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Why is it so hard for me to accept that this is OCD?


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A very good question and one that received an excellent explanation from Malina.  So much so I've decided to repost it as a general question.  I'll pin it for a day or so, so that others who struggle with the same question can read it.  I

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I think that these are all really good questions. I'm not sure if I'm capable of answering them very well but I'll give it a try!

First of all, do you get that a lot of other people with OCD have trouble believing that their terrible thoughts/urges are OCD? You spend a lot of time on this forum, so surely you have seen that this is a frequent pattern among sufferers?

I think that the trouble with OCD (and all other mental illness) is that it takes control of your mind and body and it makes them unreliable sources of information for you. It produces horrible thoughts that are indistinguishable from your own thoughts. It produces very real physical sensations, like the groinal responses that you feel and the very very real urges. Now as human beings, we all rely on our mind and body to give our conciousness information that we can use to understand the world. When your mind starts having thoughts that you want to sexually abuse your brother/dog/whatever and your body reacts sexually to that..well, what is your conciousness supposed to think? It obviously thinks that this information is true. Yet, your conciousness also knows that there is something wrong here, which is why you feel so deeply unhappy and why you go to therapy and come to this forum. You conciousness doesn't want to do these horrible things, yet it keeps getting bad information from the rest of the mind and the body and it no longer knows what to believe. It is confused, terrifed, and just wants to disappear and stop feeling like this.

So then come in outsiders like us and your therapist, who may have a similar problem or just understand how all of this works. So we try to explain it to you, to tell you that your mind and body are playing tricks on you and try to explain a way out. You want to believe it, but regardless, you keep getting these signals from your mind and your body, these horrible thoughts and urges and sensations keep coming. You do small behaviours that you interpret as having acted on these thoughts. So what do you believe? Other people or your own mind and body?

And that is where it becomes very hard. To get better, you have to learn to disregard your own brain and your own physical sensations and trust complete strangers. This is the hardest thing in the world. It's like if I came to you today and tried to convince you that the sky was green. You may want to trust me, but you see blue. This is exactly the same thing but on a much bigger level.

And unfortunately you could decide today to trust everyone else and to disregard your internal signals. Yet it doesn't work that easily, because the horrible thoughts and feelings will still keep coming.

BUT the good news is that you don't have to do it like this and you don't have to do it alone. That is where CBT comes in, I told you before, it's more like a form of education rather than therapy. It's not meant to have you sit there and release all your feelings and get reassurance or comfort. The point is that you need to learn to restructure how you think and behave. And you need to practice this a lot. Expect to get homework and actually do it. You cannot decide to stop these thoughts and feelings today, but you can decide to commit to the process of change.

Also, how do you think that the rest of us got to be so knowledgable? It's purely because of our own terrible luck that we all have the exact same problem as you and we have had to become knowleadgable in order to survive. But you have one huge advantage that many of us never had. In this day and age, there is so much information. I'm only about 10-11 years older than you, but Google was just becoming a thing when I was diagnosed 13 years ago. It actually didn't even occur to me to look for a forum or try to connect to others like me. And imagine the experiences of the people who are older and who lived in times when professionals didn't know much about OCD. Honestly, it may not seem like it, but this is huge! You have access to a whole community of people who you can speak to, lists of therapists at your fingertips and hundreds of articles. You live in a time where so much is possible and it will not take you as long as it took some of the others to learn how to conquer this.

 

 

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I dont understand the difference between ocd and denial.  I was reading about this gay gay who was interviewed on some article on facebook and he says he wanted the feelings to go away and hoped it was a phase. That he wanted to fit in.

I read those quotes and say ''that's me''.  

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I don't think for one moment that someone in denial suffers the same level of anguish, anxiety & absolute obsession that you do Dave. Nor spend most of their days trawling the internet to find examples, that's an obsession, typified by someone with OCD. If I had the time I could find you hundreds of examples where the opposite is true and someone who feared they were gay finally had successful CBT and learned how they could free themselves from this life-sapping doubt and anxiety.  I've never seen you post any positive examples where people were successfully treated for OCD.

However, I don't really want this thread to be one discussing individual problems, more about the general problem about accepting that we have OCD and why it's so difficult to accept.  Re-read Malina's post a few times and let it sink in.....but as she also points out, as sufferers we have to be prepared to suspend our disbelief.  We have to be prepared to accept the sky may indeed be green.  We have to put the prescribed work in and we have to do it despite the uncertainty we feel.  If we wait to feel certainty first, it won't happen

 

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Great explanation Malina. It hits the nail on the head. For me the worst part of having OCD was when I didn't know I had it. I had never heard of the disorder. I thought I was a very bad person at times, especially in my teens and early 20s and it tainted my life...but the thought of being this bad person troubled me as something inside me knew this couldn't be true, but like you say Malina, when your brain is constantly telling you otherwise what do you do?? When I did hear about OCD much later it still didn't mean anything to me as I have never been neat, tidy and organised, in fact quite the opposite...this was the original and old fashioned representation of the disorder so it meant nothing to me. When around 7 years ago I read about intrusive thoughts and urges, distressing images and scenarios or scary and taboo subjects being OCD the relief was immense. This knowledge has been the single most helpful aspect in my journey to like myself again. The next most helpful thing has been to now realise I am not alone and so many people suffer with this same disorder. So many good, kind and sensitive people. I feel less alone now and that is so powerful. So your advice is so good Malina and so insightful and helpful.  Us sufferers have so much in common. It is really important that we accept we have a disorder and we are kind to ourselves and treat ourselves with the kindness and empathy we treat others with. We all suffer so much or have suffered in the past. For all those struggling take a leap of faith and believe you have OCD and believe you will recover if you recognise this fact and do the hard work as advised to break the cruel and miserable cycle.

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So glad to read this today.

Can the thoughts be that you think you have done something horrible opposed to thinking you might do something horrible? 

Thank you 

Edited by Chris2020
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40 minutes ago, Chris2020 said:

So glad to read this today.

Can the thoughts be that you think you have done something horrible opposed to thinking you might do something horrible? 

Thank you 

Yes Chris, exactly the same.  Now armed with that information, remember (as above) it is still going to trouble you at the start :)

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Good post, malina. 

I think too that part of the problem is that so many people have this warped, twisted view of what OCD is. That it's about washing your hands or bring organized.

If you believe that, it becomes hard to believe you have OCD when you're suffering from horrible thoughts, urges and sensations. 

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1 hour ago, PolarBear said:

Good post, malina. 

I think too that part of the problem is that so many people have this warped, twisted view of what OCD is. That it's about washing your hands or bring organized.

If you believe that, it becomes hard to believe you have OCD when you're suffering from horrible thoughts, urges and sensations. 

Although I think that is really changing now and it's very easy to to quickly find information on all of the other versions, thank goodness :)

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3 hours ago, PolarBear said:

Good post, malina. 

I think too that part of the problem is that so many people have this warped, twisted view of what OCD is. That it's about washing your hands or bring organized.

If you believe that, it becomes hard to believe you have OCD when you're suffering from horrible thoughts, urges and sensations. 

even medical professionals need to know more. I spoke to a doctor about the weird thoughts I was having and he laughed and said ‘that’s a bit left field’ and refused to do anything, about 8 months later I finally got diagnosed with OCD by someone else

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8 hours ago, bjork said:

even medical professionals need to know more.

I agree with you there.  My last comment related more to a sufferer being able to search for, and find good information..I think many GP's still have only a scant knowledge of the extent OCD and the ways it can manifest

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13 hours ago, Caramoole said:

I agree with you there.  My last comment related more to a sufferer being able to search for, and find good information..I think many GP's still have only a scant knowledge of the extent OCD and the ways it can manifest

For sure, I just meant in reply to @PolarBear :)

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