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hello, i haven't posted for a little while. But i am in such an awful state , i need help to start again. i just can't do anything. My problems other than ocd are bad enough but not being ableto follow my own wishes and do normal things in my life is crippling me totally. Machiate talked about extra costs of ocd - tell me about it - it doesn't bear thinking about. i have resisted posting partly cos back pain makes typing v diff.

However, i desperately need to know what i can do. Someone to share with. i dont feel i can put this on friends who have no real knowledge of anxiety, as i have done so before.

i know this is simplyfying it but iill try to explain some. i have great trouble being able to follow my own will - doing things and buying things - but when i can buy clothes comfortably, i then feel i can do anything else i want to. Well then something makes it break down and i don't allow myself to do/buy things again, until i go through great pains and eventually manage to buy clothes again and the same pattern occurs again.

A long time ago i told myself i would never have to take an item of clothing back again to a shop, i would not let this happen. Therefore i had to be sure it was ok to buy. I at least knew i would not do this again. But this of course did not mean i could buy anything anytime - i just avoided buying - but had cbt and was getting better at tacklling it with the councellors supervision.

Then a couple of weeks ago i managed to book a few days holiday trip, but knew i could only buy any item of clothing (and therefore be free to do anything else) on holiday, if i had sucessfully bought something (clothing)first before i went on holiday. To cut a long story short i was trying to convince myself it was ok to buy something before i went but couldnt, then time was running out, and i got very nervous, and ended up picking my skin , which i havent done for ages, and then wnet out and bought something anyway, which was doubly hard. Then i went on holiday and made myself buy something small to wear because i knew i had to otherwise next time i went on holiday i couldnt buyt anything. I was so miserable on holiday and knew i was doomed.

So now i am back and want to take the thing i bought before i went, back to the shop. And then i want to punish my self for taking it back because that was no longer allowed and i have to decide if punishment i come up with is enough and till this is sorted i feel i cant do anything (the range is large, basically tasks i want to and even need to do, things for my own good - its hell) as i said and i am alone with these thoughts. I dont know how to proceed. Please help me to make sense of this and to know what to do. I'm in a terrible downwards spiral and feel i am really going insane.Thanking you in advance for much needed help, Bendylouise.

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I'm a bit mixed up here :(

This item you want to take back.....is it because you need to take it back really (i.e it's the wrong size, colour etc) or are you taking it back as part of a complicated OCD issue

Caramoole

The item is perfectly fine and nice and i want it. This is never about something being the wrong size, etc). Thanks, BL

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Please help me someone.............I have now returned the item but don't know how to cope and proceed. I keep breaking little rules of mine and then punishing myself by disallowing something. It s as if - if i don't follow the rules, that i wont' allow myself to be happy. hOW do i start with this, please.BL

Edited by bendylouise
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Nobody has responded. Great. i'm gonna say what's going on anyway. And if anyones interested you would have to read the whole thread not just a couple of posts. Having returned the item i feel i have to be punished for buying and then returning a perfectly nice item. Also i did something (went against something which i think was magical thinking) and now feel i have to be punished for that too. i have been going against the magical thinking with little things to try to help myself but am so distressed and depressed, i just cant get on with anything meaningful or important to me

BL

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Hello, I don't think we've spoken before :)

Please try to calm down. Do you think that returning the item that you bought is a compulsion? What do you think would happen if you didn't return it? What is the obsession causing the compulsion of returning the goods? I just want to have a little understanding of the particular 'flavour' that you have

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Guest BlondeMermaidxoxo

Hello,

I dont know if this will help but I have had a lot of problems with clothes and my OCD..

I recently saw a video and it was about a banana. He wrote down all the things that gave him anxiety about the banana on the peel. Then he started to peel it and once the peeling was off he said "see its only a banana" Meaning that the OCD thoughts he had with it werent real and its all in our head.

I hope youre doing better and just stay strong. You dont need to punish yourself because none of this is your fault

xo

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Hi, and thanks. i felt i couldn't have it because of reasons stated in my first post I think it is a way of keeping control and i punish myself to keep certain 'standards' going because i think i need to be good enough to be allowed to do/buy things. And i am terrified of my own mind not letting me live with something if it is not allowed and i go against it. thats what it seems to be but i am unsure. i am in a terrible loop. BL

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Hi, and thanks. i felt i couldn't have it because of reasons stated in my first post I think it is a way of keeping control and i punish myself to keep certain 'standards' going because i think i need to be good enough to be allowed to do/buy things. And i am terrified of my own mind not letting me live with something if it is not allowed and i go against it. thats what it seems to be but i am unsure. i am in a terrible loop. BL

Unless I missed it, I didn't see a reason why you wouldn't allow yourself to buy these things?

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Unless I missed it, I didn't see a reason why you wouldn't allow yourself to buy these things?

Sorry Mrsp, i've just re-read it and you are correct. I'm not sure. Its to control myself i s'pose and things. So i can cope with my life. A reaction to fear, lonliness and self hatred? Its been going on forever. Sorry if its not very illuminating. I am trying. Thanks for your interest, BL

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Sorry Mrsp, i've just re-read it and you are correct. I'm not sure. Its to control myself i s'pose and things. So i can cope with my life. A reaction to fear, lonliness and self hatred? Its been going on forever. Sorry if its not very illuminating. I am trying. Thanks for your interest, BL

No that's ok. I just wondered what you might think would happen if you didn't return the items?

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Hello,

I dont know if this will help but I have had a lot of problems with clothes and my OCD..

I recently saw a video and it was about a banana. He wrote down all the things that gave him anxiety about the banana on the peel. Then he started to peel it and once the peeling was off he said "see its only a banana" Meaning that the OCD thoughts he had with it werent real and its all in our head.

I hope youre doing better and just stay strong. You dont need to punish yourself because none of this is your fault

xo

Hey thanks BlondMermaid, good image cos you chuck the skin away too. BL

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No that's ok. I just wondered what you might think would happen if you didn't return the items?

Nothing I just couldn't allow myself to live with it. it would be 'wrong' - not allowed - and would consume me make me ill worrying just knowing i was not confident that i was allowed under my rules to buy it in the first place and therefore shoudl not keep it. At the beginning of this year i was able to put a new rule in place that i could buy do anything from now on as i had passed a test of my making. But it seems i failed on that and don't know if i can go back to it, having failed to live by it for long. BL

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Nothing I just couldn't allow myself to live with it. it would be 'wrong' - not allowed - and would consume me make me ill worrying just knowing i was not confident that i was allowed under my rules to buy it in the first place and therefore shoudl not keep it. At the beginning of this year i was able to put a new rule in place that i could buy do anything from now on as i had passed a test of my making. But it seems i failed on that and don't know if i can go back to it, having failed to live by it for long. BL

Then you know what you need to do..buy something, and sit with the thought. It's horrible, gut wrenching and miserable, but in the long run, it'll help you. You'll be facing your fear and tackling it head on. Good luck x

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When i do , i guess i should do/buy something that isn't on the the top of my list, even tho i am desperate to jump to the top. But how do i get over the feeling that i must punish myself for the things i've done before i can start on this exposure again? Everytime i make a slight 'mistake' i panic and punish myself and make myself go back i t seems, so it takes so incredibly long to progress. Actually not every time, but eventually , so that it always ends in the same way ie i can't buy and do anything progressive. please advise, thanks, BL

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You've got yourself well and truly tied up in the middle of a very complicated web and unfortunately, as you weave more magical thinking into the web it gets ever more complex to get out again because of this rule and that rule.

Louise, no matter how real the need seems to punish, none of this magical thinking has any reality to it, apart from your anxiety.

Firstly, can you see that this is OCD/Anxiety/low esteem? False thinking?

If you can, then you have to devise a plan, a set of goals to resist the compulsions.

how do i get over the feeling that i must punish myself for the things i've done

Like any other form of OCD, it works the other way around. If we wait until the feelings feel right, we wait for ever. We've got to move forward despite the levels of anxiety and doubt, in your case resist the punishment.

Whether someone is resisting the urge to check or wash or (in your case) to return goods to punish themselves, we sufferers have to resist the urge to carry out that neutralising behaviour.

These are false thoughts and ideas concocted by this involved and complex magical thinking. The very first step is to really accept that this is magical thinking and your actions are part of the condition..

:fish: OCD

Caramoole

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Caramoole, thank you v much 4 replying. I'm not sure i can properly see that it is ocd/anxiety/low self esteem. I need some help with this i think, especially as today i feel i've had another setback in that i have to fill in a ESA form and thinking about and looking into this has spiked me terribly as i had a thought whilst doing so that i cannot move forward with ocd until it is all sorted out which could take months and months.

oh god i really wanted to a) understand what was happening and b) start on progress, and now i feel that isn't even allowed, especially as today i have been so anxious about ESA business that i have done things 'wrong' while being distracted. i really need help with how to proceed with self treatment. BL

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When i want to do something - say - i think its a good idea to ring a friend, for example - and i have a thought that i cant (OCD?), that i must put it off till another day, i can often tell myself to do it anyway and i do. So i do go against these thoughts often. But the last horrible thought (spike) was that i cannot progress with going against the compulsions i have until i have sorted out the ESA business, is proving too much. And the thing is - until i progress with going against the biggest compulsion, i i can't do anything that is important to me. even like clearing out or rearranging a cupboards, or joining a social group, or anything that will start to get my lonely, unfulfilled existence into some shape and make my feel like i'm alive and part of the human race.

i am so miserable. i do try, but things unexpected pop up, (like the ESA) form and cause anxiety and i am thrown way off again. This is after i have been trying really desperately hard to understand where i'm going wrong. This feels absolutely awful. Its my fault the ESA form has caused me such problems because i know how horrible these things are, especially with my misunderstood and various physical problems (some due to OCD by the way) and i started to research it - instead of just filling in the form, sending it off and forgettting aabout it till i had to deal with the outcome. When i did this research and i then got the spike, I felt that the progress with compulsions i was about to embark on the following day had been cancelled and worse, it could take months and months to be through the government process.

i am absolutely sick of myself and am hating living this stupid life.

Edited by bendylouise
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