Just feeling so low.

[estelle_2021]

Hi everyone.

I don't know if this is going to come across as reassurance-seeking, but I just want a place to let off some steam. I've had a rough couple of days, I feel like having been doing really well over the last few weeks and feeling well on the road to recovery, I've slipped a bit and found myself doing more checking/googling compulsions. Getting scared I've googled something awful, wanting to see if horrible words come up on the search engine etc, wanting to look up words that sound similar/are related to horrible words because my brain says "well, maybe that will be exposure, you should do it, it'll raise your anxiety and that's exposure", or being scared someone is tracking my computer, watching me through my webcam, and I'm going to get in trouble/hurt, or something horrible is gonna pop up on my computer and I'll have no control over it. Has anyone else ever had this, or come across someone with this compulsion? Where the compulsion itself is so distressing, but you feel like you need to do it to get over a fear, only for your brain to say "okay, you've done that, now do THIS !!". The relief you get is IMMENSE and ADDICTIVE but it's so temporary. I know EVERYONE says "My OCD is different !!" but I would love to hear if anyone else has experienced this or something similar. It's like, one of my compulsions a few months ago was to try to make myself be sick (I used to have emetophobia and still have a lot of anxiety around vomiting), and just having the knowledge that I COULD make myself sick by sticking my fingers down my throat, meant that I felt compelled to do so, having strong urges to do it first with my left hand, then my right hand, then with both hands, then trying to stick them further down my throat each time, then doing it 10 times in a row uninterrupted. It sounds crazy, I know. Does that sound like OCD? Luckily, I've overcome this so I know that leaving distressing ideas alone works!

I just feel so stuck and hopeless, and honestly very depressed at the minute, doubting everyday if what I'm dealing with is even OCD. When I strip it down to the basics, it fits the OCD cycle (getting a thought, urge, word, sensation that I need to look up something, which causes distress, I then carry out the act of looking it up/checking, get temporary relief and then another thought/urge/word comes up and thus it continues). I'm also going through quite a stressful time with lots of uni deadlines so I feel like that doesn't help anything. 

Just some words of encouragement would be greatly appreciated, folks. Feeling miserable and fed up with this stupid, relentless disorder.  

[MarieJo]

Sorry to hear you're having a bad time but I believe this tough time will pass soon and you'll have some relief.

I don't have the exact same OCD as you but I do Google things as a compulsion and make myself worse. Like I will Google growing pains in a child for some relief as my son was getting leg pain then read something scary and almost puke with the sheer fear and anxiety of what the pains might be.

I also had a compulsion a while back to close my eyes whilst driving, although I fear having a car crash, and I did close my eyes. My heart was racing. Such a terrible thing yo do but i did it. OCD is so diverse in nature but wevall suffer with such anxiety and self doubt.

The fact your stressed with uni will make everything worse as stress really does make OCD so much worse.

Try to avoid the compulsions as best you can as they will keep you stuck and miserable ultimately as you already now

 Good luck xx

Edited May 2, 2021 by MarieJo

[PolarBear]

This is just typical, run of the mill OCD. Obsession >distress > compulsion > relief > repeat.

[estelle_2021]

Thank you @MarieJo and @PolarBear.

I think I'm just struggling to put into words what my experience is and I find myself getting tied in knots trying to decide if something is an exposure or a compulsion. I think I've finally found the perfect way to describe what my OCD cycle is though - I don't know if anyone is familiar with the Derren Brown kitten experiment (you can find it on youtube), where he has a woman in a room with a glass box linked up to an electrical vault, containing a kitten. There's a table in the middle of the room with a big red button that, if pressed, will send an electrical vault to the glass box and kill the kitten. The woman is given 5 minutes in the room and her job is to not press the red button. Of course, during those 5 minutes, she becomes overwhelmed with the urge to press the button, that she ends up pressing it, and thinks she has killed the kitten. At the end of the experiment, it's revealed that she didn't kill the kitten and it's perfectly safe, but by being told to not do something, and with the power of negative suggestion, her curiosity/the urge overwhelms her and she caves. It's very interesting. Anyway, I feel like that's EXACTLY how my brain operates when I get an obsession. I get an intrusive thought to do something that I know I will find distressing, but because I have the means to do it (i.e, the big red button), the urge overwhelms me and I end up giving in, as a compulsion. My heart races, my face gets hot and flushed, I experience a spike in anxiety, but then I get temporary relief, my brain remembers this good feeling of relief, and then I get another obsession. 

I don't know if any of that makes sense but that's the best analogy I can use to describe my experience! 

[Nellie]

Hi.  Your example of the kitten thing was so interesting and it makes a lot of sense to me. I think this might play some part in compulsions in general. We talk about them usually as if they're designed to get rid of uncertainty by giving us some very specific information (e.g. does someone think I did a bad thing, did I leave the tap on, etc.) But what you say here sounds like it's more to do with resolving something much more simple and basic, like "will I do it or won't I?". While we're not doing it, that is unresolved and for some reason it's uncomfortable, and it gets more uncomfortable the longer we keep paying attention to the question. But if we do it, it's completely resolved, at least until the next thing that you might or might not do comes along. Maybe that same thing could play a role in pushing us towards any kind of compulsion because once we've done it we no longer have to go through the experience of deciding whether or not to do it any more, which is some kind of a (temporary) relief.

I think I've read something related to this in a book somewhere but I can't remember where. I think it was to do with someone trying to overcome an addiction and how to some extent giving in and doing the thing they were trying to give up resolved the uncertainty about whether they would ever give in or not, and maybe that had a part to play in them giving in and doing the behaviour they actually wanted to give up.

When you ask whether the Googling etc. is an exposure or a compulsion it seems obviously a compulsion to me. I don't think we'd ever feel like we "have to" do exposures. They're simply exercises we'd choose to do in order to practise a healthy behaviour (i.e., not doing compulsions or avoidance). So e.g. as an exposure exercise, we can choose to practise doing something we'd usually avoid doing. Or we could simply choose not to practise that right now. I would say that in your case though you're feeling compelled, so even if your brain is telling you it's a chance to have an exposure to something you fear, it's still a compulsion. So maybe you're afraid of the feeling you'll get if you don't do the behaviour, and you're imagining having to go through that experience for some indefinite period of time which doesn't feel good, so you do it to get rid of that feeling, and therefore it's a compulsion. If you can decide that you just don't want to do that thing and you don't even want to engage with the idea at all, and then aim not to engage with it even when the possibility comes into your head that you will feel bad if you don't do it, then I'm guessing that would be response-prevention that you can practise instead.

Hope I've understood you right here - I'm a bit nervous giving advice on the forum still, but I feel like I know where you're coming from and that kitten example just clicked with me

[estelle_2021]

Hi, @Nellie

Thanks so much for your great response! Yes, I absolutely understand everything you're saying. I know that my googling is compulsive because I've been stuck in a cycle like this since December, where I googled a horror film I had been avoiding for years, but then one night I got the overwhelming urge to just type it in and I thought "I'll just see what the poster looks like" or "I'll just see what year it was made". And then I'd get a massive wave of relief at finally overcoming something I'd been avoiding for YEARS (even hearing the title of the film would make me run away and panic). So, in that case, I feel like it was an exposure for me, because it was like I had overcome something and realised it was never as bad as what I had made out in my head. Except, it latched, and over those following weeks I was stuck in a cycle of constantly googling horrible things on the internet that scared me, which I don't even want to mention here, but I found some really awful stuff, and it was like my brain was addicted to the relief it got from doing something. And because there's nothing physically stopping me from typing/googling, it was like I couldn't resist that urge (the red button once again!)

So yeah, it's been very distressing. And you're right, sitting with that feeling of uncertainty and not knowing how long it will last can be really uncomfortable! I even have it a bit at the minute, so sitting here on my computer is a bit of an exposure for me I feel! I think my obsessions are around urges (I also have Tourette's so sometimes it's hard to tell what is a tic and what's an obsession), and for a while I had quite bad sexuality/trans obsessions, constantly ruminating and sometimes having the urge to text/tell my mum that I'm gay or trans or something (I identify as a bisexual/queer woman). It can be really overwhelming, but thanks so much for your response! 

[estelle_2021]

Also, just to add, I feel like my OCD is reeeeeally sneaky in that it will try to tell me that by not giving in, I'm avoiding something I fear, and therefore my avoidance is a compulsion. So then I just feel so stuck in the middle, unsure of what to do, because leaving the obsession alone feels like avoidance, and giving into it, whilst it certainly does increase my anxiety (as exposures do), I get an immediate feeling of relief, and then I think to myself "what was my aim in that behaviour?" 100% of the time, it was to seek certainty, or get rid of discomfort in an urgent way, thus is compulsive. I read somewhere recently someone saying "if you enjoy doing it, it's not OCD". I certainly DON'T enjoy doing it, but I sure as hell feel like I have to to find peace. Does that make sense?

It's a nightmarish disorder, but I know that leaving things along and letting them exist without resistance really and truly does work, as I've had some good days too! It's just with stress and tiredness at the minute, I feel like the damn thing is creeping back in and tightening its grip. 

[Nellie]

3 hours ago, estelle_2021 said:

I feel like my OCD is reeeeeally sneaky in that it will try to tell me that by not giving in, I'm avoiding something I fear, and therefore my avoidance is a compulsion. So then I just feel so stuck in the middle, unsure of what to do, because leaving the obsession alone feels like avoidance, and giving into it, whilst it certainly does increase my anxiety (as exposures do), I get an immediate feeling of relief,

This might not be quite the same thing, but I've heard that sometimes people's OCD can start to get focussed on the therapy itself where they're trying to get the technique perfectly right, and it can get confusing to them knowing what counts as the treatment and what counts as the compulsion. There's an episode on the OCD Stories podcast called Two Tail Spikes where they talk about it. As I say, probably not exactly what yours is doing but just another example of how sneaky OCD can be. I think maybe "testing" compulsions are along the same lines - they might not look like a compulsion but they still are.

3 hours ago, estelle_2021 said:

I read somewhere recently someone saying "if you enjoy doing it, it's not OCD". I certainly DON'T enjoy doing it, but I sure as hell feel like I have to to find peace. Does that make sense?

I'm guessing that this "if you enjoy it, it's not OCD" idea could get rather tricky because as you say the need to do a compulsion could be so huge it might easily be confused with enjoyment - so that's maybe not always going to be a useful guide. I think we can tie ourselves in knots using rules like that because OCD can often find a loophole somewhere to keep us confused....

I was also reminded that Mark Freeman sometimes talks about OCD as having similarities to addiction (regarding compulsive urges). Do you know him? He's recovered from OCD and has lots of YouTube videos.  One in particular "OCD as an addiction" might be relevant.  (He does say in it that forums can be unhelpful because people on them can normalise compulsions but happily this particular forum doesn't do that! )

It's great that you have experience that leaving things alone can help them get better.  I expect you're a lot further along the recovery path than I am but I think I've just started to see that happen for myself after many years of struggling against letting go of the worries/compulsions and it is giving me a lot of hope. I'm sure that stress and tiredness will make you vulnerable, so stay strong and look after yourself

Edited May 3, 2021 by Nellie

[estelle_2021]

On 03/05/2021 at 20:18, Nellie said:

There's an episode on the OCD Stories podcast called Two Tail Spikes where they talk about it.

Thanks so much for this recommendation !! I listened to the ep last night and resonated with it so much. I think it's definitely the case where you feel sorta "damned if you do, damned if you don't" type thing. Learning to make a decision quickly but then taking the risk that you might be making the wrong decision and sitting with the uncertainty is really challenging! 

 

 

On 03/05/2021 at 20:18, Nellie said:

Mark Freeman

I hadn't heard of him, but thanks for alerting me to him !! I'll def have a look at his videos, he's got some really good info on his instagram page as I've just discovered! 

It's honestly such a distressing disorder. I think I've actually been struggling with it since I was a very small child, and it's just been in the last few months that it's really spiked and latched onto the most random things. The relief you get from performing compulsions really does feel addictive, and you feel like "Okay, that was the LAST one, no more compulsions now, I feel good!" until a new obsession worms its way in, disturbs your peace and you desperately want to get rid of that discomfort. Horrible, horrible cycle !