New to the forums/OCD Scrupulous concerns

[Andiamo]

Hello all. This is my first post to the Forums. I have searched through this site for a while now, and it's been tremendously helpful reading about fellow individuals with OCD and your supportive advice for them. I'm not sure how in detail I should go but I will try to be as succinct as possible.

I've suffered from OCD since the age of 12. It started as checking at school, and it evolved into concerns over my health and possibly contracting cancer. Then it morphed again into what has bothered me for many years now (I am currently 23 years old). Most of my OCD history has been centered around my faith (Roman Catholicism) and it's quite painful given that I try to practice said faith as best I can. I had a flare up in May of 2016 and haven't been the same since. In times past I would have a problem but it would go away in a day or two. It was the classic ebb and flow, but it overwhelmed me and hasn't let go ever since (in terms of high intensity and daily struggles). The flare up occurred a few weeks before graduating from University in the States, but thankfully it did not impact my academics or grades for that matter. 

However, I do not feel like I can function normally, and haven't in quite some time as mentioned above. I was a complete wreck when it first flared up. As of right now, I feel as though I can survI've, but I would like to improve on what I feel now. I've suffered from emotional emptiness since September of last year. The OCD content has all been centered around traditional scrupulous concerns. I still have a hard time opening up about it. One of the main reasons I am writing this to you all is a mini flare up that occurred in that same September of 2016. The first couple of weeks in September I was really starting to feel better. I was more at spiritual peace and things were looking up. But then one night I was struck with a terrible thought that haunts me to this day. I remember it vividly, happening to me alone in my room in the dark. What's so strange to me is that I was feeling completely relaxed mentally (which was quite rare at the time and still is) and then the thought came barging into my head without any warning and on its own accord. 

I've looked into this phenomena quite a bit (probably more than I should) and it seems intrusive thoughts can do this to people. As I understand it, they appear in a flash and leave you very shaken (which is what happened to me to a T). It was also scary because the thought happened without any warning, on its own as it were. I immediately panicked and started to breathe heavy. I tried to review the thoughts (I know that was a mistake on my part in trying to overcome this). And of course that didn't do me any good. The worst part about this is that it's left me feeling empty and not myself. What I hate about it so much is that I felt that I was finally on the right track and I was right with God. And ever since that night, I feel as though I am simply existing and haven't felt that connection to the Divine. I punish myself daily for what happened that night in my head, I feel that it's my fault and what also scares me is that I had bad thoughts before since that time in 2016 but I always seemed to rebound. Not so since then. I know I shouldn't feel that it's my fault, but I do and it's been very hard to change that mindset. I've prayed often to get that connection back and to feel whole again, but I haven't received an answer (or maybe I have and haven't recognized it which would be my fault). 

I don't want to ramble on but I would like to let everyone know I have received therapy for a brief while (from July of last year to February of this year). Unfortunately I was no longer able to see the Psychiatrist I was visiting due to a change in health care. I am currently looking for a new provider and hopefully I will be able to find a new therapist. The Psychiatrist was very nice but she wanted to perform treatment primarily through medication and talk therapy. She didn't want to do CBT which I find odd given that CBT is the gold standard for OCD treatment. Part of the problem is I live in an area where therapists are few and far between (a surplus is available in an area a little ways from me but the commute would be tough). So in some ways I just dealt with the cards handed to me in that particular time period with the past Psychiarist. 

Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated. I know I shouldn't ask or expect to receive relief in the form of words from you all. But I don't really have anyone I can talk with in regards to my OCD and my concerns. I have confided in my parish priest in the past but unfortunately he moved away. I'm hoping to reconnect with him and explain my concerns from September. Again thank you for the help and support you give to everyone who posts on here. Sorry if this was too large of post, looking forward to your insight. 

 

Andiamo 

[St Mike]

Hi Andiamo,

I am very sorry to hear about the difficulties you have with Scrupulosity. It plagued me for 11 years before I fully overcame it. The following are just some tips I have. They are of course by no means exhaustive, there is much useful advice provided by many kind-hearted members in this forum which I guess you are already aware of.

1. Get CBT from a mental health professional

You are right, CBT is the gold standard for treating OCD. You need to have both the cognitive aspects and behavioural aspects of your OCD attended to, to get full treatment. You should seek out one which is able to provide CBT.

2. Stop doing compulsions

Your intrusive thoughts are involuntary in nature, they are mental chaff, mental nonsense, not worthy of you according them meaning. However, as you have mentioned, this is very difficult to accept by sufferers especially in the beginning because OCD has distorted their perceptions so much.

What you might consider doing first is to stop doing compulsions first, is to not punish yourself and stop reviewing your thoughts. I termed it as "stop feeding" the OCD-Intrusive thought monster. Each time, we ruminate, each time we act out the compulsion, in your case each time you review the intrusive thought, each time you "punish" yourself, we give energy to the the intrusive thought, strengthening it and allowing it to return with greater strength and frequency. When you stop or reduce the compulsions, the intrusive thought will weaken, and return with less frequency. This happened to me when I gave up doing my compulsions. I will tell you how I stop doing compulsions in the following tip.

3. Practise mindfulness

What I did and still do nowadays is to practise mindfulness. Centring my mind and bringing it to the present is a daily practice for me. When I notice that I start to dwell on a thought for longer than necessary or when I start to daydream, I gently bring myself back to the present. I resume my focus on doing the tasks at hand or the activity I am currently involved in. It will be tough during the initial period, you may have to do this tens of times a minute to prevent your mind on dwelling and engaging on the intrusive thought but it is well worth it. This is attested to work by many sufferers and ex-sufferers alike. Keep yourself occupied with tasks and hobbies. An idle mind is OCD's workshop. 

4. Let go of the guilt and totally forgive yourself

The next thing you might want to do is to start treating yourself with kindness and forgiveness. Again this is another very difficult thing for Scrupulosity sufferers to do. I was stuck with guilt for 6 to 7 years when I realised it was guilt that kept me from recovery. It took me that long to realise I had to forgive myself. It doesn't really matter whether I did or did not do anything wrong, OCD had distorted my thoughts and perceptions so much, it can make one feel guilty for just about anything, I did not want to feel all this guilt for the rest of my life, I forgave myself and let go of all the guilt. I searched my heart and found the door to my heart.

One way to change your mindset is to think of it this way, you see a good friend with a mental condition. Because of his mental state, he sometimes swears at anything and everybody (including you) around him. Do you get angry at him? No, of course not. His mental condition distorted his thoughts and caused him to act out those distorted thoughts. That person needs a helping hand from you and you want to treat this good friend with kindness and compassion. During his lucid moments, he starts to feel guilty and remorseful and starts apologising profusely. He feels so guilty because his thoughts has been so distorted by his mental condition. He asks for your forgiveness, you not only forgive him, you tell him that actually you were not offended by what he did at all and he don't even need to apologise or ask forgiveness, because you bear no grudge or anger towards him, you know he was not well. Now, take this forgiving feeling, this forgiving attitude and apply it to yourself.

 

To me, OCD is a master of trickery and illusion. OCD makes mountains out of mole hills and makes a mouse's squeak sound like a lion's roar. Once you call its bluff you would no longer don't fear intrusive thoughts, don't feel guilty for those intrusive thoughts. You were never those thoughts, they were never you. 

Take care and wishing you wellness in mind and spirit and Welcome to the forum.

 

[PolarBear]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Just to add to what Mike said, talking to your priest is a compulsion and needs to stop. What you're actually doing is seeking reassurance that you're a good person, have a connection to God, etc. Reassurance seeking is a well known compulsion.

The same goes for praying. Stop asking for forgiveness for your completely involuntary intrusive thoughts. Again, it's a form of reassurance seeking.

The thing is, reassurance doesn't work. Oh you might feel better in the short term, but doubt comes back, the thoughts come back and you're left wanting more reassurance. So, it needs to stop.

Also, you have to shift your thinking. You're thinking you're a bad person for having that thought in the past. It's not your fault. People neither do nor consciously think anything to make intrusive thoughts appear. They are forced upon you without your consent. No permission is necessary. They are beyond your direct control.

You are however, once you've been educated and guided properly, responsible for how you react to the thoughts. React badly, as in paying attention to the thoughts and doing compulsions, and you guarantee the thoughts will come back strong in the future. Learn to not react at all and the thoughts diminish in frequency and severity.

[St Mike]

One more thing I forgot to add, Andiamo, is about Neutralising.

Scrupulosity sufferers often during the onset of their OCD like to use holy words, sacred verses, short prayers or holy imagery to mentally neutralise or cancel out an intrusive thought (usually about sin or sinful acts). This is a compulsion and is a BIG No Go for Scrupulosity sufferers. I learnt that the hard way.

I tried to neutralised an intrusive thought with holy words during the onset of my OCD. This lead to my downward spiral into more intrusive thoughts and increased compulsions. More intrusive thoughts came and became harder to dismiss and my compulsions gradually developed into a set of rituals which included compulsive kneeling, bowing, confessing, apologising and neutralising. I was often driven half mad by both my blasphemous intrusive thoughts, guilt, fear and subsequent ritual compulsions.

So, please avoid Neutralising as much as possible.

[Andiamo]

Hi St. Mike and Polar Bear.

 

Apologies for the late reply. I very much appreciate your replies to my topic. I have really struggled with not performing mental compulsions, especially reviewing the thoughts and trying to "fix them". Thanks for all of the tips St. Mike, I will start to try to put these into action. I have a very difficult time forgiving myself as I feel intuitively that the thoughts are my fault. I'm not sure why I can't convince myself otherwise, I suppose it's just one of the many things I need to work on.

Polar Bear, I didn't think of talking to my priest as a compulsion but now that you mentioned it I can't deny that it is. I have found that talking to people aside from a therapist doesn't really result in reassurance anyways. In fact it's made things worse at times for me, especially this time last year. 

Right now I'm having a lot of difficulty with nostalgia and OCD. I keep wishing I could go back and do things differently in regards to the aftermath of my mini flare up last fall. I couldn't change the immediate reaction, but I should have done a better job after that anxiety dissipated. I think part of the reason I've had such a hard time with this is that I felt so different emotionally speaking. I remember reading an article about scrupulosity recently about how it's like an alarm system that went off and won't go off so to speak. It also made mention of how it makes you feel guilty and that certainly fits what I'm feeling. I think the only things I truly need to concentrate on right now are tempering the compulsions and finding the right OCD therapist. I was also thinking of purchasing a few books such as Brain Lock and others helping to explain OCD clinically and behaviorally. I'm not sure if you guys have any book recommendations, but I'm open to all suggestions! 

One last thing I also regret and will try to avoid repeating is not being more open about specific thoughts with the therapist I see. I regret not opening up about the mini flare up/relapse with the Psychiatrist I was seeing. Though I don't know if it would have changed anything overall. I haven't let it stop me from living, but I do wish I wouldn't have let it eat me up so much these past 9 months or so. I am thankful it hasn't done more damage, so that's something I need to remember. I've also realized in the last couple of days that my "high point" those months ago were filled with a lot of repression of thoughts and avoidance. Which means it was more of a lull period as opposed to true progress. Repression of intrusive thoughts and praying to keep them away. I even remember doing it just before the mini flare up 

Edited July 20, 2017 by Andiamo

[St Mike]

Hi Andiamo, I don't have any recommendations regarding books, but the one you have mentioned, Brain Lock, is a popular one among forum members. You may want to start a new post about this matter if you want to. I usually drop by the library and read books about psychological/mental conditions and often look up these topics on the internet too.

On 21/07/2017 at 04:43, Andiamo said:

Right now I'm having a lot of difficulty with nostalgia and OCD. I keep wishing I could go back and do things differently in regards to the aftermath of my mini flare up last fall. I couldn't change the immediate reaction, but I should have done a better job after that anxiety dissipated. I think part of the reason I've had such a hard time with this is that I felt so different emotionally speaking. I remember reading an article about scrupulosity recently about how it's like an alarm system that went off and won't go off so to speak. It also made mention of how it makes you feel guilty and that certainly fits what I'm feeling.

Though not really an 'old' man yet, I have led enough of a life to be contended and have realistic expectations. The one good outcome regarding my OCD is that I have learned to let go and not be fearful and guilty. By wishing to go back and changing things is itself a compulsion, the past cannot be changed but the future is yet to come and it depends on what you do now. In my case, I moved forward and didn't bother with the past anymore especially on how I initially dealt with OCD. I found my way out and became mentally stronger and also healthier (I gave up drinking and resume exercise) so in an ironic way, OCD was a blessing in disguise, because it made me take action to improve my lifestyle and how I think.

 

[Wandering]

Andiamo, a book that deals with scrupulously is "The Doubting Disease".  You may find that useful.

[Gerard]

Hi Andiamo,

Welcome to the forum. I am sorry you're suffering but all of us here know what you are going through and want to help.

I really can't add much to the superb advice you've received from @St Mike and @PolarBear. Wonderful stuff

I am currently using the 4 Steps tool at the moment. It is talked about by Dr Jeffrey Schwartz on this website. Are you familiar with it? It goes like this:

Step 1) Relabel - this thought (eg that I am a bad person / have lost my relationship with God) is not grounded in truth, it is an obsession. I do not need to ask for forgiveness / see a priest / pray, I have a a compulsion to ask for forgiveness / see a priest / pray.

Step 2) Reattribute - I have this obsession and compulsion because I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Step 3) Refocus - I am going to do something else and I am going to do this activity for at least 15 minutes before I practise the compulsion.

Step 4) Revalue - (usually by this time the terrible feeling of unease / compulsive urge will have lessened even if only slightly) You see? Nothing bad happened. The obsession / compulsion in Step 1 did not need to be taken seriously. It was only like a car alarm going off - nothing to do with me and outside my control.

A shorter version of it goes:

Step 1) Relabel - it's not me.

Step 2) Reattribute - it's my OCD.

Step 3) Refocus - I'm going to do something else for at least 15 minutes.

Step 4) Revalue - It was just the OCD car alarm going off - ignore it.

Now this is hard at first, Andiamo and you have to be willing to put up with a some pain (by we're all very familair with pain, right?). But it works - I can vouch for that.

Try it Let me now how you get on.

Love, light and angels,

Gerard

 

 

 

[St Mike]

On 03/08/2017 at 06:35, Wandering said:

Andiamo, a book that deals with scrupulously is "The Doubting Disease".  You may find that useful.

Hi @wandering, thanks for sharing, I think I am going to take a look at the book you have recommended. In the meanwhile, I have include links to my meditation post I have written for you and a post I what created on the activities I do to keep OCD at bay. 

http://www.ocdforums.org/index.php?/topic/78652-my-mindfulness-of-breath-practice/

http://www.ocdforums.org/index.php?/topic/78875-things-i-do-to-keep-ocd-at-bay/

 

Do take care of yourself and as always, wishing you both wellness in mind and spirit. - St Mike