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How do I know if I have OCD?


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I recently experienced some bad anxiety and depression and had to see a psychologist for the first time in my life. It's been a month and a half since my breakdown. I've actually seen two psychologists over this period of time. Both say that OCD is an underlying cause of my depression and anxiety, but I think they're wrong. How can I know if I have OCD? Part of me thinks that I may be, consciously or subconsciously, leading the doctors on so that they come to the false diagnosis of OCD. An OCD diagnosis would provide me some relief of my greater fear that I have some kind of psychotic disorder or that I'm losing my mind. Part of me also thinks that me reaching out on this forum is an attempt to affirm an OCD diagnosis - one that I unfortunately fear is false. Therefore leaving no scapegoat for my anxiety, depression, fears of psychotic disorders, and unceasing existential questioning and angst. So how do I know what's really wrong with me?

Edited by dfflyer
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Look for the underlying root cause of your thinking. 

OCD will lay down, per theme, a negative core belief based on falsehood, exaggeration of minimum risk, "magical"  thinking, or revulsion. This will become a focus of repeat thinking - and create triggers based on the theme, which then result in the urge to carry out compulsions to make the resultant disorder (anxiety, distress) better - but which actually only make things worse and give belief to the obsessional intrusive thought. 

Commonplace in OCD is the fear that we are going mad. Or that we are trying to convince ourselves or others that we have OCD, when in reality our fears are true. 

And OCD fears can be very believable - it can make us believe 2+2=5.

Magical thinking runs around things that aren't true or real - such as seeing a "bad" number or word,and this being a harbinger of doom. Or suggesting that unless we carry out a compulsion, something bad will happen to us or someone we care about. 

It's normal for an OCD sufferer, caught in the grip of the disorder, to become very down and depressed. This is known as "secondary depression"  because the primary cause of the depression is OCD. 

Edited by taurean
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The problem is I don't know what the root cause of my thinking is. I don't know anything anymore. I'm overcome with perpetual uncertainty that permeates every aspect of my life down to the core of my very existence. Every thought that pops into my head or every idea someone communicates to me is processed by engaging in an endless stream of questions about the idea's validity. This stream of questions never ends. Even the most widely accepted and benign of ideas such as "sunsets are beautiful" is met with unending scrutiny. What is beauty? What determines a things value? How do we know it's beautiful? What if sunsets aren't beautiful? How can I trust my senses? What if we could see all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum? What is consciousness? Where did the sun come from? The big bang? Sure. But what was before that? Can time only exist if matter exists? So can we even speak in terms "before the big bang"? The questions never end. And I'm left with nothing but uncertainty, fear, and depression. This is just one example of many. I have also had some harm-OCD and P-OCD fears, but those didn't seem to be as severe or recurrent as others I've read about and I can't identify any correlating compulsions. This makes me think they're not actually OCD thoughts, and thus I'm more likely to actually to turn out to be some kind of monster in the future if I'm not already. Anyways. I'm probably making all of this up or exaggerating it so that I don't have to face the reality my fears may be true.

Edited by dfflyer
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I can relate to that very much. Thank you for sharing. Hopefully one day I will be able to "accept the ambiguity" too. 

In the meantime I think I'm going crazy. I'm just waiting for the day my proper mental diagnosis is made and I'm given a laundry list of severe psychotic disorders. Or maybe my diagnosis is one of one, something new and untreatable. Or maybe the universe is conspiring against me and I'll be subject to eternal torture? Who knows. 

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Well I think I do.

Your thoughts look OCD. In an anxiety cycle caused by OCD our thoughts end up catastrophising (catastrophic thinking) -  plenty of that in your posts. 

It's common for sufferers to fear they are psychotic. 

Also to think that our psychological problems are unique aka your "new and untreatable". 

I would say you have at least several themes of OCD alongside other negative cognitive thinking distortions. 

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16 hours ago, dfflyer said:

I can relate to that very much. Thank you for sharing. Hopefully one day I will be able to "accept the ambiguity" too. 

In the meantime I think I'm going crazy. I'm just waiting for the day my proper mental diagnosis is made and I'm given a laundry list of severe psychotic disorders. Or maybe my diagnosis is one of one, something new and untreatable. Or maybe the universe is conspiring against me and I'll be subject to eternal torture? Who knows. 

Hi DFFlyer, welcome to the forums.  Sorry you are going through such a rough time.

I want you to consider the following situation:
Imagine you bake a chocolate cake.  You've got some guests coming over and you want to share a nice desert with them.  You have a young child.  You tell them not to touch the cake, its for later and go in to the other room to do some work.  You come back later and part of the cake is missing.  Your child is sitting on the sofa with chocolate around their mouth and on their hands.  You ask what happened.  They say "A magical dragon came in to the room while you were gone, it ate some cake and then wiped the chocolate all over my hands and mouth when i tried to stop it then left!"

So you've got two possibilities:
Your child ate the cake
A magical dragon ate the cake

Which would you think happened?

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4 hours ago, dksea said:

Hi DFFlyer, welcome to the forums.  Sorry you are going through such a rough time.

I want you to consider the following situation:
Imagine you bake a chocolate cake.  You've got some guests coming over and you want to share a nice desert with them.  You have a young child.  You tell them not to touch the cake, its for later and go in to the other room to do some work.  You come back later and part of the cake is missing.  Your child is sitting on the sofa with chocolate around their mouth and on their hands.  You ask what happened.  They say "A magical dragon came in to the room while you were gone, it ate some cake and then wiped the chocolate all over my hands and mouth when i tried to stop it then left!"

So you've got two possibilities:
Your child ate the cake
A magical dragon ate the cake

Which would you think happened?

I would assume the child ate the cake. I'm not sure I understand the analogy, however? In my case, is it obvious that the child at the cake (I have OCD), but I keep on insisting its a magical dragon (some undiagnosed terrible mental condition)?

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Also, I had a terrible scare last night. I was getting ready for bed and heard a persistent faint noise that I couldn't identify. Immediately started freaking out thinking that my nightmare was coming true and I was having an auditory hallucination. I searched frantically inside and outside my apartment trying to find the source of the noise and eventually found my roommate's iPad was left on in his room playing music at a low level. This brought some momentary relief. But then I thought what if I was visually hallucinating the iPad as well? Immediately started freaking out again took a shower and went to bed. I couldn't shake the feeling that I must have schizophrenia or that there's something else terribly wrong with me and I'm losing my mind. Luckily I was able to fall asleep rather quickly and I'm calmer this morning, but now I'm scared I'll become an insomniac and my one sure escape from all this (sleep) will be taken away from me too. I don't know what to do.

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18 hours ago, dfflyer said:

I would assume the child ate the cake. I'm not sure I understand the analogy, however? In my case, is it obvious that the child at the cake (I have OCD), but I keep on insisting its a magical dragon (some undiagnosed terrible mental condition)?

Yup, thats exactly the analogy, you are willing to ignore the obvious answer being given to you by two separate medical professionals and yet willing to entertain less likely possibilities as being the answer instead.  Unfortunately this is an all to common occurrence because having OCD makes us susceptible to doubt and catastrophization.  It can be very hard for sufferers to admit and accept OCD as the answer.  You are definitely not the first person to face that challenge, heck we see it often on these forums alone.  I tell you this not to make you feel bad or anything far from it, I tell you because I am hoping you will find some comfort in knowing you aren't alone and maybe, just maybe you'll be willing to take a chance that this is probably OCD and a good path forward is to go with that possibility and see what happens.  Is it possible that what you are going through is NOT OCD?  Sure, its always possible, we are never really able to be 100% sure of anything when you dig deep enough.  But I'd say you are looking at a situation like the analogy, where you've got strong evidence in favor of one position, and the other is a mere possibility, with a lot less support.  I mean unless you are some highly skilled diabolical mastermind who has studied the ins and outs of OCD and psychiatry, its highly unlikely you'd be able to fool a medical professional, let alone two.  The odds just really aren't in your favor on that one :)
 

On 01/12/2018 at 04:40, dfflyer said:

Part of me also thinks that me reaching out on this forum is an attempt to affirm an OCD diagnosis - one that I unfortunately fear is false. Therefore leaving no scapegoat for my anxiety, depression, fears of psychotic disorders, and unceasing existential questioning and angst.

This is also something I wanted to touch on. If you have OCD, you have OCD, thats not great, but its also not your fault.  But the same would be true if you had another anxiety disorder, or depression, or what not.  Whatever the underlying mental health issue is the important thing is to get the right treatment for it, because no matter what it is its not something you chose or something thats happening to you because of something you did or didn't do.  

I hope you will take the chance on this being OCD, let yourself do the therapy and really try it, and see what happens.  The worst thing that can happen is you learn some valuable skills for improving your general mental health outside of OCD.  Thats not so bad is it?

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