Cornerstone of cognitive therapy.

[Guest Tricia]

Roy, it's funny you should mention spiders, because I would have said a phobia of them doesn't concern revulsion, just fear. Possibly an atavistic trait to when our ancestors lived in Africa and spiders were dangerous.

However, my husband has a phobia of spiders and relies on me to 'rescue' him when one appears. A few years back I went to pick one up and panicked. I felt the sense of revulsion because I worried its eight legs might have wandered through something unpleasant.

Roy, I used to work as a veterinary nurse and would munch on a sandwich while peering at slides of faecal matter. How did I go from that to this?!! One psychiatrist's answer was, "It's impossible!"

[Guest Tricia]

As Roy suggests perhaps it is the fear of the emotion itself that is the problem.

Maybe, but how do I confront that?

[Guest Orwell1984]

As Roy suggests perhaps it is the fear of the emotion itself that is the problem.

I was just going to say that. Wonder if you exposed yourself to the feeling of disgust? High up on the exposure list maybe you could watch the film 'perfume' because it hones in on the small detail of disgusting things and ideas of moral contamination, other unsavoury subjects ( definitely not for Roy).

What if you had a printed picture of something disgusting and that sheet could be the thing you use for exposure?

I wonder is this a nurture thing as well because I know my family on mum's side are really preoccupied with cleanliness, disgust over dirt, human and animal secretions and immorality to different extents.

I hope science would get a move on and sort this problem in 2015.

You're welcome re articles Tricia! I really hope some help comes this year

[Caramoole]

Roy, I used to work as a veterinary nurse and would munch on a sandwich while peering at slides of faecal matter. How did I go from that to this?!!

How indeed? Especially as you had anxiety/OCD from being a child. The good news I suppose is that it shows that it is possible for you to feel ok. You haven't suffered any brain injury (I presume) so hopefully one would think the potential is there, it's more a case of working it out :detective:

[taurean]

Roy, it's funny you should mention spiders, because I would have said a phobia of them doesn't concern revulsion, just fear. Possibly an atavistic trait to when our ancestors lived in Africa and spiders were dangerous.

However, my husband has a phobia of spiders and relies on me to 'rescue' him when one appears. A few years back I went to pick one up and panicked. I felt the sense of revulsion because I worried its eight legs might have wandered through something unpleasant.

Roy, I used to work as a veterinary nurse and would munch on a sandwich while peering at slides of faecal matter. How did I go from that to this?!! One psychiatrist's answer was, "It's impossible!"

A seeding event is the usual answer. My wife has a fear of large dogs because she got bowled over by one as a child but she's not so bothered now - had a lot of habituation.

Daisy's fears of contamination seem to have started when her son got ill.

See if you can think back to when it started and what might have triggered it.

I think my problems with violent themes really kicked in in my early 20s when I would read and watch a lot of violent material - as regrettably many lads do. Instead of habituating on OCD, the latent OCD started to get hold of it I suspect - but in respect of harm to me.

As a child I would watch the Avengers, William Tell, Robin Hood, Perry Mason and umpteen whodunnits - as a young lad I got into sci-fi and horror and ghost stories - but I found myself getting more and more uncomfortable with these. I started realising that I was experiencing real fear when reading/watching this stuff - so switching my focus to less unpleasant things would be good. I started reading alternative living travel and regency romances, and watching romcoms - that really helped.

Edited February 6, 2015 by taurean

[taurean]

Coming back to my problems, the looping thoughts issue is a big part of it - but the negative associations has upped the ante.

Bearing in mind we are having a good "drains up" exercise here, let's just consider how things went last year.

I was in a stressful situation closing down London team - I was the last man standing although all the work ex mine was transferred to another team.

I had to do the archiving and there was a fight over number of days to do from Chelmsford. I got legal advice and quoted my disability and won that one. I was stressed but not OCD at that time.

When I got to Chelmsford they swopped computer equipment so as to upgrade windows, and my new laptop didn't work remotely . Plus I had ongoing issues with a viral infection. Cue OCD - probably the changed base location plus the difficulties with the computer equipment more than the viral infection.

Once the laptop started working and I was more settled, (and Caramoole kippered me and told me to go back to basics with the OCD) the OCD stopped.

It was thus running for just a few weeks.

It kicked in again after I retired. Knowing that holidays and change are catalysts for my OCD apart from any actual intrusions - we had pushed for me working from home two days a week for the last 3 months and that went fine - as an acclimatisation.

I also started off with quite a programme of doing things and being out and about and I was under treatment for glue ear which kept me involved with self-treatment.

Shortly after the glue-ear was cured, I started to go into OCD. So that was late August I think, and it has been with me since. I have been very anxious and stressed and that stress has probably contributed to it - it started with interaction with distressing news stories, then went into film titles and words and black humour from books, and now it's run on into negative free associations.

It's made me very unwell physically , depressed and not wanting to do things and with no energy.

There has been a history of the episodes of OCD stopping after an identifiable event - or coming to terms with the change of circumstance and a rational reframe - having a health screen, seeing a doctor, taking St Johns Wort, trying propranolol, Caramoole's kipper- but nothing has bumped it out this time around.

Edited February 6, 2015 by taurean

[PolarBear]

Thank you, Orwell, I will look at those links. You are right, it is disgust, that's the basis of it, but it then leads to terror when faced with it.

I really appreciate how hard it must be for anyone to understand the levels I go to if I don't fear a consequence, but I don't. I do not feel threatened as such, I don't believe dirt, or faeces, will harm me at all. It is sheer disgust and that feeling is so overwhelming it triggers fear.

I gotcha now. Obsessions are intrusive thoughts that cause distress. How that distress manifests can be anxiety, guilt, shame, or in your case disgust. I'm hearing ya.

[taurean]

We are looking at extremely powerful emotional response here.

It seems the disgust is effectively because the dirt and soil contains or may contain waste products from animals. But there is no fear that it may cause harm to someone so the fear is all about the contamination thought so disgusting .

There are 2 parts to this .Soil I can see and I suppose shoes would likely be contaminated. But dirt is dirt or is it contaminated with soil?

Perhaps there is an opportunity Tricia in CBT to consider a way of reducing the level of emotion in the disgust, which would then reduce the level of emotion in the fear?

[taurean]

I am copying into the thread this exchange with Caramoole form another thread which I think sums up my position quite well.

The usual approach with violent thoughts is exposure and response prevention but I have had no success with that, we think because of the looping thoughts. The distress doesn't fall, the thoughts loop and continue to do so causing an escalation in anxiety not a fall-off.

IN fact just reading about examples of siuch exposure is enough to send me into free-fall. But:... read on.

Quote (Taurean)
I am labellng them as OCD intrusions but also reminding myself the link being attempted is a a false one attributable to OCD in the aim to spread distress so its really not a valid link and I am refusing to acknowledge either it or a label on it.

Caramoole
Good...because that's what they are, OCD Intrusions, intrusive thoughts.....OCD in an over-active mode. Don't give them importance. Don't give them a title. Accept them simply as OCD thoughts which are distressing because of the frequency they're being repeated at. As Schwarz would term "Brain Lock"

It's awful when thoughts loop repetitively or when a single horrid word fires at you over and over. It's soul-destroying when you wake in the early hours (if you've managed to sleep at all) and your brain is firing full-kick, you feel hot, you can literally feel your pulse whooshing through your ear drums, you feel shaky and afraid, you can't find the luxury of nodding back off to sleep which you'd so crave to do to find some peace for an hour longer.....and so another awful, fearful day begins. It's that fear of yet another day of this that helps perpetuate it. Make a drink of tea, take your Propranalol, turn the TV on low (so you can just about hear it), snuggle back down and listen without really listening and see if you can drift without the abject necessity to do so. The early morning wakening is such a bummer and something we can come to fear.

Do your very best to do normal, to the best of your ability. Do routine. Do chores. Get out (even when you don't want to). Refuse to do "Ill"

Okay, it'll beat you sometimes....maybe often....but forge that normality to the best of your ability.

I really feel for you because I can empathise and have experienced all that you're going through and it's horrid.

Taurean

Good advice thanks.

I have also been told by many that I would have made a good counsellor but no.

I made a great insurance advisor and mentor, but I would not have had the mental health needed.

I've just been dozing and relaxing. I was thinking that the mindful state does work for me so well when I can do it.

When not episodic or stressed I can manage triggers quite well; it is then that I have had some (but not lasting) success with the news exposures. As the local newsagents who deliver here every day would tell, I have spent a lot of money over the years on newspapers!

I do function very well when mindfulness is to the fore, and I keep the quadrants of my life calm.

One way I have done this is to effectively place distressing things I come across into defusion by resolving and "forgetting" them, or at least placing them in the brain out of my field of vision.

With newspapers, once the paper was placed in the recycling bin it was to be forgotten, for example.

Pleasant thoughts always inspire. Gliding along when out and about with mind and body relaxed just "smelling" the flowers is great. In the City the markets were favourite places to do this.

Edited February 7, 2015 by taurean

[Guest Orwell1984]

I can relate. I had at least three episodes in my life where the heightened anxiety was debilitating and all encompassing but thankfully not in two years or so (and hopefully never again). Sticking such anxiety out is bravery, especially for long periods of time like in your situation Roy. On your side Roy I really hope the terrors will calm down soon for you.

How long have you been on your medication by the way?

Edited February 7, 2015 by Orwell1984

[taurean]

Been on the meds for 6 weeks Orwell.

[Guest itsnotmeitsmyocd]

Hiya Taurean,

Maybe you could try chucking your own thought into the loop? Something really silly / humorous? I know i may sound like a nut (guilty as charged) but my therapist suggested this and it can help to make fun at the cycle. Almost like your ocd is chucking something at you and you are raising the bar - double of quits. So for example i am out, i have a spike of causing someone harm, i then get a barrage of associated thoughts - so i actively chuck something preposterous into the loop. Of course you need to make sure this is not a compulsion and that you're not doing it to seek relief - more just a case of well okay brain thanks for that, how about I throw a few things into this equation.

[Guest Tricia]

I was just going to say that. Wonder if you exposed yourself to the feeling of disgust? High up on the exposure list maybe you could watch the film 'perfume' because it hones in on the small detail of disgusting things and ideas of moral contamination, other unsavoury subjects ( definitely not for Roy).

What if you had a printed picture of something disgusting and that sheet could be the thing you use for exposure?

I wonder is this a nurture thing as well because I know my family on mum's side are really preoccupied with cleanliness, disgust over dirt, human and animal secretions and immorality to different extents.

Orwell, a friend actually took a photo when cleaning up after her spaniel, and sent it to me. I had it next to the computer for months. It didn't upset me one bit as it was a clean photo, but it did upset my daughter!

I don't think either of my parents were preoccupied with cleanliness. I'd say their hygiene was average. Besides, I happily went on to choose two of the most 'contaminated' jobs, and when I was chucked out of nursing (for health reasons) the only job I could find for a while was cleaning toilets. When I was a veterinary nurse I occasionally got faecal matter sprayed on my face. It truly didn't bother me that much. Now I would panic if I held an envelope without then washing thoroughly, as I'd worry it might have been dropped on the ground by the postman. Having said that, if it was smeared with horse manure or cow dung I'd be fine, as long as I could be sure there was no trace of anything else. Also, with the envelope I fear might have been dropped by the postman, I'd rather hold it in my mouth than my hands. "Go figure!" as my American friend would say...

A seeding event is the usual answer. My wife has a fear of large dogs because she got bowled over by one as a child but she's not so bothered now - had a lot of habituation.

Daisy's fears of contamination seem to have started when her son got ill.

See if you can think back to when it started and what might have triggered it.

I truly don't think anything did trigger the fear/disgust. It's strange that I was attacked by a dog when I was a child (frightened at the time but only my clothes damaged) but no fear of dogs or contamination from that incident emerged.

There was an occasion, when I was about six, when I inadvertently trod in dog poo and didn't realize until classmates were all checking their shoes because of the smell. I still feel rather embarrassed about that, but it is over fifty years ago. If that was a trigger, why did it take thirty years to manifest itself?

[taurean]

To its not me.

Its a good idea.

The best time for that I would think is when I am using mindful detachment to observe the thoughts - so I am in the being mode of the brain.

I could then suggest a benefical saying. Other ideas are to prefix with I am having the thought that....., or rem ind myself its just nonsense and irrational

Edited February 7, 2015 by taurean

[Guest Tricia]

Been on the meds for 6 weeks Orwell.

It can take as long as 12 for any real effect to show.

[taurean]

Orwell, a friend actually took a photo when cleaning up after her spaniel, and sent it to me. I had it next to the computer for months. It didn't upset me one bit as it was a clean photo, but it did upset my daughter!

I don't think either of my parents were preoccupied with cleanliness. I'd say their hygiene was average. Besides, I happily went on to choose two of the most 'contaminated' jobs, and when I was chucked out of nursing (for health reasons) the only job I could find for a while was cleaning toilets. When I was a veterinary nurse I occasionally got faecal matter sprayed on my face. It truly didn't bother me that much. Now I would panic if I held an envelope without then washing thoroughly, as I'd worry it might have been dropped on the ground by the postman. Having said that, if it was smeared with horse manure or cow dung I'd be fine, as long as I could be sure there was no trace of anything else. Also, with the envelope I fear might have been dropped by the postman, I'd rather hold it in my mouth than my hands. "Go figure!" as my American friend would say...

I truly don't think anything did trigger the fear/disgust. It's strange that I was attacked by a dog when I was a child (frightened at the time but only my clothes damaged) but no fear of dogs or contamination from that incident emerged.

There was an occasion, when I was about six, when I inadvertently trod in dog poo and didn't realize until classmates were all checking their shoes because of the smell. I still feel rather embarrassed about that, but it is over fifty years ago. If that was a trigger, why did it take thirty years to manifest itself?

Well ok we are making progress - its the uncertainty of what the soil or dirt "might"contain or the possibility that clothes or objects have touched the groundthat causes the problem?

[Guest Orwell1984]

Hi Roy. Reading reports on citalopram, three weeks seems to be the time it takes most people to get used to them but others have reported up to 12 weeks before they experience any positive effects. Also, these drugs have the side effect of producing vivid dreams. Dunno have you experienced these, I used to a lot when I was on them. Have you a doctor's review anytime soon?

[taurean]

It can take as long as 12 for any real effect to show.

Yep. I really feel it would function better if i wasn't so tense.

[taurean]

Hi Roy. Reading reports on citalopram, three weeks seems to be the time it takes most people to get used to them but others have reported up to 12 weeks before they experience any positive effects. Also, these drugs have the side effect of producing vivid dreams. Dunno have you experienced these, I used to a lot when I was on them. Have you a doctor's review anytime soon?

doctors reviee within the next 2 weeks.

No problem with dreams or the side effects now. My physical symptoms are all dwon to the anxiety from the thought processes and links being made. It's a great pity that hypnosis dloesn't seem to work - if my brain could be told not to seek these connections or magnify it would really help.

Edited February 7, 2015 by taurean

[taurean]

Well ok we are making progress - its the uncertainty of what the soil or dirt "might"contain or the possibility that clothes or objects have touched the groundthat causes the problem?

Well coming at it from an OCD angle, OCD demands certainty doesn't it, and we won't have certainty of possible contaminants with dirt or soil?Thewre could be chemicals from spraying or wed control.

How might you cognitively and behaviourally address that lack of certainty?

Obviously I fully understand the disgust and fear of this as the OCD is magnifying this up in your mind as disgust and fear but seem ingly for not knowing the content?.

But as a rational response and "OCD twin" neither my wife nor I have concern whatever about soil or dirt and we have a big garden which we manage ourselves - we have done gardening for 28 years or so.We know the soil contains waste from cats birds and foxes. But we still have no concern.We know we run the garden organically but have to use weed control chemicals albeit systemic ones.

How many people would obviously have problems we don't know, but we do know Daisy would - so there must be many more people with some form of contamination issue round soil or dirt.

Sounds like OCD guy may have too from his blog.

Would it help if we evaluated the likely content of the soil and dirt. Obviously you would need to tell the actaul environment you live in first as other environments come ionto play too.

Edited February 7, 2015 by taurean

[Guest Orwell1984]

doctors reviee within the next 2 weeks.

No problem with dreams or the side effects now. My physical symptoms are all dwon to the anxiety from the thought processes and links being made. It's a great pity that hypnosis dloesn't seem to work - if my brain could be told not to seek these connections or magnify it would really help.

Yes, great shame re hypnosis. Been there done that too. Even EMDR to sort out underlying triggers but no hope (I dissociated too much). I read a study about OCD and citalopram and the reviewers have 12 weeks as the test period ( http://www.scielo.br/pdf/rbp/v29n4/a03v29n4.pdf ). It would be wise to say to the doctor, if you still have no improvement after 12 weeks, that it might be a good idea to try something else, but by then you will know one way or another pity tablets take time! It's insult to injury really but what can ya do.

[Guest Orwell1984]

Orwell, a friend actually took a photo when cleaning up after her spaniel, and sent it to me. I had it next to the computer for months. It didn't upset me one bit as it was a clean photo, but it did upset my daughter!

I don't think either of my parents were preoccupied with cleanliness. I'd say their hygiene was average. Besides, I happily went on to choose two of the most 'contaminated' jobs, and when I was chucked out of nursing (for health reasons) the only job I could find for a while was cleaning toilets. When I was a veterinary nurse I occasionally got faecal matter sprayed on my face. It truly didn't bother me that much. Now I would panic if I held an envelope without then washing thoroughly, as I'd worry it might have been dropped on the ground by the postman. Having said that, if it was smeared with horse manure or cow dung I'd be fine, as long as I could be sure there was no trace of anything else. Also, with the envelope I fear might have been dropped by the postman, I'd rather hold it in my mouth than my hands. "Go figure!" as my American friend would say...

I truly don't think anything did trigger the fear/disgust. It's strange that I was attacked by a dog when I was a child (frightened at the time but only my clothes damaged) but no fear of dogs or contamination from that incident emerged.

There was an occasion, when I was about six, when I inadvertently trod in dog poo and didn't realize until classmates were all checking their shoes because of the smell. I still feel rather embarrassed about that, but it is over fifty years ago. If that was a trigger, why did it take thirty years to manifest itself?

It is weird. Then again, why does a particular number bother me (not as much as it used to but still does) because it came out of nowhere and really means nothing! I wonder is it misplaced disgust? Something stressful happened ( maybe losing your job) and possibly shook a core belief and somehow latched onto something that linked to your past. Are there any feelings of shame or guilt involved? Cos those are great fodder for OCD

[taurean]

One way or the other here this is a great team effort .

I gort sloem fgood feedback on my problems.

Hope you are feeling ok with this baring of the soul Tricia, we just might stumble on something, you never know?

[Caramoole]

Would it help if we evaluated the likely content of the soil and dirt

I don't think so

[taurean]

I don't think so

i suppose you are right - working more on accepting uncertainty maybe?