Lilyjune

Hi all, I would really like some suggestions on how I can try start recovery on my own. I was recently diagnosed with ocd through the nhs, and they have offered me CBT, however I have been waiting a couple weeks to have my first contact with the therapist, and I am still waiting. I emailed and got told I should be contacted some time in the next few weeks, however I feel like I’m entering a crisis where everything is overwhelming me, sending my ocd into overdrive. Covid is one of the main things that is sending me crazy, my partner who works away in the forces recently visited me for a couple days, but has just gone back to work and has been told to leave as a visitor to the building he works in has tested positive for covid, during the time he was at work last week. They have been told that they wouldn’t have come into contact with the person but that they all need to go on two weeks leave so that the building is empty. Hm, doesn’t sit right with me. I have recently developed severe asthma, and I am so terrified that I have caught covid. I am a single parent (my partner is not her biological father) and my child has no other parent, just me. I am so convinced that I’m going to die and leave my child parentless and too young to even remember me. I feel like I am on speed, constantly cleaning the house, shaking with fear, thinking through all the worst possibilities. The more anxious and stressed I am getting from my thoughts, the more I am cleaning and feeling contaminated. I am furious, I’ve barely left the house since March, I do everything right and now I could have covid. I get that this is a separate issue from the untreated ocd, but they are not mixing well at all, and I don’t know how I’m going to cope for ‘a few weeks’ more of waiting for CBT to start. I know I have no support, so I’ve just got to help myself, but what can I do to help myself? would really appreciate some suggestions that have worked for other people trying to recover themselves, or at least how to cope during very stressful times without creating more compulsions

That’s exactly how it feels - like a horrible itch! One of my compulsions is to check out all the windows multiple times throughout the night (Incase there is someone out there, silly I know) and since the ocd diagnosis I have been trying to resist, but I haven’t been successful yet. I’ll get up to go and check, then I stop and try resist, try to back to bed, but I get this awful awful feeling radiate throughout me, like my body is telling me that something awful WILL happen if I don’t just check. And I keep giving in. It’s so difficult to resist the itch. But one day at a time ay.

I see, that does make a lot of sense. I think the OCD is just trying to find any reason to not have to stop the compulsions. But what you said has made it click, and make me realise from my own compulsions I have created new obsessions. Like I said, I can be very stubborn, and it can be hard for me to see outside my own cynical way of thinking. Thank you for explaining that for me.

You are right, it is difficult to know and accept that everything i have been doing to try and cope has been so wrong. The rational part of me (surprisingly there is a bit left) absolutely knows that my behaviour is irrational and damaging. I know that I have to let go of the ‘neutralising’ beliefs and behaviours, as they aren’t really neutralising anything - so what’s the point in doing it anymore. I feel as if I have two different brains inside my head, the rationally thinking one and then the OCD one, and they are constantly fighting and contradicting each other.

Hi, thanks for the reply. I think the fear that I will be too stubborn to be successful with CBT is most likely another one of my intrusive OCD thoughts, if that makes sense. But I am also skeptical about having to stop the compulsions, as they are not the problem, the obsession is. The compulsion is only a symptom of my obsessions, what’s the use in just treating the symptom? I keep questioning if it is even possible to treat the root cause of my obsessions.

Hi all, I’ve just recently been diagnosed with OCD, therapist says it’s on the severe end, although I have been exhibiting some of the behaviour for as long as I remember. I had a tough childhood, and I have struggled with mental health also for as long as I can remember, however i never expected OCD to be my main problem, but now it does make sense. It’s ruined my life, I’m house bound, I’m up all night terrified that someone is going to break into my home - I hate being alone. I can’t leave the house in fear that multiple awful things could happen to me. I can’t sleep because my head is full of awful intrusive thoughts, or all I can think about is my breathing ( which is something I’ve done for a very long life ). I have no one in my life that I can talk to about it, in fact I find it very strange talking about my mental health, but I would like to, I believe it would do me a bit of good. That is why I have come here. I am due to start CBT, but I’m sceptical about it working, I am very stubborn about my obsessions and beliefs so I feel pretty doomed. Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? I never realised how debilitating OCD could be until I was told that this is what I have been going through.