most helpful.

The best book (in my opinion) I have read on OCD was Brain Lock by Dr Jeffrey M Schwartz.

You know what's funny? (Not haha funny obviously) I suffer from harm OCD and one of my many obsessions on this theme is the fear that during my party days when I was a teenager and in my 20's that I committed a crime while I was drunk which I have no memory of (due to being drunk). I can tell right away from reading all your posts over the past year or so that it's clearly OCD and nothing more but I'm not able to look at my own situation as objectively. Whenever I speak to people who have a similar theme to mine and I hear their story I can always see quite clearly that's it's OCD but I can't see that when I look at my own situation. Perhaps it's a case of not being able to see the wood for the trees. I don't really have any advice as I'm struggling myself at the minute, I just found it interesting that people seem to have no problem identifying OCD in other people but struggle to do so in themselves. Maybe we need to take a step back and ask ourselves how would we view the situation if it was happening to someone else?

I'm glad others can relate, it's nice to know there are other people out there who understand what it's like. Let's hope this is the year we can all be strong and do what needs to be done to kick OCD's butt ? I turn 40 on Friday and I refuse to enter another decade of my life being held hostage by OCD.

It's nice to hear others can relate, it's such a lonely thing to go through. I look at other people with envy and think why can't I be like you and not have this constant mental torture, you feel like you're the only one and there must be something wrong with you.

I suspect that this is where I'm keeping myself stuck - by carrying out compulsions without realising they are compulsions. Sometimes I will catch myself thinking about it without realising it if that makes sense - it's like the thought has been there for so long and I'm so used to reacting to it that's it's happening on autopilot. One thing I do struggle with is I find it hard to consistently react correctly to the thought when it comes in. Sometimes I'm able to dismiss it quite easily without it upsetting me too much and other times it hits me like a ton of bricks and before I can stop myself I've reacted with fear and the anxiety is sky high. I know this is what keeps it going but sometimes the fear is there before I've even had a chance to recognised the thought for what it is.

Thank you for the advice. Is it possible to get to a place eventually where the thoughts no longer bother you even if they are still there? I've been stuck on a particular thought for over a year now and I can't bear the thought of it being there forever. I feel like it's just sucked all the enjoyment out of my life for the past year - no matter what I do it's there in the background tormenting me.

Hi everyone So I have been trying not to ruminate and when a thought comes I have been trying to see it for what it is (an OCD thought) and not engage with it and move on to something else. I think I'm managing not to consciously engage with it but I feel like I might be subconsciously doing it. Even when I refocus my mind onto another task, like reading a book, it's still there in the background at the back of my mind and I wonder if I'm engaging with the thought subconsciously without realising. I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong and this is why I've been doing this for a few weeks but the thoughts are still there or is that normal?

The morning is no worse than any other time of the day when it comes to the thoughts coming in

Thank you, I will definitely be aware of this ?

At all times of the day

Thank you, this makes sense. Hopefully I will be able to get to a place where the thought isn't automatically accompanied by fear.

Hi everyone. I have been dealing with a stuck thought for over a year. I know what I have to do, I have to not respond to the thought with fear but how do you do that when the fear response is automatic? My current obsession that has been stuck for over a year is that I have committed a crime and hurt someone in the past when I was drunk and this is why I have no memory of it. I mostly have managed to stop myself from ruminating, going back over my memories, trying to figure it out but I feel like it's not going because when the thought comes into my head which is several times a day my body automatically responds with fear. I get a whoosh of anxiety, my heart starts racing, my stomach feels like lead. When this happens, I tell myself it's just OCD and I try to direct my focus onto something else but I feel like I'm still stuck because I'm reacting to the thought with fear but I don't know how to change this. I feel like the fear reaction happens before I can consciously think about it. Does anyone have any advice on how to deal with this?

When you resist doing compulsions, as time goes on you gain mental clarity and can see things clearly and chances are that you will realise the thoughts weren't true. This has always been my experience but it doesn't happen overnight - you have to be consistent in resisting compulsions. Every day when the thought comes in you have to completely ignore it -no ruminating, no checking, no analysing, no googling, no seeking reassurance - nothing. You basically have to starve the thought until it becomes so weak it fades away. What you are doing is feeding the thought and keeping it strong. Everything you are doing is keeping you stuck and will continue to keep you stuck until you change how you are reacting. It's hard but your only other option is to stay as you are for the rest of your life which isn't much fun.

Thanks everyone for your replies, I'm feeling a lot better today and more positive. Onwards and upwards. ?

One that I found really helpful is Brain Lock by Dr Jeffrey Schwartz ?

I have been dealing with a particular theme for around a year - that I've committed a crime in the past while drunk (which is why I don't remember it) and my fear is that the police are going to turn up at my door and arrest me and my life will be ruined etc etc. I have been doing really well the past 3 months, I have pretty much successfully managed to stop doing compulsions and have done really well at not giving the thoughts any attention. They are still there in the background but they bother me much less and were no longer at the forefront of my mind and I was starting to feel a lot better. So on Monday driving home from work, don't ask me why, but I had the brilliant idea that now I'm in a better place mentally, I should re-examine the thoughts, look at them from a logical perspective and then maybe I'll be able to see once and for all that they were all nonsense. So I did. Cue the most horrendous spike of anxiety as NEW thoughts started coming in. I'm now back to where I was 6 months ago, I'm back down the rabbit hole and I'm struggling to get myself out. I'm so mad at myself, why did I do that? I should have known what would happen. The thoughts are back at the forefront of my mind and I'm struggling to concentrate or anything else and have done a few compulsions just to try and relieve the anxiety. I'm so disappointed in myself. My question is, now I've given in and have gone back down the rabbit hole, have I wasted the progress I made over the past 3-6 months? Is it going to take me another 6 months to get back to where I was last week?

I quit drinking 4 years ago for this exact reason. I found that alcohol makes my anxiety 1000 times worse so for me it just wasn't worth it

This is what's keeping you stuck. You are searching for 100% certainty which you can't have. The chance of you having done something like this and have no memory of it is so remote it's not even worth considering, much less spending a year of your life trying to figure it out. Let it go. If you don't you'll still be in the same situation a year from now and then 10 years from now. Stopping compulsions is the only way to recover from this. It won't be quick and it won't be easy but if you stick with it you'll get there eventually. The alternative is to carry on as you are and let me tell you, the longer it goes on the harder it will be to pull yourself out of.

Because you have OCD and this is what OCD does. I, like hazydaze have also been through false memory OCD and I was at the point where I couldn't function properly as the thoughts took up all of my time and attention. I would spend literally every waking hour trying to figure out my thought, it was pure mental torture and a miserable existence. How did I manage to get over it? I stopped engaging with the thought. It is REALLY hard and it takes practice and a lot of willpower but that's the only thing that works. It still bothered me at first but I managed to resist the urge to ruminate and over time it bothered me less and less until eventually I hardly thought about it and now when it pops in my head I can see it as just OCD junk and ignore it and it doesn't even bother me. Once you stop engaging with the thought it will lose it's power and eventually you will see that it was nonsense but you have to stop engaging, stop ruminating, stop trying to figure it out, it's the only thing that works in the long run. I would recommend reading Brain Lock by Dr Jeffrey Schwartz and applying his 4 step method. I've read lots of books on OCD and in my opinion it's one of the best, it really helped me.

That's the OCD trap - thinking you need to solve it before you can move on. You will never be able to solve it which means if you keep ruminating you will be stuck forever. Look at it this way - you've been ruminating for a year and you're no further forward. Carry on and you'll be in the same place 10 years from now. The only way out is to stop engaging with the thought - the more you dismiss it the less it will bother you and eventually you will be able to view the thought with a clear mind and see it for what it is - OCD junk

I stopped drinking 3 years ago for this exact reason, it's just not worth the way it affects my mental health