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DRS1

OCD-UK Member
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Everything posted by DRS1

  1. You are concentrating way too much on the content. What you just listed is echoed through this forum many times over, even just this year alone - I'd actually suggest reading them (despite it potentially being compulsive) just to highlight how utterly boring OCD is. Also, we aren't saying it's easy. You've got to remember, we aren't people who are just offering advice. We are people with OCD who have been through it offering advice. We know it's not easy. At some point you have to decide do you want to continue to go down the path you are going or are you sick and tired of OCDs utter nonsense. If you don't recognise it's OCD after the fact then you really need to work on that and again maybe something that is keeping you stuck.
  2. You are preempting all these things when it hasn't even happened. If every day you think tomorrow I'm going to have a bad day, guess what Cora, you are going to have a bad day. None of this gets better by stopping feelings, thoughts etc. It only gets better when you start reacting differently. As for why you are confused. I'm confused why you are confused. You do know why you are getting stuck in the loop but I think you are refusing to accept it. You are still targeting the wrong thing. I agree with @snowbear, what is your reasoning for why you can't start that change now? To put it more bluntly. You can either continue as you are and live your life as a pathetic undeserving person who is somehow some kind of sexual deviant, that's racist, has thoughts about her brother etc. And live in complete misery. Or, you can choose to defy the whole lot. Maybe the reality here Cora no matter how much you seem to not want to believe it and trounce yourself in guilt and shame, is that you have simply run yourself down so much that you feel worthless. That you care so much about not being something that you don't want to be. Half your themes I've had so either I'm the exact things you are calling yourself (try calling me them, I bet you will say but it's different... It's not!) Or you are fully capable of recovering from this, but you need to drop the negative self talk and look at where you can start from to getting better.
  3. I don't know how I feel about this. I worry that we are making your mental health worse and that may be contributing heavily to why you are still spiraling. I know others have different views on this and that's fine but I do think there has to be a difference somewhere from talking about things to confessing every time on the forum. I know that's hard to do and others will potentially shoot me down for this but that's okay. Instead of confessing everything on the forum, try changing it to this is what I'm struggling with right now. You can label that as what you want, if it's sexual themes or whatever. You can talk about your wife and what's going on there but you can generalise it to she isn't happy with me for confessing or for something that happened years ago. Talking about it in this way is meaning at the very least you aren't confessing the exact things in detail and that's something. You've got this! As to others politics points, I don't see it that way, at least if you are suggesting it is that way on the forum but more than happy to disagree on that point, after all everyone is entitled to have their own view. Everyone should have individualised care but, we aren't the appropriate medical professionals that decide that. As I've said before all we can offer advice on is what worked for us, much to how some may feel frustrated and angry about this. I'm willing to accept that others feel it hasn't or won't work for them but I think they also need to accept that for those of us that it did work for, that's all we have evidence of working in our experience. We can't change that. We are not researchers or medical professionals, we simply have our lived experience and that's it. For those that did something different that has worked for them, they should bring it up too. There's room for multiple views on this. I will say this generally for any approach, if you don't have the ability at the moment to feel like you can tackle this then everything we are suggesting isn't going to work. All the suggestions are things you really need to commit to and that's not easy. For anyone that has any issues with what I've said in this post, I'm more than happy to be dm'd if you would like to talk about it.
  4. I told my therapist everything. If they don't know the stuff you are really struggling with you can't be helped in the best way. For me that meant fear of offending someone, thoughts that I was going to push my mum down the stairs or stab myself or others with a knife, that just because I had an intrusive thought maybe I was not the sexuality I thought I was, sexual intrusive images of sex acts involving family members, groinal responses, the whole lot. Start with what you feel comfortable but if they know OCD, they will understand.
  5. By your logic... "had". Those thoughts are now intrusive thus are intrusive thoughts.
  6. ERP is meant to be for OCD in general, they shouldn't have said it's only external. Sounds like a lot of people don't seem to know what ERP is besides using it as a buzzword. For example, ERP for me with sexual intrusive images of sex acts involving family members was to picture it in my head, make it the worst thing possible and then let it be. It sucked but it works. However notably that's for me. A good therapist wouldn't force you to do anything you aren't comfortable doing and really the ideas for exposure themselves are meant to come from you, they should just be helping you go with that. So in a more general view. ERP for me (with 90% mental compulsions) was at the time of therapy anyways, take the thought, or image you get, exaggerate it and then sit with all that anxiety and uncertainty to realise, and sorry if this comes across wrong, but just how stupid I had been to buy into OCDs nonsense. You end up with this relief of "Oh, huh, that wasn't as scary as I thought". In terms of the waiting list, I don't want to agree with their basic premise but if you get discharged and you want to self refer back then you will end up further down the waiting list than others who have also been waiting. I don't think it's a good system but at the same time I can see how they need to have equality for all patients being self referred. To say very bluntly in what sounds like a condescending way that you are on the bottom of the list now is ridiculous from them. But in terms of the hard to get funding part, you know what, to be honest if they actually tried talking to the council to get the funding instead of saying it's hard to get it maybe they would find out if they can get you referred to the Oxford specialist center. If the council won't do it, talk to one of the councillors at the council I guess. Start being a face to them not just another number on the end of their population statistics. I don't know if contacting your local MP could help somehow?
  7. Cora, I think it's about time I stop replying to your posts as you are just not trying to learn anything or help yourself quite frankly and instead are using my responses for further compulsive reassurance attempts.
  8. And there's your real problem. That cote belief right there. Something that might be helpful is if someone else had OCD and you didn't would you treat them the way you treat yourself? Or is it different because it's you?
  9. You aren't going to like this answer @Cora but this is the truth. These questions are just more reassurance seeking compulsions. You know how to move on. You can only do that by stopping the compulsions (which isn't easy but it's the truth). Let me ask you this did you know for sure that you weren't still just in dream mode and not what you think it was? Do you have certainty of that? Lastly, sex dreams/wet dreams - the content never makes any sense. At least in my experience, it's weird, disjointed and a bit all over the place. It's just like an intrusive thought. You didn't have control over that content but the response can be the same... Not to give any weight to it. But if you really want to, go ahead and ruminate over whether or not you need to find out if it means something. Remember compulsions are a choice!
  10. @Cora! Come on. To highlight something that maybe isn't obvious to you at this point. "I'm sorry to be annoying but I think I need to mention that...". You actually do this as a compulsion and I don't know if you recognise that at all. This isn't even something I've recently noticed. You've had that compulsion for a while. And in general you continue to apologise right before you continue confessing. Are you able to recognise these as compulsions. If not you are going to keep coming back round and doing that in This thread is getting you absolutely nowhere. It's really gotten to a point where if you aren't going to start working on the things mentioned by other people then all this thread becomes is a daily compulsion. To come on, confess again and again until the next day.
  11. In Scotland think it depends on each area. In mine you could either self refer or go to your GP for them to refer you. Appointments for the GP in Scotland are a bit faster it seems. As long as you phone at 8am, you are likely to get an appointment the same day.
  12. I think you are saying that latter part because you are in distress and frustrated and rightfully so but we aren't on our own. There's a reason why this forum exists. There's also self help books you can get to at least start the work on getting better. As I had just suggested in another post (look round the forum by the way, you aren't the first person to post about these particular fears/themes with OCD - not by a longshot), stop trying to do all this checking around whether you are gay or not. It doesn't actually confirm anything as you've proven. Every time you get a new trigger, OCD uses the "but this time it's different logic". It never is. I would go on the basis of if you think you are straight until the intrusive thoughts come up, then assume you are straight until/if that changes.
  13. Well it stuck with you because you still do compulsions around it. It's that simple in cause. As for why you have the thoughts, well, because all humans do. Everyone has intrusive thoughts. You care about your sexuality so that's what OCD targets. What is it specifically about the thoughts that for you is intolerable? I can't give you reassurance but OCD just wants you to control uncertainty. You can't. I think part of the problem too is you are looking at so many things in your past as if you did something wrong or abnormal. This would be the hyper responsibility aspect of OCD. However you want to look at it, you cannot control what happened in the past. A suggestion for you that will annoy OCD and make you initially anxious. Live on the basis of what you think your sexuality is and go with that until/if it changes. I think this is well worth referring yourself to therapy for as a therapist will be able to work one on one with you in helping you with this.
  14. I'd disagree. I think there's a responsibility on app developers to not blatantly stigmatise the condition that so many suffer with. The people who play their game might not understand but it's clear from the ad that they do at least.
  15. Okay, so by the same logic, because I exist I deserved to be bullied and traumatized in school because I'm autistic and was treated as different and lesser to others. I deserve to have social challenges. I deserve to have OCD. I deserved the two seizures I have, just because I exist? Does that sound about right to you @Kcbell92? In essence to your whole logic, from my example in summary do I deserve to suffer? You can replace the Mets with whatever other thing you want and it's still fundamentally the same exact process... Hopefully you can see that. If the Mets did well but you still continued to have all these issues then what? Your whole logic breaks right?
  16. I had an observation today about contamination in public toilets. No more what you do, at some point you've touched the cubicle lock handle to lock and unlock the door. However, so has everyone else that has ever used that. That means that every person has likely either held their genitals to urinate or wiped at their genital area or behind and then touched that door handle again. Then for some reason we subconsciously don't care about it, go out and wash our hands. Again you keep coming round with these things as if they are new or as if you've totally forgotten your understanding of them. I get how hard OCD is (and is part of the reason I've been referred back to therapy to iron out the last few remaining issues I have) but if you aren't able to recognise at least after the fact that it made no sense, you aren't going to get anywhere at all. You won't learn anything by doing that.
  17. I tried reporting them on the app store but I doubt Google will do anything about it since it's not the game itself but the advertising that's the main issue.
  18. I just don't get it. I've just come across an ad for Google Play Store and a parking game where the tag line was "this game creates Obsessive compulsive disorder but you'll keep playing it". They aren't even using OCD is a three letter adjective, they are full on using the whole unabbreviated medical diagnosis name. I don't see how this is acceptable. Sometimes I think we'll if they want OCD so badly why can't they have it instead of us? Out of a lack of respect for them, I'm not going to share the name of the game or the link to the ad as quite frankly they don't deserve anyone's attention but it is absolutely infuriating. Google isn't going to do anything about it as the play store is just too large with so many apps or games but it'd be nice if they would police this a bit.
  19. I think you know you are seeking reassurance with that question Cora. It's like you thank us but then completely ignore what we have said and just go back round in the cycle.
  20. Agree with this. It's not any different at all. Different trigger same theme, and same compulsions @Cora
  21. I think that this is actually a very helpful post for everyone to see (regardless of whether or not it was written in order to help). I also recently reached this "stuck" stage and realised that I didn't quite know how to deal with certain obsessions. Eventually, I've decided to go back to my GP to be referred back for therapy again. I can see the progression of the obsessions for me getting worse and I'd rather try and maintain the gains I had made through therapy the first time as much as possible. I also worried a lot about not being offered therapy because my symptoms aren't as bad as the first time round but was told by the GP that they would still take me as from their side, it's better to get a few sessions now rather than have to have tons of sessions again. I don't know if this is the case generally (even just in Scotland) but appears to be quite a positive thing. I find it interesting with OCD that it always continues to isolate certain things but not other things. I used to fear falling out of a window than falling down the stairs despite the latter being the more likely thing to happen. OCD didn't care about the stairs. I had a similar fear with semen that is partially gone as by not having to use the same bathroom as other people in my family (female members of my family in particular), the trigger for that seems to have disappeared. I suspect that will probably start to become an issue again when I start to have relationships. I also partially still have this worry of trying to not have wet dreams (as if somehow they can be controlled) and so to be rather explicit, masturbating specifically every other day in a rigid schedule. Not necessarily because that's when I want to but because if I didn't, what if a wet dream happened. That has switched somewhat into if I don't operate on that rigid schedule, I may have sexual thoughts in work or erections in work and that would be terrible. Yet again, the attempts to control these things hasn't and probably will never work. I still continue to randomly have these thoughts no matter where I am or what time of day it is, both ego dystonic intrusive thoughts which are debilitating and equally ego syntonic thoughts (less frequently) which whilst not bad are debilitating in the sense that OCD grabs hold of that and berates me for having thoughts that randomly came up in my head. It's always that aspect of control that makes it so difficult. How do I know if I'm doing well enough in work if I don't constantly do compulsions to make sure I'm doing enough, or constantly saying sorry to people in work if I feel I haven't delivered something quick enough. Trying to let go of that seems scary. If I do let go, I might actually not be doing enough and that's not good. With your difficulty with semen, probably even knowing that in public spaces there is probably semen everywhere won't make much of a difference because OCD has the logic pinpointed such that it only applies to you, and it's great at doing that (which is not remotely helpful). You don't have a choice in whether or not you ejaculate in your sleep and yet OCD says you should control the semen part of that it in some way. As I had learned from trying to deal with this issue in the first time I had therapy. It doesn't matter if you masturbate every day, even several times a day, it doesn't rule out the possibility of a wet dream. So even by avoiding masturbation or sexual activity, you are perhaps lessening the frequency that it will become a trigger but it never stops it being a trigger itself that way. I can't say anything that would make taking the leap easier but even starting small with it - picturing what it would be like to have to be around semen and it being in a particular location or everywhere for example rather than having to confront the semen physically. I'm very much in a similar boat that's stuck in the water at the moment and I'm unlikely to have said anything you probably didn't know or hadn't thought of but that's just my thoughts on it.
  22. You are just coming straight back round again in that vicious cycle NLL. Is confessing at this point even reducing your anxiety? Try what I had mentioned before. I know it's hard but as others said, you aren't getting anywhere with your current approach of self punishment and compulsions.
  23. Trust me, speaking to yourself like that isn't doing you any good irrespective of your OCD and other conditions.
  24. Cora this is again just another one of your compulsions. Us giving you reassurance I don't even think would settle this anxiety/uncertainty for even 5 minutes at this point.
  25. Regardless of what anyone thinks (and at this point I'm not sure it matters - especially considering you already had a therapist tell you what was normal!), your wife doesn't want to here it. The reality is she wants to move on (although from some of your posts sometimes I don't think she does) from it just as much as you do. If you continue to bring up everything in the past to torture yourself with over and over again, you will always feel horrible. Yes OCD is being the annoying debilitating brat that it is but so much of what you are doing is trying to punish yourself for something you no longer have control of, regardless of whether the fantasies were normal or not. If everyone punished themselves in the way you have/are, I think we would all feel exactly the same. Maybe it's time for a different tactic. Force your way back to fight back against OCD. Meet that with exaggerated praise for yourself no matter what you think now. Everytime you get an intrusive thought reoccurring, acknowledge that you really like fantasizing and exaggerate how much you like it. Someone will be able to say if this is the right or wrong approach here but I'll be honest I'm running out of different things to say.
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