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False ocd thoughts urge to throw clothes away


Guest Phil10

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6 minutes ago, Orwell1984 said:

I think you're in so deep with this OCD that you can't see what is actually best for you at this point. Your therapist is not right for you. Talking/ruminating with her about the thoughts is making your OCD worse in the long run

 

In the end, it's hurting you, your partner and your relationship 

 

You need to ditch your therapist and get one trained in CBT for OCD. 

She is trained in ocd from what I gather as it says on her page Cbt trained. I have tried various theripsts in the past and none have really been any more help than this one. I had one who was obsessed with affirmations.  I would have to retell my story again and spend another £300. I admit another theripst may work but it’s not guaranteed :/

Edited by Phil10
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She has been trying different approaches for months for counting thoughts, writing them down, mindfulness, thought records, exposures, delayed reponses she has tried it all 

Perhaps I can’t be helped?

Edited by Phil10
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You can be helped. You need to do what she says as well as stopping the avoidance, rumination ,discarding of items and replacing of items. All the exposures in the world won't help you if you don't practise the response prevention. That's where you're going wrong!

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CBT is the right therapy Phil, I don't believe you will beat such deeply-entrenched OCD any other way. 

It's standard practice with CBT for OCD to use exposure and response prevention (ERP). 

It seems impossible at first but if you hear the stories of people who have used this therapy to overcome OCD (and I have been one, at least for the moment and long may it continue) then you will know it's the only way to conquer the fears and anxiety. 

I remember our chief executive Ashley putting his hand down a toilet and - on the stage - licking his shoe sole at an OCD-UK conference, under instruction from the therapists present. It was tough for him, especially so as in public - but he was making a statement; we need to use ERP to overcome our OCD fears. 

If you aren't yet ready to do this in your CBT, discuss it with your therapist - she can take things a bit slower, start exposure with something less anxiety-provoking. 

I went to therapy because it was having an adverse effect on my relationship. My wife learned about OCD with me on the back of the CBT and self-help books. She stuck by me, and it was hard for her. I stuck at therapy for both of us. 

Edited by taurean
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3 hours ago, Phil10 said:

I mean perhaps I should say maybe I have been looking for counselling rather than Cbt as I admit I am looking for support the actual Cbt stuff is too difficult for me like touching bins. I believe talking and acceptance will be my way out from the ocd rather than Cbt as such. 

You are wrong. CBT is the only way out.

You have OCD. You have it bad. Don't let an errant comment from your partner, who clearly does not understand OCD, sidetrack you.

The vast majority of sufferers do not clean and organize expertly. That is a fallacy. OCD is obsessions that cause distress and followed by compulsions. You have that, in spades.

As for not wanting to touch bins, you can work up to that but you will have to. Repeatedly. It's either that or you remain stuck.

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Phil, what is your goal? Like what do you think will make you feel okay again? Do you want to be able to stop throwing away clothes and avoiding bins? It sounds a little like you want to continue these behaviours and you just want to be able to talk to someone about how badly they make you feel and get catharsis.

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7 minutes ago, malina said:

Phil, what is your goal? Like what do you think will make you feel okay again? Do you want to be able to stop throwing away clothes and avoiding bins? It sounds a little like you want to continue these behaviours and you just want to be able to talk to someone about how badly they make you feel and get catharsis.

The goal for me is to reduce the anxiety and have the ocd limited to maybe odd bit of hand washing as this was how it was in 2017.

I mentioned before i moved house due to ocd so many areas became off limits the windows, doors, bathroom, floor, radiators now the same is happening in my new house.

In the past few weeks I’ve replaced my full towels collection, I have wanted to replace a suitcase as I walked past a bin, I wanted a new tumble dryer they cost £200 so it would be quite a drain on my bank balance . It’s so frustrating as I have been wanting to replace this iron board for 4 months thinking my clothes are dirty now it’s pointless as every item in that tumble dryer will feel dirty to me it’s awful. My head says the clean washing was put next to the dirty washing and she lied I refuse to believe she only came to the door hence why urge to replace the tumble dryer. So what can I do?

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8 minutes ago, Phil10 said:

The goal for me is to reduce the anxiety and have the ocd limited to maybe odd bit of hand washing as this was how it was in 2017.

I mentioned before i moved house due to ocd so many areas became off limits the windows, doors, bathroom, floor, radiators now the same is happening in my new house.

In the past few weeks I’ve replaced my full towels collection, I have wanted to replace a suitcase as I walked past a bin, I wanted a new tumble dryer they cost £200 so it would be quite a drain on my bank balance . It’s so frustrating as I have been wanting to replace this iron board for 4 months thinking my clothes are dirty now it’s pointless as every item in that tumble dryer will feel dirty to me it’s awful. My head says the clean washing was put next to the dirty washing and she lied I refuse to believe she only came to the door hence why urge to replace the tumble dryer. So what can I do?

Ok so then you do want to be able to stop washing and use bins and stop throwing things away, right?

Realistically, how do you think you will get to that stage?

How do you think counselling will help you? Talking about dirty laundry or bins or whatever doesn’t get you to use them. It’s quite simple, you just have to go ahead and face them. That is why you have to do CBT. Honestly, how will you afford to keep replacing items in your home? 

Your tumble dryer isn’t contaminated, neither is then ironing board. This stuff is just in your mind.

You can be helped but at the moment you are resisting help. You just want to tell people about your fears and to get comfort. We all want that but it won’t help. You have to start living your life the way the rest of us do, by not worrying about contamination. The only way to do that is to face your fears.

Look I’m kn CBT too and it is incredibly hard, you are not alone in feeling like this. But if so many of us have been able to face our fears, why wouldn’t you?

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31 minutes ago, malina said:

You can be helped but at the moment you are resisting help. You just want to tell people about your fears and to get comfort. We all want that but it won’t help.

Malina is right.  You currently use the forum to describe all the problems and restrictions rather than as a tool to help as you actually face these exposures.  This is a major compulsion to you and helps to maintain the OCD.  How about writing down a plan of action on how you're going to tackle the ERP in relation to the bins, what anxiety and feelings you might expect, what you can do to try and work through the anxiety etc

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Phil, you also keep asking "what can I do?", but you have 20 pages here of advice from people who have the same condition as you, plus you have a therapist who is trying to put you on the right track by getting you to do exposures. All you have to do now is accept some of this advice and take a step forward.

As a starting point, I think this is a great suggestion:

44 minutes ago, Caramoole said:

How about writing down a plan of action on how you're going to tackle the ERP in relation to the bins, what anxiety and feelings you might expect, what you can do to try and work through the anxiety etc

 

 

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Great advice to you Phil from Malina and Caramoole.

Please take on board that avoidance, and giving belief to the lies that these things are contaminated, have to be overcome by all sufferers from contamination OCD, or indeed fears arising other OCD themes.

And we need to do that through CBT and ERP and the sufferer has to do the work.

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Yes but let me explain how I got over my ocd in the past it wasn’t Cbt it was eliminating the anxiety there is stuff on YouTube about this. Basically without anxiety the ocd can’t exist. I really don’t believe all this touching a bin stuff some people without ocd probably wash there hands after putting rubbish in a wheelie bin. You can’t make a bin clean and if you did touch very dirty rubbish from a bucket it would have food waste and such which would pass germs onto your handles and phones ect that’s a fact. A bin can’t become clean.

Dirty laundry has sweat and bacteria on it so it isn’t clean. Putting it next to clean washing isn’t really ideal. Yes I’m my situation many of these thoughts are false. If she never went in the room with that clean washing logically the tumble dryer can’t be dirty but my head tends to go with the worst case scenario here. I know 90% of these thoughts are false the issue I have isn’t the germs, isn’t the ocd as such, it’s not bacteria or becoming harmed by germs.

My issue is false intrusive thoughts and that makes me wonder if I even have ocd. I mean it’s possible I’m walking around like a “zombie” as such perhaps having anxiety thoughts however doing some compulsions without the actually ocd of cleaning and checking. Anything I can’t see or prove is causing me anxiety. I really think people are missing the point with my ocd that it’s possible the ocd doesn’t exist or don’t exist if I remove the anxiety as in the past this is what treated me and made me ocd free. Perhaps people can get back to me on what they think about that but generally removing the anxiety has a proven record of treating ocd and the treatment for anxiety is different to exposure therapy for ocd.

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Guest OCDhavenobrain
14 hours ago, Phil10 said:

She has been trying different approaches for months for counting thoughts, writing them down, mindfulness, thought records, exposures, delayed reponses she has tried it all 

Perhaps I can’t be helped?

But have YOU tried it all? 

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1 hour ago, malina said:

So what did you do before to eliminate the anxiety?

I used an anxiety elimination programe which u can pay for which helps it removes all the anxiety and means you don’t have ocd. I had dipped back into the programme but I am a bit lazy as it requires lots of reading for it to work

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1 hour ago, OCDhavenobrain said:

But have YOU tried it all? 

Yes mindfulness isn’t upto much, writing stuff down and counting not great, exposures not really helpful. 

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31 minutes ago, Phil10 said:

Stuff like music or a new Hobby is a much better tool than exposures.

It's relaxation which is a good coping mechanism. And I learned to use those very beneficially. 

 But CBT is the proven therapy to challenge and overcome the obsessional thinking and consequent compulsions and disorder. 

I have been a regular on these boards for 6 years. And only those who have been through the CBT process have reported in with successful recovery. 

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6 minutes ago, OCDhavenobrain said:

Ai think you are fooling yourself Phil

Not at all becuase I have had discussion across lots of message boards and many people have said Cbt doesn’t work for everybody and they had to take alternatives like meds ect. 

I am possibly going to this one more session of Cbt again then maybe call it quits as know these Cbt methods are not working for me. I said before the only benefit is finding someone to listen and hear me out which £40 is a lot to do. I could touch a bin all day long and still want to wash my hands, I’ve been a cleaner over a decade ago now I touched bins and after I did my work I would still wish to wash my hands.

I have to be honest and say Cbt/mindfullness it’s maybe helpful to many people I agree but for some people these tactics are not successful treatment and my own psychiatrist even recommended relaxation over Cbt. Writing stuff down and touching bins is no cure for me. 

I would be very much interested to hear from others who Cbt never worked for perhaps none on here but on another mesage board I was informed by many how the Cbt never worked. 

Edited by Phil10
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I have to be honest with myself I have now paid around £350 on thearpy which hasn’t worked when my own self help was a cure in the past not forums or talking therapy. I may have to go back to what works to find a cure.

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Do what you want, Phil, but know that if you don't take the correct action, you will remain stuck, though in all likelihood your situation will get worse. That is cold, hard reality.

I had to chuckle when you wrote above that therapy hasn't worked. The fact is, you resist whst you are taught. You have resisted what we say on here.

If you don't do the work, you will remain stuck. I'm sure you have met others who complain CBT doesn't work. And they all have poor therapists or themselves to blame. 

Resist at your own peril. If you have decided to dismiss CBT, I have to wonder if you will continue to come here. Because we teach CBT. And only CBT.

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19 minutes ago, PolarBear said:

Do what you want, Phil, but know that if you don't take the correct action, you will remain stuck, though in all likelihood your situation will get worse. That is cold, hard reality.

I had to chuckle when you wrote above that therapy hasn't worked. The fact is, you resist whst you are taught. You have resisted what we say on here.

If you don't do the work, you will remain stuck. I'm sure you have met others who complain CBT doesn't work. And they all have poor therapists or themselves to blame. 

Resist at your own peril. If you have decided to dismiss CBT, I have to wonder if you will continue to come here. Because we teach CBT. And only CBT.

I guess not then.

Sadly I have exhausted this ocd routine and I find it simply better to forget these thoughts. I don’t believe I will remain stuck as I have got over it before. 

I am tiring of the Cbt methods touching bins was the tipping point I decided no I don’t want to do this. I said before I can take the odd bit of hand washing but I don’t want these negative thoughts I have. I believe after much consideration it seems more anxiety based rather than ocd. I did do compulsions however I do very few now as they failed so I can no longer say what I have is ocd. 

Negative thoughts in anxiety is different to ocd they may seem similar at first glance but I believe it’s not ocd I have. 

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1 hour ago, Phil10 said:

I used an anxiety elimination programe which u can pay for which helps it removes all the anxiety and means you don’t have ocd. I had dipped back into the programme but I am a bit lazy as it requires lots of reading for it to work

Phil, I think that if this programme had truly worked you wouldn’t be as deeply affected by OCD as you are now.

Sure, people do wash their hands after using bins as you say, but you have to admit that your behaviours are extreme. I have never heard of someone who has replaced all their ironing boards, has to buy a new tumble dryer and even moved to a new house because of fears it was dirty.

I think CBT isn’t working for you simply because you won’t truly attempt it.

However, this is your life and your mental health. Nobody can force you to choose a course of action or see things from their perspective. So I wish you luck, I truly hope you do get better.

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