Think I need to say this

[Ollie46]

Hey all, sorry if this post seems a long-winded but I feel like I want to talk about this and I don’t really know where else or who else to turn to, so I thought I’d try my luck here.

OCD-wise things aren’t too bad. But since I’ve suffered this relapse a few months back there’s been one constant feeling that I’ve never addressed and just kept bottled inside, never talked about, even on this forum. I’m sure it’s the craft of the disorder, and I don’t want to raise any alarm bells, I can assure everybody that I am not suicidal, but when I was at my worst, I was having scary thoughts that were a by-product of that depression. Feeling like I deserve to die, like I’m just an awful person, that I can’t forgive myself for the pain I’ve bought others... it’s a very extreme emotion and it seems more prevalent now than ever before.

Its not just about my obsessions or my fear  of pedophile thoughts. It’s about things from years ago when I first started suffering, before I found this forum and before my therapy. My mother and father, when I told them about the thoughts, were extremely concerned. I even remember my father telling me when I had an anxiety attack that he wasn’t exactly sure what I expected there reaction to be when ‘their oldest son told them he could be a pedophile.’ That made me, and still makes me, feel lower than scum. How could I put them through that? 

And then there’s the time my mother found out I’d been researching suicide on the internet during a particularly dark time, and she broke my laptop out of anger, my siblings were crying because they didn’t know what was going on... I feel like I’m such a horrible person for causing that.

I feel bad that I’ve let my OCD come back so strong. On top of all the horrible things about this disorder, I carry around this dark feeling that I’m just worth nothing and that I don’t deserve anything good. I have such a wide circle of friends and I’m a well-liked person, and I’m so thankful and lucky for that. But sometimes I just feel like their love and kindness isn’t deserved by me.

like I say, I’m aware this is all irrational, I’m not at risk of harming myself, and I don’t feel like it all the time. It’s clear that I have some serious issues when it comes to being kind to myself. But it’s something that really affects me and I feel like I’m finally ready to come out and say ‘hey, I’m not okay, and it’s not just because I have intrusive thoughts.’ So if you read this, even if you don’t reply, thanks. Because I feel like if somebody else knows, I’m not completely alone

[dksea]

1 hour ago, Ollie46 said:

Because I feel like if somebody else knows, I’m not completely alone

You are very much not alone and its good you recognize that, its also good you recognize that you are hard on yourself because hopefully it means you can start challenging that tendency!

 

1 hour ago, Ollie46 said:

Its not just about my obsessions or my fear  of pedophile thoughts. It’s about things from years ago when I first started suffering, before I found this forum and before my therapy. My mother and father, when I told them about the thoughts, were extremely concerned. I even remember my father telling me when I had an anxiety attack that he wasn’t exactly sure what I expected there reaction to be when ‘their oldest son told them he could be a pedophile.’ That made me, and still makes me, feel lower than scum. How could I put them through that? 

Unfortunately there is a significant lack of awareness and understanding towards mental illness.  Its easy for a person to understand someone with asthma or a bad leg or heart trouble, those are all physical ailments that have been recognized for ages and don't directly affect how we think.  Its much harder to understand mental illness because its so intimate to the sufferer and alien to the person who doesn't experience it.  Many of us fear admitting to the thoughts we have for exactly the reason you experienced, it can be misunderstood and misconstrued, even by people with the best of intentions.  

You need to work on reminding yourself that having OCD is no different than having type-1 diabetes or alcoholism or epilepsy.  You didn't ask to be this way, and you didn't do something to cause it to happen.  Its not your fault you have OCD any more than its your fault you have a certain color hair or eyes or are tall or short or whatever.  Most people, OCD sufferers included are just trying to do their best to live their lives and deal with their problems.  We are all imperfect, so don't hold yourself to an impossible standard of perfection and don't fault yourself for something you didn't choose.  Do your best to continue fighting the OCD, thats where your focus should be, that is something you can control.

For your family, I can't recall if you are seeing a therapist or not but if they haven't it might help for them to spend some time with the therapist too learning about what OCD is like, and that the thoughts you fear are different from the contents they are about.  The reason you are bothered by thoughts of pedophilia for example are because the idea causes you anxiety.  Perhaps that will help them understand better what you are going through.  Or if talking to a therapist isn't an option, maybe an article or a video that explains OCD can be helpful.  There are many here on the OCD UK site for example.  Best of luck and be kind to yourself!

[californiadreaming]

You are NOT alone and I know the feelings you’re experiencing all too well.

The good news is, there’s a way out. On my worst days I remind myself to take it day by day. You deserve to be happy, I can promise you that.

[Guest]

I don't want to hijack your thread, but I wanted to say I relate completely. I have this pervasive sense/feeling of dread and self hatred pretty much all the time when I'm not obsessing or performing compulsions and I think it is the root cause of my ocd. I think my ocd behaviours are a way of rationalising and containing these feelings so I can at least get some release and sense out of them. For example, if I can pin the feelings on it being my fault for not being clean enough, I Can then understand and relieve the feeling by cleaning, the feelings are also contained to that one subject area so the feelings are then not constant and pervasive about everything I do, think and feel. Until I deal with this I think I will always be fire fighting new and different obsessions.

I'm currently just starting a workbook on compassion focused therapy as an adjunct to CBT, I don't know if it will help but it might be something you could look at? You might also want to look again at the concept of core beliefs in CBT if you have not already done so. 

 

Edited November 30, 2018 by Guest
Typo

[gingerbreadgirl]

Hi Ollie,

I'm so sorry to hear you feel like this - OCD is a wretched disorder and it can take so much.

First of all - your family's reaction.  In many ways their response was understandable because it came from a place of ignorance (not meaning that in a horrid way, just that they didn't have knowledge of OCD).  You also didn't have the knowledge or insight to be able to explain it to them. You were like the blind leading the blind at that point. But just because it is understandable doesn't make it right in any way.  You have a disorder.  Absolutely none of this is in any way your fault.  Your feelings of anxiety about yourself are in many ways understandable now because you told your family your deepest secret and you were rejected and condemned, even if only temporarily.  That's a hard thing for a young person to deal with. As kids (and as adults) we look up to our parents and we want to feel their understanding and acceptance is unconditional - if we feel like it isn't it can have far-reaching effects on our self-esteem.  In some ways (although it is completely different) this reminds me of when I came out as gay to my mum and didn't initially get a good response.  it felt like I'd exposed the most vulnerable part of myself and been rejected.  And although in some ways I understood, that response has had far-reaching effects on how I feel about myself - like deep down I am bad, etc. This is a big part of why I haven't told my family about my OCD because I feel there wouldn't be any understanding.  

So - although your family's response is on some level understandable, it doesn't mean you are responsible in any way.  You have done NOTHING wrong.  Like dksea says, your condition is no different to having asthma, or cancer, or whatever.  The only difference is that society hasn't caught up yet.  There was a time when epilepsy was treated with suspicion and people even had exorcisms etc.  Obviously we now know a lot better.  But I bet people who grew up having their epilepsy treated like demonic possession had damaged self-esteem in the process.  As kids or young adults we are very vulnerable to this.

Secondly - your feelings now.  I know I could tell you til I'm blue in the face that you are worthy, you should be kind to yourself, etc. etc.  But I also know these types of things can feel like empty platitudes.  I think you probably know on a rational level that you've done nothing wrong, you have a disorder and you have no reason to feel bad about any of it.  But knowing this is not the same as feeling it.  I think you need to work at not ruminating on these past incidents with your family - this can become very compulsive, as can self-punishment, talking yourself down, and so on.  As with other OCD compulsions you need to work at leaving them alone, leaving them unresolved.  But more importantly I think you need to work at being very kind to yourself - even if you don't feel you deserve it. You obviously have a lot of love in your life and people who think highly of you - but you need to extend those feelings to yourself. Have you read a book called Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff? This talks all about being compassionate to yourself regardless of any circumstances - it is unconditional.  This is much more secure than self-esteem which is often conditional on being "good" in some way. 

You have beaten this disorder before and you can do it again.  But I think to prevent relapse you need to work on your feelings about yourself. Could you look into maybe getting some more therapy?

You're not alone, and you will get through this x

 

[Caramoole]

10 hours ago, Ollie46 said:

I even remember my father telling me when I had an anxiety attack that he wasn’t exactly sure what I expected there reaction to be when ‘their oldest son told them he could be a pedophile.’ That made me, and still makes me, feel lower than scum. How could I put them through that? 

 

10 hours ago, Ollie46 said:

And then there’s the time my mother found out I’d been researching suicide on the internet during a particularly dark time, and she broke my laptop out of anger

You could turn both those statements completely on their heads and say "How could they be so cruel and uncaring, how could they treat their eldest son so cruelly for suffering from an anxiety condition?"  The truth is (as Dksea & GBG have explained so well) they didn't understand, they didn't have the knowledge. they were scared, bewildered and confused.  They weren't to blame but neither were you.

 

10 hours ago, Ollie46 said:

On top of all the horrible things about this disorder, I carry around this dark feeling that I’m just worth nothing and that I don’t deserve anything good. I have such a wide circle of friends and I’m a well-liked person, and I’m so thankful and lucky for that. But sometimes I just feel like their love and kindness isn’t deserved by me.

It's not really surprising you feel this way.  You suffered terribly through your teenage and formative years, through university.  You were anxious, depressed and confused, filled with self-loathing......I could go on.  Now you're coming out the other side as a young adult and these last few years have left their mark.  The good news (and you don't get to realise this until you're much older) is that you are still a very young adult and those formative years are still happening, you still have a lot of growing to do and things can change.  As an OCD sufferer you have to take care that you watch out for general rumination, that you don't constantly run this script through your mind.  It becomes easier to recognise the obvious OCD type thoughts and learn to deal with them, harder is recognising the less obvious times when we are ruminating in general.  Try and apply the same rules of stopping the rumination when you find yourself slipping into these internal conversations.

Other than that, I agree with all that Dksea and GBG have already written

[Caramoole]

Just wanted to post this paragraph from Saffies thread

Quote

There IS always hope of change, but the time to do it is never in the future, it can only ever be now. I have to remind myself of this constantly. If I'm still planning to address things tomorrow, or the next day, or in a few months, it will always stay right there in the future. The real changes come right now, every day, each time I notice I've drifted off into unreality again. At 28, I've started to realise that I was playing pretend at being an adult for a couple of years. Now it's time to start growing up, which may be something I always have to work at. I've been getting a strong sense of needing to take responsibility for myself and my health, to address the underlying feelings of shame and inadequacy that were the foundation of OCD symptoms. Without doing so, I don't think the OCD will ever change - it's a symptom of an underlying, persistent feeling of not knowing who I am and not being able to cope with having faults or feeling 'bad'. With the help of a Somatic Experiencing therapist, I've started to learn to self regulate and it's shocking how many child-like mental patterns I'm still running off, such as people pleasing, not feeling able to make my own decisions, etc. Looking at many of the adults I know, this isn't uncommon I don't think either. Many of us are just confused, frightened kids in grown up bodies.

 

[Avo]

Some good advice there Ollie,  I have a similar OCD theme to yourself (with a few others thrown in) I feared I could be a P - I cant even bring myself to type the word which I suppose in its way is some form of avoidance on my part? . I did not know at the time it was OCD, I broke down in front of my Mum in my late teens when these issues kicked in for me, I was being tortured by my own mind and things just became too much for me. 

My mum to be fair reacted fairly well given what I had told her, she kind of suggested that they were just thoughts and none of us had any idea I was suffering from OCD. 

You have a mental disorder - its not your fault and you have nothing to be ashamed of or feel bad for. 

[Ollie46]

Wow, thank you for such amazing responses everybody! Sorry for not getting back sooner, I’ve been at work all day.

To try and address what everybody has told me, soon after I first started suffering and I went to therapy, my parents came with me and spoke my therapist in the session with me. From then on, they were completely understanding and have always been extremely supportive of me, so this feeling that I’ve had isn’t something I’m experiencing because my parents don’t understand my illness, it’s purely an irrational guilt that is playing on the initial guilt, shame, pain and anxiety that was felt by everybody all that time ago.

And it was a long time ago now, I was 17 years old. Now I’m 23, a lot has changed but OCD will always bring me back to those worst feelings, it loves them all too much. And I never blamed my family for the reaction that I got, no doubt it must have been very difficult to process. But the OCD/depression says ‘but you made them feel that way, how can you live with that?’

I think something you all pointed out that o was struggling to realise is that this thought/feeling I have is another compulsion, just another rumination that I run through my mind that makes everything worse, I just never suspected it. For me it was just this very real memory of a horrible dysfunction that I caused because I couldn’t get my act together. I have been working on being much kinder to myself and much more patient too. Having to accept that I’m not okay but that I will improve with time and diligently practicing the methods I’ve learned to beat OCD is something that was difficult just because I panicked and said ‘Oh god, not this again, I can’t do this again, I thought I was over this!’ Which was the worst reaction I think I could have had!