Ruining your life with OCD

[rachel23]

When does it get to the point where it’s your fault that your life is being ruined? After having 10 years of therapy on and off with OCD specialists and still unable to accept its OCD or resist compulsions, is it my fault that I feel this way and that I’m ruining my life? My mum has said that I’m stupid for letting this ruin my life yet again. I always recover and feel so content and enjoy life and it just comes back time after time, the same fears, the same thoughts that make me think it must be something more than OCD. Am I a weak person for not doing what I know I should be doing? How can It be OCD when I know so much about it and it’s making me feel so so awful. How can I not know how I feel about a thought , can oCD really make you think you enjoy something that you don’t. I’ve fallen badly back into some very deep thinking and I’m so ashamed that I feel like this again. It also scares me for the rest of my life. How can I have additional responsibilities and live a normal life if this is going to blight my life? So so upset and scared x

[Guest dimmerswitch]

Please try not to be upset and scared. We’ve all been there, that’s why we’re here

Don’t question it, engage with it, try and reason with it as it’s a nothingness.It’s only our interaction with it that creates ocd. Our interpretation turns a harmless thought/image/memory into ocd. 
I could offer lots of reassurance here, but we know it won’t do us any good in the long run. It isn’t even a quick fix solution as all reassurance does is delay ocd until the next interpretation and bam, we spike, feel awful, worry, stress etc over us making something of nothing.

People without ocd take no notice of these type of thoughts and as such, nothing else to type...

People with ocd take notice and.........oh dear....back to square one.

 

[PolarBear]

"How can I not know how I feel about a thought..."

That is a big, red flag. It tells me that you try to figure out how you feel about thoughts. That is engaging with the thoughts. That is a compulsion. That is, at least partly, why you repeatedly fall backwards.

[BelAnna]

Hi Rachel,

OCD, as you know, is an illness. You wouldn't blame someone with Postnatal Depression or Anorexia who was falling into the same thought patterns or behaviours as they had done previously- so the same should apply for OCD. I think that wide-spread misconceptions that OCD sufferers just react adversely to normal thoughts and choose to complete compulsions rather than challenge the OCD (if only it was that simple) have lead to a situation where family members/carers/therapists find it quite easy to victim blame (e.g. if someone with OCD isn't making sufficient progress towards recovery then the only explanation is that they are not trying hard enough). 

You are not stupid for returning to the same thought patterns. People without OCD obviously have habitual thought patterns too; it's not your fault that the thoughts that you have are distressing ones. There has been some research to suggest that people with OCD have difficulties with some Executive Functions so we find it much harder to shift thinking patterns and are much more likely to ruminate than people without OCD. However you know that you have dealt with this before so you can do so again.

Relapses in OCD are similar to relapses in Depression, in that there are cognitive ways of addressing a relapse (using thought-challenging techniques through CBT etc.) but that the relapse is partially due to an underlying neurochemical and physiological state. 

I can feel a bit hopeless about the future with OCD at times too so understand what you mean but you have had periods of remission from the OCD and you might well be able to go for longer periods without OCD, with the right help.

 

 

Edited August 5, 2020 by BelAnna

[ocd sufferer 1989]

I feel the same way about OCD ruining my life.

For the last 15-20 years I have made a 'deal' with OCD to avoid the anxiety by doing the compulsions and avoiding so much resulting in missing out on friendships and relationships just so I could get through life.

In the last few months I have had the overwhelming worry this will be my life forever if I continue the same and it feels horrendous. It has forced me to try to start facing it but it is extremely difficult and feels like a huge task.

I have found it useful to realise that the OCD is something our brain does to try to 'protect' us from anxiety because anxiety feels horrible and it is just being overprotective.

Plus, I have found it helpful to think we are not born with OCD because it is learnt behavior we have developed and created our own rules so we can challenge these rules because they started when we we younger in childhood  when we didn't know how to deal with certain situations so we need to look back at them again as an adult to question them.

We created the compulsions to feel safe and by doing them and our brain has learnt they are the quickest way to get rid of the anxiety. So we get stuck in a loop of repeating the compulsions because we have learnt these actions are the most efficient getting rid of the anxiety. So to challenge the OCD is tough because you are having to go against the years of repeated actions which have become more reinforced the y have been done and they have succeeded in getting rid of the anxiety.

I have found some of the TED talks on youtube about OCD and the Speakmans podcast helpful to challenge how I thought about my OCD as a starting step.

 

 

[hazydaze]

Hi Rachel!
You have no reason to feel ashamed - there is nothing wrong with you! This is a very challenging disorder and as probably all of us on this forum know, it can be unbelievably debilitating.
I truly feel where you are at, and I am so sorry for the pain you are enduring. I am not a religious person, but I contend that there is indeed a hell because I've been there - it's right here on earth, in our own minds. OCD brought me there; I had suicidal thoughts because I was so sacred that it would never get better. But here I am, years later, loving life! I still have OCD, oh boy do I ever, but alongside Paxil, (which after a couple years I am planning to lessen my dose soon,) I have learned that not engaging with your thoughts truly does work! Sometimes I'll have an old obsession come up, less times I'll begin to ruminate. Whenever this does begin to happen, I gently stop my compulsions. Don't feel like you've just undone all your work! It takes a lot of practice and patience. I've had fear that I will get as bad as I was, but I've learned that to an extent, we are in control. Now, I don't mean that it is your fault that you are suffering, or your fault that you have OCD in the first place! However, in order to get better, the responsibility by and large rests on your shoulders, meaning that you need to do the really difficult work. (Support systems such as this, therapy, etc. can be fabulous and helpful though of course!) I am certainly not blaming you for having struggled for a number of years, and you shouldn't blame yourself either. We are all unique, and just because you are experiencing difficulty doesn't mean you are weak. 
As I mentioned above, the path to get better is generally your responsibility. (I don't mean that this is your fault, just that you alone must take the really challenging personal steps to get yourself better. ) Just because you feel you haven't had much success, doesn't mean you won't succeed. I wish I could make it easier for you. All I can tell you is what is said over and over again - do not engage with your thoughts. Every time you give your intrusive thought attention, you are sending a message to your brain that that thought is important, thus your brain will continue to interrupt you with that thought. It's a vicious cycle as I'm sure I don't need to tell you. It will be extremely hard at first, but do not give up. Sit with your anxiety - it is just a feeling, (not to belittle it but,) it will not kill you. Do not perform the compulsions. Every time you refuse to engage, it will get a little bit easier. Trust the process. You can do this! 

Best wishes  

Edited August 5, 2020 by hazydaze