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mentions of self harm, insomnia 
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I’m having a bit of a crisis. I feel sick just even writing this.

So I have OCD. I identified it back in 2019 and it was centred on my relationship with my husband. My brain kept telling me I didn’t love him anymore, that I had to leave. This was so distressing because I absolutely love my husband, he’s my world, so my brain effectively bullying me was absolutely horrendous.

I went to hospital as a day patient, and last year had an extensive course of CBT. I’ve managed to taper down the ROCD thoughts to little snapshots every month or so. Still awful, but manageable and I knew that I’d eventually turn a corner and feel better in a week or so.

However, the horrible nature of OCD is that it can morph into something else. 

My dad hasn’t been very well, and today he is going to a neurologist to be assessed for Parkinson’s disease. This has obviously caused a lot of anguish for myself and my parents, my mum is struggling a lot with it all too. On Sunday night when I was in bed I had a cry about it. That resulted in me not being able to get to sleep for ages, which stressed me out because it was the first day back at school and I needed to get up to take my son. I should also add that I had stayed up quite late in the holidays (till like 1 o’clock) because I didn’t need to awake at a specific time. 

On Monday I had a stupid intrusive thought saying ‘well if you didn’t sleep last night of course you won’t tonight’ and since then going to sleep has been horrendous. I’m dreading bed time. My usual method of reading till I fell asleep hasn’t worked on any of the days since, because I’m on high alert for signs of tiredness. When I do feel tired my brain seems to switch back on again. I’m absolutely freaking out. Sleep has always been something I’ve loved and has been relatively easy for me to achieve.  I’m now scared it’ll be like this forever, because with my ROCD, my brain never fully returned to normal. 
My husband has offered to take my son in the mornings so I don’t have to worry about the getting up if I’m tired, but I feel so guilty for that and it still doesn’t help.
I’m aware I’m catastrophising (it’s been 4 days so far) but that is what my brain does, it goes from 0-1000mph in a split second. 
I can’t afford private therapy and I dread to think what the waiting list is for the NHS is at the min. I’ve done done digging online for ocd and insomnia, one therapist said that the idea of getting up after 20 mins if you can’t sleep just wakes you up even more. 
I feel like I’m being attacked from my brain and I’m so tired of it. I’d never commit suicide because I love my family so much, but I just want to escape from myself and there is no escape. I don’t know why I’m putting all this down. And I don’t know if this is a form of reassurance either, I just feel so alone. 

Edited by snowbear
Trigger warning removed - we don't use them on the forums
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Hi @Heather Powell

Welcome to the forum. I don't have experience with insomnia but wanted to reply due to your final sentence above. You're not alone: even if our symptoms are not the same we have people here on the forum that understand OCD :) And you've tackled this before, stay strong, you can do this!

I'm not personally sure how to tackle this one. Are there any compulsions associated with sleeping, that you could eradicate - like tackling this via ERP?

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