Please Help Me.

[Gerard]

Hello everyone,

I hope you are all bearing up.

I have been in a lot of OCD-distress over the last few days because of a combination of things. I have experienced, I think, my most severe OCD ambush in a year and have been trying to let it go as I normally do. However, it just keeps coming back and marauding me and I can’t stop the obsessing. This has been combined with the fact that I have been on tour over the last 10 days, have been away from home and therefore not had access to my computer to channel in to the support I get from this website. I know I can go to internet cafes but it’s just not the same. I need privacy and, at any rate, internet cafes can be really hard to find when you need them.

There has been something else as well. I have been SCARED to make a posting about this latest OCD attack for fear of making it worse. Bizarre I know, but sometimes I get scared that if I make a posting about an OCD episode then I will just make a meal of it and spread the fear and panic even more. Sometimes, despite my experiences of this wonderful website, sharing what’s going on between my ears can still be really frightening. I get scared about that people will misunderstand and will say terrifying things in response. It’s all so draining as I am sure all of you know.

Anyway, the pain’s got really bad and, however tempting it might be to do the opposite, I KNOW I must let you all in to help me as you have done before.

Some of you may remember that, for the last year, my OCD has centred on my fears about a woman with whom both my wife and I work.

I love and adore my wife. Our marriage and our life together is THE most important thing to me in the world. She is my everything. No priority is greater to me than being a wonderful and loving husband to her.

However, last year I became scared that this woman at work was sort of flirting with me and it freaked me out. I don’t know if she was flirting with me but she is certainly the kind of woman, I feel, who thinks men find her very attractive. She is an attractive woman and, on a purely platonic / friendship-level, I have always liked her and thought she was a nice kid, though we have only ever been friendly work-colleagues. I have never fantasised about her and have just always felt rather older-brotherly / avuncular to her if anything. We’ve never even been close friends. She was, as I said, just someone with whom my wife and I worked.

However, when this episode where I felt she was flirting with me happened last year, it completely sent me in to a panic. I have always been very strict re my interactions with women other than my wife, and have always made sure the boundaries are very clearly and strictly delineated. I mention my wife and their boyfriend / husband a lot, make sure they know I am not flirting with them and that I am not available.

But this episode led to my most overwhelmingly terrifying OCD episode in years and I became more seriously suicidal than I have even been in my life. I felt my “holy of holies”, the most precious thing to me in the whole world (ie my marriage) was under threat and it terrified me. I was going around in a spiral of terror, afraid that I was going to be unfaithful to my wife with this woman. I just couldn’t stop the ruminating and obsessing. WHY was I having these fears about this woman? Did I have feelings for her? Was I falling in love with her? What WERE my feelings towards her? Good God it was the most awful thing I’ve been through since OCD first entered my life with intrusive thoughts of harming children (I love kids too and would rather harm myself than a child).

The severity of the attack was also, I am sure, connected with doing something very stupid and coming off my medication cold turkey (idiotic, I know, but that is what I did). The experience was like spending 3 solid months in a state of constant panic attack. Anyway, via a combination of ruthless exposure work which involved me placing myself in situations with this woman, feeling the terrors rise up and experiencing them passing, going back on my medication and, most crucial of all, support from all of you on this website, I slowly started to emerge from hell and get back to as near normality as someone with OCD (Pure O, in my case) can experience. I also did CBT and learned that if I allowed the thoughts to come and, even if I wasn’t able genuinely to pay them no heed, ACTED AS IF I felt absolutely fine and didn’t have a care in the world, then the fear would pass and its severity get less and less.

That is exactly what happened and I do not have the words to express my gratitude. I never want to go through that hell on earth again.

But.....

When I am not doing my main job, I support myself with another job at a school (both my wife and I do this job, and this is where the woman works). I still do my exposure work, place myself in situations with this woman, make sure I talk to her, look her in the eye....you get the idea. I try to do the very opposite to what my OCD would have me do which is avoid this woman entirely for fear of the panics returning. If the terrors DO come back, as I said earlier, I just carry on as normal and allow them to pass which they always do. Whilst the OCD is always, to a greater or lesser degree, scraping at the door of my mind, I have just learned to disregard it in the same way that I would disregard over-flying aeroplanes if I lived next to an airport.

Following this procedure has allowed me to get back to a semblance of normality in the last 9 months.

But, when it’s the school holidays, obviously I do not see this woman, and I always get scared that the OCD will return with renewed ferocity when I do see her again at the start of a new term. It’s like my defences have been down because I haven’t been around her, and I panic that I’ll return to the hell of this time last year again when I see her after a gap. What I try to do, therefore, is put myself in situations with this woman as quickly as possible. It’s like being a footballer who’s had some time out with an injury so, when he gets back on the pitch for his first game back from injury, by way of getting back to normality again as quickly as possible, he’ll throw himself in to some really tough and hard tackles to get over any residual fear he might have because of the old injury. Do you understand what I mean? I try to ambush the OCD before it ambushes me.

Anyway, when we returned to work last week after the Easter gap, I got myself keyed up to challenge my OCD fear by facing this woman again, and the first thing I did was go and look for her so that I might place myself in a situation with her, feel the fear (if it came) and allow it to pass. But the woman was not around. She was stuck abroad because of everything that’s been happening with the volcanic ash and the resulting disrupted air travel. The result was that, because I couldn’t find this woman, see her, place myself in a situation with her and face my fears, I started to get scared that I wouldn ‘t be able to rid myself of my fears.

I guess my behaviour around this woman in the workplace has become a ritual, because the intrusive thoughts started and it was just vile and horrible.

I had got to a place where I was able to allow the thoughts to sort of wash over me but, because events had taken a different turn and this woman wasn’t at work, the thoughts wouldn’t go away.

Allied to this, I have been feeling very vulnerable during March and April because it was this time last year that the OCD hell started and I have been worried about its “anniversary” so to speak. Just the feel of March and April (the blossoms, the lambs, the sunshine), reminds me strongly of how I felt this time last year and I have been terrified that I’ll go through the torture again. Whilst this attack doesn’t feel as desperately overwhelming as this time last year, it is pretty nasty. I have, as I said been touring and away from home and I was lying down on my bed the other day and I got a feeling of the old panic whooshing over me again, blood draining from my legs. It made me even more scared that the OCD-terrors were going to return full-force.

I just want to be left alone to enjoy my idyllic life with my wife and our cats in a our beautiful home.

I really need support at this time. Please help me.

All my love and support to you all,

Gerard

[whitebeam]

I just want to be left alone to enjoy my idyllic life with my wife and our cats in a our beautiful home.

Hi Gerard,

Sorry to hear how distressing this is for you. I wonder if trying medication again might be helpful. The right meds for myself changed my life enormously from ruminating and worrying non-stop to now when I just get mild occasional thoughts. I really do think that it was my meds which allowed myself to be left alone.

It seems that your CBT helped before...it might be worth trying to get some top-up CBT to help you through this - I think you can be seen again if your condition flairs up without having to go back on the waiting list (please correct me anyone if this is wrong).

I also wanted to say that I'm thinking of you and hope that soon your idyllic life will return

Take care

whitebeam

[Gerard]

Thank you so much, Whitebeam. It is wonderful of you to take time out from your day to support me.

I am back on meds now (60mg daily Prozac) but I have to say that I have been strongly having thoughts about trying some thing else because it just doesn't seem to hit the spot the way it used to.

I've even been wondering if I've built up a resistance to the Prozac? I've been on them since March 2001 and, whilst they gave me blissful relief for a few years, they don't really any more.

The CBT is a little more tricky because my last therapist really did jot help me. I learned the techniques but it was only out of my own desperation. I did, at one time, have a brilliant therapist but that was years ago when I lived elsewhere. I would rather have no therapist at all than pone who terrifies the living daylights out of me and then leaves me feeling helpless at the end of the session.

But believe me, Whitebeam, I will take on board what you say. Thank you from the b ottom of my heart for your compassion and love.

Here for you too, dear lady,

Gerardx.

Hi Gerard,

Sorry to hear how distressing this is for you. I wonder if trying medication again might be helpful. The right meds for myself changed my life enormously from ruminating and worrying non-stop to now when I just get mild occasional thoughts. I really do think that it was my meds which allowed myself to be left alone.

It seems that your CBT helped before...it might be worth trying to get some top-up CBT to help you through this - I think you can be seen again if your condition flairs up without having to go back on the waiting list (please correct me anyone if this is wrong).

I also wanted to say that I'm thinking of you and hope that soon your idyllic life will return

Take care

whitebeam

[Hal]

I guess my behaviour around this woman in the workplace has become a ritual, because the intrusive thoughts started and it was just vile and horrible.

I think you could be onto something there Gerard - it can be very fine line between performing the ERP and tripping into a ritual/compulsion.

I guess the fact that you've had this setback whilst the woman wasn't around the school does tend to support that this is what's happening.

When you look at it though, this mistake is possibly only down to trying too hard and putting too much pressure on yourself when it came to behavioral exercises you'd set yourself (making sure not to avoid the woman).

I had got to a place where I was able to allow the thoughts to sort of wash over me but, because events had taken a different turn and this woman wasn’t at work, the thoughts wouldn’t go away.

The key with tackling this condition isn't so much down to stopping the thoughts (none of can do that) as it is accepting that they're intrusive, have no meaning and aren't worth the time of day.

If we approach the thoughts knowing that, it doesn't matter if they keep popping up - providing we file them away as OCD nonsense (relabelling).

I tend to agree with Whitebeam that a refresher CBT course might be helpful, just to give you a boost and help re-charge your batteries.

Maybe see how you fare with not purposefully seeking her out and go from there?

Hal

[Gerard]

Hal and Whitebeam,

You are my angels.

Let me put you in the picture.

I am touring and am on my own in some very beautiful but far-fetched places in the British Isles.

I have just done a 5 hour drive and my head has been on fire with the fear again today (though you really helped me yesterday, Whitebeam).

I just got to the place where I am performing tonight and HAD to log on. Thank God I was able to and got your posting, Hal.

I don't feel alone anymore, though I still feel vulnerable.

I shall take on board what you say to the letter, Hal.

All my love to you both,

Gerard

I think you could be onto something there Gerard - it can be very fine line between performing the ERP and tripping into a ritual/compulsion.

I guess the fact that you've had this setback whilst the woman wasn't around the school does tend to support that this is what's happening.

When you look at it though, this mistake is possibly only down to trying too hard and putting too much pressure on yourself when it came to behavioral exercises you'd set yourself (making sure not to avoid the woman).

Thee key with tackling this condition isn't so much down to stopping the thoughts (none of can do that) as it is accepting that they're intrusive, have no meaning and aren't worth the time of day.

If we approach the thoughts knowing that, it doesn't matter if they keep popping up - providing we file them away as OCD nonsense (relabelling).

I tend to agree with Whitebeam that a refresher CBT course might be helpful, just to give you a boost and help re-charge your batteries.

Maybe see how you fare with not purposefully seeking her out and go from there?

Hal

[whitebeam]

Hi Gerard,

What is it you do that takes you away?

It must be hard when you have long periods of time where you are alone with your thoughts. I know when I have driven long distances in the past I have become very entwined in my fearful thoughts. Thankfully meds, treatment and time have helped and now I am only occasionally concerned by these. Try to believe that things can get better for you too. Maybe it's time to talk to your GP or psychiatrist about trying new meds.

It may be that a different therapist would give you support rather then terrify you. The wrong therapist is almost certainly worse than none, but there could be someone who does get through to you and help.

Take care and drive safely

whitebeam

[bleachqueen]

Hello Gerard,

I hope you are feeling better since your first post.

Personally, I can understand some way the fear you have of a big flare up again. My last was after my divorce 20+ years ago, and more recently since the death of my son in a car crash.

In between I have OCD tendencies, but never as crippling as they have been this time.

On a more positive note, as Legend says, Knowledge is Power! Even though the OCD may flare up with all the ferocity it can muster, the years have taught me better and stronger coping mechanisms coupled with a higher awareness of OCD and support and treatments, I feel in a better position to manage it as time goes on. I would take a wild guess that you have also more skills, support knowledge etc than you had this time last year? That being the case, you will never go back to how you were, even though it feels like it at times, there will be a more knowledgable experience "YOU" fighting back!

Your wife you say is THE most important person in your life. That is wonderful to hear, and also can put an even bigger fear into your mind on the "what if i lost her " score. It makes it harder to bear, so fear is bigger, so anything connected with the thoughts of losing her will also grow proportionately, I would think. (Been there a bit myself).

You say you recognise the spring lambs and general atmosphere as a fear factor because you remember this as the time you were ill last year. You have remembered those experiences as a negative trigger and they are pushing your buttons again. Is there any way you can see this spring as a separate experience and turn all the lovely things about it into positive not fear thoughts. "Stinking thinking " again. We are brilliant at it aren't we!!

As for facing the fear with the lady at work, that started off as a very brave thing to do, and it worked, for a while. I think what Hal said in his reply makes sense to me, although I haved heard of this before I don't fully understand it but will have a go and think I have done similar things myself. When I have a fear of something and make myself face it and then feel stronger it makes me feel good that I have tackled something. I think if I kept repeating it then the action changes from being an exposure to change my thinking, and actually becomes a reassurance in itself? Not 100% on that I a afraid, but think Hal has a better understanding of that!

I remember going on a workshop one day where the trainer referred to a "slot rattle" She said that when we have a behavior pattern that doesn't work for us, instead of finding the centre of the slot to be balanced, we tend to over-correct our behaviour and go to the opposite end of the slot rattle! Even though our behaviour has changed, it is still unhealthy and we have to then use either end as our "markers" and aim for something in the middle!! I can see myself in that too and wonder if your lady at work has dropped into your "slot rattle" extremes. You will probably find the balance very soon now you have an awareness of what you are doing. The cancelled flights have done you a favour because you have been able to recognise this and so it is an opportunity to change it. I am sure you will. You have before and you are more experienced in dealing with this now.

One last thing, (Oh I do go on) when I have a long drive, I tend to listen to an audio book because it absorbs my thoughts rather than music which can just become background. Just an idea.

Best wishes

BQ

[Gerard]

Hi Bleachqueen,

Thank so much for your beautiful, thoughtful response.

You are on the money in everything you say, but I would make one slight tweak. The fact that I love my wife so much makes my fear of HURTING her flare up. It's like with my fear of harming children years ago. I love them so much and therefore imagine the worst thing I can do, ie hurt a child.

God what a dreadful and appalling illness...

But I am going to take your note, BQ, and relabel this Spring as rebirth in to freedom from OCD....what an absolutely exquisite thought! There are no lengths to which I will not go to make that idea a reality.

All my love, BQ. My response is entirely inadequate in comparison to what you have given me today, but I really want you to know that I hope and pray I can one day help and support you in the same way.

You, Whitebeam and Hal are my ANGELS - I'm serious.

Please allow me to be your angel as well.

God bless you, BQ,

Gerardxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hello Gerard,

I hope you are feeling better since your first post.

Personally, I can understand some way the fear you have of a big flare up again. My last was after my divorce 20+ years ago, and more recently since the death of my son in a car crash.

In between I have OCD tendencies, but never as crippling as they have been this time.

On a more positive note, as Legend says, Knowledge is Power! Even though the OCD may flare up with all the ferocity it can muster, the years have taught me better and stronger coping mechanisms coupled with a higher awareness of OCD and support and treatments, I feel in a better position to manage it as time goes on. I would take a wild guess that you have also more skills, support knowledge etc than you had this time last year? That being the case, you will never go back to how you were, even though it feels like it at times, there will be a more knowledgable experience "YOU" fighting back!

Your wife you say is THE most important person in your life. That is wonderful to hear, and also can put an even bigger fear into your mind on the "what if i lost her " score. It makes it harder to bear, so fear is bigger, so anything connected with the thoughts of losing her will also grow proportionately, I would think. (Been there a bit myself).

You say you recognise the spring lambs and general atmosphere as a fear factor because you remember this as the time you were ill last year. You have remembered those experiences as a negative trigger and they are pushing your buttons again. Is there any way you can see this spring as a separate experience and turn all the lovely things about it into positive not fear thoughts. "Stinking thinking " again. We are brilliant at it aren't we!!

As for facing the fear with the lady at work, that started off as a very brave thing to do, and it worked, for a while. I think what Hal said in his reply makes sense to me, although I haved heard of this before I don't fully understand it but will have a go and think I have done similar things myself. When I have a fear of something and make myself face it and then feel stronger it makes me feel good that I have tackled something. I think if I kept repeating it then the action changes from being an exposure to change my thinking, and actually becomes a reassurance in itself? Not 100% on that I a afraid, but think Hal has a better understanding of that!

I remember going on a workshop one day where the trainer referred to a "slot rattle" She said that when we have a behavior pattern that doesn't work for us, instead of finding the centre of the slot to be balanced, we tend to over-correct our behaviour and go to the opposite end of the slot rattle! Even though our behaviour has changed, it is still unhealthy and we have to then use either end as our "markers" and aim for something in the middle!! I can see myself in that too and wonder if your lady at work has dropped into your "slot rattle" extremes. You will probably find the balance very soon now you have an awareness of what you are doing. The cancelled flights have done you a favour because you have been able to recognise this and so it is an opportunity to change it. I am sure you will. You have before and you are more experienced in dealing with this now.

One last thing, (Oh I do go on) when I have a long drive, I tend to listen to an audio book because it absorbs my thoughts rather than music which can just become background. Just an idea.

Best wishes

BQ