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Why do some people refuse to treat their condition as OCD?


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55 minutes ago, Radclyffe said:

I feel like for me I never feel like my OCD is bad enough or debilitating enough that I can call it OCD and that if I did so I would be mocking people who genuinely suffer from it or making light of a serious subject which causes me lots of guilt for thinking I have it, which means that I won't talk about it because I constantly fear I am faking it. I also have bad anxiety which means I am too scared and anxious to go to the doctors alone or even talk to people in my life about possibly having OCD.

Sounds like your theme is responsibility and fearing being a bad person/fraud. Guess what, that's OCD too :) 

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Guest OCDhavenobrain
1 hour ago, Radclyffe said:

I feel like for me I never feel like my OCD is bad enough or debilitating enough that I can call it OCD and that if I did so I would be mocking people who genuinely suffer from it or making light of a serious subject which causes me lots of guilt for thinking I have it, which means that I won't talk about it because I constantly fear I am faking it. I also have bad anxiety which means I am too scared and anxious to go to the doctors alone or even talk to people in my life about possibly having OCD.

It's your OCD hijacking your morality, comming up with crappy "reasons" for not going. There are no such responsibility for you, actually there are not even any of the consequences you are bringing up, this is not a zero sum game.

 

Edited by OCDhavenobrain
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1 hour ago, Radclyffe said:

I feel like for me I never feel like my OCD is bad enough or debilitating enough that I can call it OCD and that if I did so I would be mocking people who genuinely suffer from it or making light of a serious subject which causes me lots of guilt for thinking I have it, which means that I won't talk about it because I constantly fear I am faking it. I also have bad anxiety which means I am too scared and anxious to go to the doctors alone or even talk to people in my life about possibly having OCD.

Hi Radclyffe,

It looks like you could potentially have 2 things going on here! One being low self esteem, and two, undiagnosed OCD!

Don't let one put you of getting help and treatment for the other, & vice versa. You need to bite the bullet and have a chat with your GP, and go from there.

All the best.

 

 

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9 hours ago, Radclyffe said:

I feel like for me I never feel like my OCD is bad enough or debilitating enough that I can call it OCD and that if I did so I would be mocking people who genuinely suffer from it or making light of a serious subject which causes me lots of guilt for thinking I have it, which means that I won't talk about it because I constantly fear I am faking it.

A sadly common attitude I see not just in OCD sufferers but in people with many problems.  Humans compare themselves to each other far too much, and in ways that are not only inaccurate but can lead to unnecessary suffering.  OCD, like any other condition isn't a competition to see who has it worst.  After all, there can only be ONE person at a time whose suffering is the absolute worst right?  Sure, person A's OCD might not seem as sever as person B's, but what if person B's OCD doesn't seem as bad as person C's?  Does that mean person B doesn't deserve to be taken seriously either?  Of course not, if person A is suffering then they deserve to be helped.  So does person B, and person C.  Doctors don't refuse to treat someone with a broken finger just because there might be someone else out there with a broken arm.  Firefighters don't refuse to put out the house fire of the single person living in a small home because somewhere else a large families larger home is also on fire.  

If you have OCD, you have OCD.  Maybe its not as "severe" as someone elses but you still have it, and you still suffer.  You can't feel what other people feel, you can't experience what other people experience.  You suffering doesn't really help them not suffer and vice versa.  So give yourself a break and let yourself get help, you deserve it :)

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13 hours ago, Orwell1984 said:

I found a 2015 study which is a bit shocking. It is about how accurately clinicians are able to diagnose OCD. The shocking part is that only half of the 208 physicians recorded in the study were able to diagnose OCD correctly. That means the other half were unable to diagnose OCD and misdiagnosed the OCD sufferers with something else!

Do keep in mind that the study was conducted towards primary care physicians (I believe they are referred to as GP's in the UK, someone correct me if I'm wrong) and not trained psychiatrist and psychologists.  Though it would be greater if PCP/GP's could be better educated about OCD, at some point they are going to reach the limits of their knowledge on some subjects.  I think the biggest takeaway  from this study is that its important that PCP/GP's be trained to recognize in general when a psychological situation might be involved and to refer/get advice from a specialist when they are unsure.

Also, the study, while informative and useful, is additionally limited as the doctors were not presented with actual patients, with whom they could interact and perhaps get more feedback, but vignettes, aka, written descriptions of OCD sufferers. Sending in real sufferers to test the doctors diagnostic ability is probably impractical, so its the best you can do, but its good to keep the limited nature of the survey in mind in discussing the results.  One upside is due to the nature of the survey, no actual patience were misdiagnosed and/or prescribed unnecessary treatment.

 

9 hours ago, PolarBear said:

OCD is very easy to diagnose, if you know what you are talking about.

Agreed, the problem isn't OCD being difficult to diagnose, its people not having the proper information on what to look for.  Once you do, for OCD and many many other conditions it becomes easy to diagnose, thankfully!

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1 hour ago, dksea said:

Do keep in mind that the study was conducted towards primary care physicians (I believe they are referred to as GP's in the UK, someone correct me if I'm wrong) and not trained psychiatrist and psychologists.  Though it would be greater if PCP/GP's could be better educated about OCD, at some point they are going to reach the limits of their knowledge on some subjects.  I think the biggest takeaway  from this study is that its important that PCP/GP's be trained to recognize in general when a psychological situation might be involved and to refer/get advice from a specialist when they are unsure.

Also, the study, while informative and useful, is additionally limited as the doctors were not presented with actual patients, with whom they could interact and perhaps get more feedback, but vignettes, aka, written descriptions of OCD sufferers. Sending in real sufferers to test the doctors diagnostic ability is probably impractical, so its the best you can do, but its good to keep the limited nature of the survey in mind in discussing the results.  One upside is due to the nature of the survey, no actual patience were misdiagnosed and/or prescribed unnecessary treatment.

 

Agreed, the problem isn't OCD being difficult to diagnose, its people not having the proper information on what to look for.  Once you do, for OCD and many many other conditions it becomes easy to diagnose, thankfully!

You're right. I didn't realise primary care physicians were GPs. I jumped to conclusions there! :) 

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Because I don't know if its OCD.  Just because you get diagnosed doesn't mean its true.  I feel that the therapist (or posters here) cant feel or experience my internal sensations and so they have to rely on my descriptions and words.  But if they could feel exactly what is happening in my groin for example then they might think differently. 

I think 'yeah but do they REALLY know?'

Everytime I get a new sensation or variation of a groinal response I think that this is REAL AROUSAL now and not an OCD symptom.  Then the self talk starts ''you dont have ocd. Accept you are gay.  Fighting this is making things worse for you.  Treating it and pretending its ocd is making you worse. If it was OCD you would still have a sex drive for women. Thats gone. So are you still telling me this is OCD? ?  Ha!! You're gay and you know it. Stop pretending you loser and get over it. You are just a coward and cant accept you are gay.''

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Guest OCDhavenobrain
2 minutes ago, Dave321 said:

Because I don't know if its OCD.  Just because you get diagnosed doesn't mean its true.  I feel that the therapist (or posters here) cant feel or experience my internal sensations and so they have to rely on my descriptions and words.  But if they could feel exactly what is happening in my groin for example then they might think differently. 

 I think 'yeah but do they REALLY know?'

Everytime I get a new sensation or variation of a groinal response I think that this is REAL AROUSAL now and not an OCD symptom.  Then the self talk starts ''you dont have ocd. Accept you are gay.  Fighting this is making things worse for you.  Treating it and pretending its ocd is making you worse. If it was OCD you would still have a sex drive for women. Thats gone. So are you still telling me this is OCD? ?  Ha!! You're gay and you know it. Stop pretending you loser and get over it. You are just a coward and cant accept you are gay.''

I think you could benefit greatly from reading other's stories and how they their OCD manifests itself. 
Take care
 

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Mmhh. 

In the 6-7 years I have been on the forum I have read many such cases as Dave's, in each case - with multiple posts on the forum - all of them doubting it's OCD, despite all the endeavours of the respondents. 

For me, it's all about the sufferer taking a leap of faith that it IS OCD, and not responding to the groinal response or resultant intrusions.

Like with any other type of OCD, the mental and/or physical responses will only eventually die down until they, for a significant time, don't get responses. 

There is no quick fix, and it takes time to stand up to the otherwise-convincing OCD. 

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Coming back to the point I am making, the other day I came across a trigger that my OCD would previously have homed right in on and produced a prolonged anxiety response and repetitive obsessional thinking. 

So what happened next? 

It provoked an immediate shot of anxiety the moment I saw it, but I recognised it for what it was, gently but firmly eased it away out of my mental immediate, and peripheral focus; got back to what I was doing, and the anxiety response fizzled out. 

These intrusions used to happen frequently, but it's only very occasional now. 

Because I worked through my CBT and learned not to connect with, give belief to, or carry out compulsions as a result of, triggers. 

I truly believe others can get to this stage if they go about thinking this is the achievable result from committing to believing the therapy not the OCD. 

It takes time to achieve that goal, and it's not likely to happen during a course of CBT. It absolutely requires the sufferer to carry on practicing what they learn from the therapy. 

Many people expect to be recovered at the end of therapy. This is unrealistic. 

Edited by taurean
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