New to it all

[Dollface]

Hello,

I decided to seek out an OCD forum to try and encounter some others who are / have been through the same thing. I am relatively new to coming to terms with the fact that what I have been experiencing has been a gradual progression of untreated OCD which has now become full blown OCD. I have started therapy and I am currently taking Clomipramine as I didn’t do very well on the medications I have tried before.

My OCD manifests itself in a few different ‘types’ and I’m not sure if this is common or not as I’ve never really spoken to anyone else with OCD. I’m hoping that I can draw from other’s experiences as an aid to my recovery because as I am sure you all understand, it can feel quite isolating. I really do want to get better and I’m hoping joining a forum will aid this.

[PolarBear]

Hi dollface.

We call the types themes. Yes, it's common to have several themes running at once or even to bounce back and forth between themes. 

Anything we can do to help, let us know.

[Dollface]

9 minutes ago, PolarBear said:

Hi dollface.

We call the types themes. Yes, it's common to have several themes running at once or even to bounce back and forth between themes. 

Anything we can do to help, let us know.

Thank you PolarBear I have a few questions I would probably like to ask when they come to me. On a practical level, is there anything you would say particularly helps a person with OCD? E.g. good sleep, eating well etc? 

[PolarBear]

R.e.d.s. Stands for relaxation, exercise, diet and exercise.

Above all, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT. It is the best known fix for OCD.

[FranticS]

On 12/04/2021 at 20:13, PolarBear said:

 

We call the types themes. Yes, it's common to have several themes running at once or even to bounce back and forth between themes. 

This is very true. I find I can go from one theme straight to another in the space of a few minutes. In a way, I find it almost reassuring that this happens, because it makes it feel a bit more obvious that it's OCD probing to find a "weak spot".

Its almost like the OCD's "trying to be clever", and giving itself away for what it is in the process...

[Precontemplative]

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'PolarBear' verily did typeth on 12 Apr 2021: "R.e.d.s. Stands for relaxation, exercise, diet and exercise."

Wut? Okay, what does the 's' really stand for? (Keep it clean!)

Sleep, right?

'Dollface' wrote on 12 Apr 2021: "On a practical level, is there anything you would say particularly helps a person with OCD? E.g. good sleep, eating well etc?"

A psychiatrist told me that the chronic sleep problems I had had from many bad places of accommodation were probably behind the rise in my OCD, and that if I was exposed to such again, my OCD would get worse.

'Dollface' wrote on 12 Apr 2021: "Its almost like the OCD's "trying to be clever", and giving itself away for what it is in the process..."

I don't subscribe to the 'bully' concept of OCD. It's as clever as you in a way, as it's in your own brain and gets to use it. I see that the brain is like a collection of sub-systems. Yet, we feel like our conscious mind is 'of one mind' despite this, and that's probably so because the sub-systems are in the right balance.

I think OCD is when the amygdala of our primitive limbic system has become 'noisy' as an alarm system, but our conscious mind is in the cerebral cortex, a recent evolutionary development for humans. This noisy amygdala, and so OCD, feels like another presence in my mind, maybe you feel that too. So, in a way, OCD sufferers no longer feel 'of one mind' (but I'm not talking about mulitple/dissociative personality disorder).

The amygdala has access to all our sensations, experiences and memories via the thalamus (a kind of switchboard in the same limbic system). It is 'clever' in a cold artificial-intelligence-like sense. It can detect many different kinds of threat very rapidly and better than any modern AI can, but it is not a reasoning system, like our real minds. I suppose that's why we always feel conflicted and perturbed.


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