An OCD update - hope this helps someone

[gingerbreadgirl]

Hi all

Just wanted to give you a positive update.  I hope this helps or gives some hope.

Some of you may know my history but just quickly - in 2017 I was in a relatively good place and them bam, in October that year I fell hook line and sinker into a huge OCD relapse.  It was relentless and awful.  I tried to throw everything at it but it persisted for a long time - mainly because I was still doing a load of compulsions on the side. 

Anyway fast forward to now and OCD is in a pretty good place despite some fairly stressful personal circumstances.  It has not gone completely but it has receded to a point where I don't think about it very much anymore.  A year ago this felt totally unthinkable. 

I think a few things have contributed to this.  I haven't had a therapist during this time although I have had a heck of a lot of support and advice from the forum (which to me was basically like therapy - but for free!! I think I owe you guys about a billion pounds!!  ) 

But for me the biggest turning point came from the following:

1. Exposures. 

One day I sat down and I wrote a huge list of everything I could think of that scared me or triggered my OCD.  Until that point I had been resisting exposure, or kidding myself I was doing it while also doing gigantic compulsions on the side.  I ended up with about a hundred different ideas - some stupid, some not.  I kept the less stupid ones, and ordered them in terms of how much they scared me.

Then I started attacking them.  I became quite "obsessive" about this.  I did many many exposures every day and got into the habit of doing them every opportunity I got.  

If I had to say any one thing made the biggest difference it was this.  I don't do exposure as much anymore because honestly I don't really feel the need to. 

2. Cognitive work

Changing your cognition around deeply ingrained things is not easy and I think it is hard to do it without the supportive help of someone else, whether that is a knowledgeable therapist, this forum or a friend or loved one (be careful with the latter though, as loved ones can often want to reassure us rather than getting to the root of the problem). 

In conjunction with a lot of support from the forum, I kept a journal and I wrote about my main cognitive distortions and chipped away at these.  For me these were binary thinking, not trusting myself to make decisions, moral perfectionism, needing validation from others, and having a fixed mindset.  I chipped away at these in conjunction with exposures and behavioural experiments.  Gradually over time my feelings about myself, and the world, have shifted.  There is still work to do in this regard though. 

3. Meds

I am generally sceptical about meds.  I started taking fluoxetine not really expecting anything positive to come from them.  But honestly I have noticed a huge positive change since I started taking them.

Obviously I can't be certain this has anything to do with meds, it could be a complete coincidence and actually just be to do with the 2 steps above.  or it could be placebo.  Who knows. 

 

It is a huge relief not to be stuck in that place anymore and I really want that for everyone here.  OCD is a complete *insert swear word* and we all deserve to be free of its clutches forever.  

I just wanted to say please don't give up hope.  OCD is treatable and you can be free of it, you really can.

Hang in there xx

 

 

 

[paradoxer]

A billion squid? I've worked out my contribution, it must be about two pounds fifty. 

[gingerbreadgirl]

1 hour ago, paradoxer said:

A billion squid? I've worked out my contribution, it must be about two pounds fifty. 

Haha you give a lot of bang for your buck paradoxer - you pack a lot of wisdom into short posts  

So have a pay rise!  

[paradoxer]

19 hours ago, gingerbreadgirl said:

Haha you give a lot of bang for your buck paradoxer - you pack a lot of wisdom into short posts  

So have a pay rise!  

Cheers GBG!

[Andrea]

Great post gingerbreadgirl  It is really inspiring.

Thank you for sharing 

big HUG

[taurean]

I am pleased for you GBG. And glad I gave a few Bob's worth myself. 

There are so many testimonies of people (including my sister) saying what a big difference the meds, as part of the therapy package, can help - but they don't seem to work for everyone. You were so brave to take the Fluoxetine on, I know you agonised over it, so you deserve the benefit. 

[taurean]

On 20/09/2019 at 07:17, gingerbreadgirl said:

If I had to say any one thing made the biggest difference it was this.  I don't do exposure as much anymore because honestly I don't really feel the need to. 

I think once the full CBT process has been gone through and the result is the triggers don't bother us any more - and if they do pop up they can be gently eased away, this isn't needed. 

What is needed is to ensure those compulsions don't start creeping back in because they  do the damage of keeping obsessions alive - and I have been guilty of this myself recently and friends here have pointed this out. 

We do need to practice some ongoing exposure to what our triggers were, otherwise they may bounce back and gain focus. And we must make sure we are not practising avoidance or accepting the imposition of an unhelpful OCD rule. 

 

[paradoxer]

Yep, regardless of progress, never room for complacency. 

[taurean]

What I especially like about this is GBG recognised that, alongside the OCD, are some negative thinking distortions that she also was in need to address. 

And that these also require CBT - but in a variant of that used for OCD. 

How many of us here are living a life restricted by one or more negative thinking distortions on top of OCD? 

It's perfectly possible, with a little knowledge, to also "out" those and work on them so their affect can be reduced. 

And what I also like about GBG's work is she realised she needed to group her OCD intrusions, then rate that group in a hierarchy in terms of degree of anxiety. 

Then she was ready to work the cognitive analysis of what was going on, and follow it up with exposure and response prevention, the aim of CBT being to allow those triggers to die down in focus and then no longer trigger. 

It is a wonderful example for those new to CBT of how the framework of it operates and what it will achieve, if we plug away at it, don't fight shy of bursts of anxiety as we face our fears, and keep working the system. 

Those that give up along the way, or don't commit to the therapy, are likely to fail - then say CBT doesn't work. 

Edited September 22, 2019 by taurean

[gingerbreadgirl]

I personally think addressing cognitive distortions is massively overlooked in ocd treatment and it's my view that this is a big part of why ocd relapses occur. You can expose yourself to fears and drop compulsions, but if the underlying belief is still there then it's going to come back. 

[Gemma7]

Cognitive distortions and beliefs aren't the same thing, but I agree challenging them both is important. 

Why do you think they are overlooked? 

[gingerbreadgirl]

You're right they're not the same thing at all and I've been using them interchangeably, my bad. 

Well, it's just my opinion/an observation but usually when I read on here about people's experience with therapy the bulk of it seems to be focused on the behavioural side. 

[Gemma7]

18 minutes ago, gingerbreadgirl said:

Well, it's just my opinion/an observation but usually when I read on here about people's experience with therapy the bulk of it seems to be focused on the behavioural side. 

Oh yeah I get what you mean, I agree. I think it's particularly hard to target beliefs in therapy without the help of a therapist. 

[taurean]

A good therapist treats all sorts of mental health issues. 

They will be on the lookout for mapping exactly what is bugging us. 

Being honest and keeping thought logs will help a therapist spot and categorise the triggers causing our "storms". It's often only then that we might discover these thinking distortions that are contributing to our upsets or inhibitions, and learn how to go about tackling them. 

I tend to diminish the positive, for example. My natural default is to look for /interpret the negative in things. 

My wife has white coat hypertension - a fear of medical professionals - coupled with Mind-reading, a thinking distortion where you believe other people are thinking negatively about you /don't care/have wrong agendas. 

She is massively better as I have been working through CBT with her on these. 

Re my own negative bias, the CBT is geared towards seeking a positive interpretation instead of the negative that pops into the head. It's a reframe exercise. And you keep working it until the bias shifts. 

Two friends of mine have an anger bias. If something doesn't go just right their response is a high anger arousal. 

All of us are therefore open to unhelpful thinking patterns or distortions which may at some point become a problem. 

A black and white thinker loves or hates things, there is no grey in between. Therapy gets them looking for and learning to accept the in between. 

When our OCD gets compounded by a thinking distortion, then both - not just OCD - need treating. This can easily be seen where the sufferer has a self-worth issue - a common anxiety disorder, for example. 

 The new OCD-UK website laudably mentions that sufferers may have other anxiety problems that also need to be addressed in therapy. 

For me, they have to be discovered before they can be treated. 

 

[PolarBear]

I'm pleased for you, gb. I knew you had the knowledge, but you had to roll up your sleeves and do the work. At some point you have to stop overthinking everything and just do the work.

Interestingly, when I took group CBT, we spent the first two-hour session on cognitive distortions. That was our homework that week too. It was a real eye opener to realize the way I normally thought, or the lenses through which I saw the world, formed the basis for my disorder.

Proud of ya!

[dksea]

On 20/09/2019 at 19:12, paradoxer said:

A billion squid?

Thats.....thats a lot of calamari

[paradoxer]

2 hours ago, dksea said:

Thats.....thats a lot of calamari

Yep, mucho moola, beaucoup de 'ika'.