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Causes/reasons for OCD


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Hi there.

I'm pretty much a blast from the past although a few members do still remember me.

I went to the recent conference - which was really good - I'm so glad that I made the effort after missing it for a few years - well done to Ash and all his colleagues.

One of the speakers - who I thought was rally interesting - was a Professor Graham Davey. I have sent him the following email which I am really hoping he will find the time to read and send me some feedback .... that would be amazing. I wondered if anyone has any views on either of the queries I have mentioned - those being 1. the role of heredity and 2. the role of OCD, as a  behaviour, to provide a positive function - in this case to cover other unwanted thoughts/feelings.

 

"Dear Graham

I hope you don’t mind me sending you an email. I have a couple of queries about OCD and would be interested in your thoughts about them.

As a background. I was a founder member of OCD-UK and a Committee Member in its first year. I was a little involved in the setting up of the charity inasmuch as I was in contact with Ashley when he was planning the new charity – I had some small input into things like ideas regarding the logo, the name and so on. At various times I have since been a moderator on the forum and also supported others on the helpline.

My OCD began in earnest in 2000 when it literally – almost in the space of a second - burst on to the scene involving contamination issues which then consumed virtually every waking moment for some years to come. Looking back, I had had some issues previously, mostly involving checking – locks, taps, electrics – but these did not overly affect my life.

I was at the conference in Brighton this year and very interested in your talk. I could definitely relate to the inflated sense of responsibility as a cause of OCD.

I wondered if I might ask you a couple of questions and I would, if you have the time which I know must be very limited, be very interested in your thoughts. I don’t know if there is a better channel for me to put these to you and, if there are, would be happy to use these.

I have two main queries:

1. I wondered what your views are on the place of heredity in the development of OCD?

I rarely met my nan. We lived in Northamptonshire and she, in Portsmouth. I was born in 1957 so the distance was a far greater one than today and we only visited once a year. We used to stay with my other grandparents when we did visit and so, in all probability, only met her for a few hours each year. I do know that she stayed with us for a few weeks when I was a young child – maybe 7 – and so would have had more interaction with her, however, I have very few memories of that time. She died in my early teens and, apart from that one stay, I don’t think I ever had any more than a few hours in any visit.

With hindsight, it appears she may have had issues with contamination ... apparently she used to wash any tins of food. My mum wasn’t allowed to handle money, it was always wrapped in cloth so they didn’t have to handle coins and so on and she was never allowed to mix with children who had scabs – I imagine from falls and so on not more ‘sinister’.  These are some of things I know about but I suspect there were other similar behaviours which she may have undertaken. She also seems to have been a hypochondriac – something that I suffered from prior to my battle with OCD but, thankfully, not subsequently.

My mum doesn’t seem to have carried on any of these behaviours although she did have a fear of animals which she always felt were unclean and that is something I can definitely say I have ‘inherited’ though my brother and sister have not.

2. My second query concerns views of my psychologist during the treatment of my OCD (sadly not CBT) and also those of counsellors I am currently seeing.

My wonderful psychologist was an NLP practitioner. She said that one of the tenets of NLP was that ‘every behaviour had a positive intent(ion)’ (I am remembering this from what she said in the early 2000s so I may not be too accurate in details – ie intent/intention). I seem to remember her wondering if the OCD was acting to ‘cover’ other issues.

At the time, I could not agree with her as I could not imagine anything being so awful that OCD could be protecting me.  

My OCD began in a severe form in 2000. I lost my job and, for a number of months over the next few years, I was virtually housebound at various times. I eventually was well enough to do some voluntary work in 2008 and in 2010 was lucky enough to find employment again. I would say that, even then, I was not completely recovered but I would say that I probably am now.

Recently, I began seeing  counsellor. When my OCD was bad, the only respite from the appalling anxiety, was alcohol. I began to drink regularly and from 2003 until 2018 was drinking virtually every night – although I was managing to maintain a ‘normal’ life and was managing well at work.

On deciding to tackle the drinking issue, I self referred to a local drug and alcohol service and engaged a therapist to support me through this.

Without going into all the details of what has transpired, my therapist and a counsellor at a rehab unit I spent time in, both said that they felt that the OCD (and subsequent drinking) were acting to suppress feelings which were uncomfortable for me. This week, my husband and I went to see a counsellor about our relationship and he, without knowledge of the others’ opinions, said that he felt that the OCD (and, again, the drinking) had been covering for unhappiness.

I just wondered if you had any views on these issues and, if so, if you would be kind enough to share them with me?  I am totally aware of how busy you must be and, also, how many demands you must receive on your time.

I have been out of a studying environment for years but now – I am facing retirement in the not very distant future – I am thinking that I may look into study of some type. Perhaps this would be a field that would be of interest to me and, more importantly, be of use to others.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my email.

With very kind regards     etc....    "

 

As I said to Prof Graham Davey, Thank you so much for taking the time to read this.....  I would be so interested in anyone's thoughts or comments ....

 

Edited by whitebeam
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Hi whitebeam

Sounds an interesting talk. An inflated sense of responsibility certainly fits in with my OCD. My checking behaviours definitely revolve around doing unintentional harm to others as well as doing unintentional harm to myself.

Interesting comment by your NLP counsellor. In psychodynamic therapy, a defence mechanism is a tactic to preserve the life and ego of a person which becomes dysfunctional latter in life. They serve a strategy in one part of life. So they served ‘positive intention’ in the past. But of course the formation of them remains unconscious.

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Hi Whitebeam

Really really really enjoyed your post, particularly your second question. My own personal ocd experience began around the age of nine which was the same time my parents who were frequently splitting up then getting back together. i was aware  and extremely sensitive to(even, perhaps especially) because of my age and family relationship just how intense and volatile their relationship was.

My ocd began in earnest at that point, my mum finding me crying at ten o clock at night because i could not seem to check accurately if the oven was switched off properly and what if i somehow touched it on when i had to walk past it to go to bed scared i would burn down the house and kill us all.. It could grip me for up to an hour, this, sometimes sitting down to regather strength. Anyway looking back i feel this was my childs mind of trying to find some control in a painful situation, with my anxiety  ramping up the doubts, perhaps carried over in some way from all the doubt and uncertainty of my security of whether my dad was coming, staying or going.

I have worked within the person centred counselling course and they have a theory that we use different parts or "configurations of self" to deal with situations but sometimes these may be very counter productive such as ocd when it twists in. On the positive side clients have said they really appreciate my "huge sense of detail and memory" when working with them which i feel is also part of my ocd to a certain extent. Anyway gassed on a bit now but love your posting as i say and really inspired by your story. Thank you -jules

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Good for you Whitebeam for asking Professor Davey, I hope he gets back to you with his thoughts :)

I have a few thoughts on what you mention that I'll share but obviously I'm not trained and I'm just talking from my experiences. 

I don't think OCD is hereditary. I think if there was a specific genetic marker for OCD it would have been found already. I think an over-sensitivity to emotions possibly could be genetic but that's still probably a long shot. I think when OCD runs in families it's actually lessons we learn from our parents like how nice the world is or how nice other people are etc and various coping strategies (or lack there of) that results in similar behaviours being observed. 

I don't think OCD has ever served a purpose for you or for anyone. But i understand what they mean when they say it does. I think that it's two separate things. Let's say before you had OCD, you used various coping strategies for dealing with emotions and had various beliefs about what you could cope with, how responsible you were for things, how vulnerable you were, how risky the world is, how friendly other people are etc etc, lots and lots of beliefs.

Then at some point in 2000 something contradicts a belief or makes you suddenly very aware of a belief, you feel responsible, large amounts of fear, worry, you adopt a coping strategy that once worked, like making sure of something, gaining certainty somehow. This is the start of OCD. In this sense OCD is the consequence of the situation you found yourself in. The strategies you adopt for coping, were perhaps once useful, but they were insufficient and would always lead to OCD given your previously held beliefs and life circumstances. So in that sense OCD is not used to cover anything, it's the things that bring OCD about that are what cover emotions. They are unhelpful coping strategies that OCD simply makes use of. 

For me, I've found in therapy that every time I strip away a layer of OCD i am confronted by new emotions. They have been overwhelming and really hard to understand. For example, i used to avoid loads of things in my home for fear of contamination. Before tackling the avoidance I had tackled a great deal of cleaning compulsions, i had got used to feeling contaminated but the things I avoided had been there throughout. When i then stopped avoiding, the overwhelming sense of responsibility I felt, the recklessness i felt was extreme. It was a whole new set of emotions but ones I couldn't use my usual avoidance techniques for. For me feeling responsible was too much, too risky, so I had took full control and part of that control was locking down parts of my home.

I had to learn to cope healthily with all the new emotions and I still am. Trying to understand who I was and where and why all these unhelpful 'solutions' had been learnt was a big part of coming to terms with the emotions.

Anyway hope some of that made sense, it's so complicated and so hard to talk about but if I can help at all it'll be worth it x

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