Ocd and feelings

[Ma29]

Hi Everyone,

As some of you may know, I’ve been suffering from postnatal ocd for since late last year. Themes have mainly been around fear of harm / contamination and fear of being inappropriate towards baby whilst doing normal activities. 
 

I have had a good few weeks recently however  my monthly cycle tends to trigger an increase in severity of the ocd. 
 

I would like to get some advice. 
 

Ocd has recently been trying to play on my feelings / intentions. Feelings: sometimes it gives me feelings that I want something to happen which causes me anxiety. Or sometimes the intrusive thought is ‘you have a bad intention to do x’ or sometimes it’s intention and feeling it plays on at the same time. Can this happen? it sometimes even feels real which is so scary.

A few examples of what happened yesterday.

1. Holding baby and he’s doing the poo and is making a sound as though he’s constipated and ocd somehow makes some weird connection and makes me ‘feel’ like I like the sound in a wrong way. 
 

2. Bringing baby down the stairs and as I’m hyper aware of my groin area, I notice baby bops up and down and touched my groin area whilst coming down the stairs and I don’t like that, then ocd tries to trick me into telling me I did it on purpose, then I get stuck in that thought.
 

3. Whilst I change his nappy feelings thoughts and thoughts about intention - you wiped to hard, you touched this, you shouldn’t have done the last wipe, you have bad intention.

5. Getting him out of the car, picked him up from the car seat and ocd making me fearful of his nappy area touching my groin and again doubting whether this happened and whether I did this on purpose ect.

6. His dad handing him over to me and again fear of his groin area touching my area and again ruminating if this happened and or if I did it on purpose. 
 

7. Trying to put baby asleep in my arms whilst standing up and ocd  gives intrusive thought of wanting to move my groin area so it touches baby bottom and the more I stay in the same position the more likely I feel like I’m going to move and the feeling that I want to move. 
 

8. Baby sleeping next to me, I have a nap to. He wakes up and so do I, I notice my hand or body move slightly and get worried and then can’t remember what happened ect. Why did I move my hand or where was my hand ect.

It’s basically playing on my feelings of want and intention when I don’t want these things. But then because I experience the feeling I start questioning it and then it makes me feel awful and bad and it just gets worse. And now I feel really guilty like I’ve done something terrible. I hate it. 

Can ocd present this way and be really confusing to the sufferer??? Especially when it plays around feelings and then you start to think omg am I actually that person, do I actually enjoy this thing I’m most fearful off ect ect? I hate it. 
 

I’m  scared - how do I move past this? 

[MarieJo]

Ocd does act in this way and ocd is always confusing to the sufferer. Not only confusing but terrifying. The ONLY way to break the cycle is to stop ruminating. It sounds so simple but it's the truth. I had ocd similar to this when my eldest was a baby plus harm ocd. I thought about dropping him, touching him, hurting him, dunking him under the bath water, etc etc. Never hurt a hair on his head nor his 2 siblings. I still have ocd now but know that ruminating and buying into the bullsh"t makes it so much worse. I often find myself ruminating but then consciously stop (if I can do it after 40 years of suffering you can do it). It helps. Stupid torturing thoughts go away. I still sufferer as my ocd morphed to my kids safety whilst out but I am working on my checking compulsions ie calling and texting them.  Ocd will get worse and does get worse, bigger like a snowball unless you stop turning the snowball in the snow adding to it's size. Leave it alone.

[PolarBear]

Ma, are you going to post an exhaustive list every time you experience an obsession? You've done this a number if times. Is this OCD? Is this still OCD? Can OCD di this?

It's all about uncertainty and your need for reassurance. Try to ride these things out.

[Handy]

Intrusive thoughts surface more if you’re tired & having a baby makes people tired. Rest, take a nap. From talking to other moms with this they were all on coffee. On coffee intrusive thoughts are going to surface more. Just get more rest. 

[Ma29]

Sorry I’ve not been back on here @Handy @PolarBearand @MarieJo .

I really appreciate your replies and taking the time out to help Me. 
 

When reading my post from Tuesday I can see how irrational I was being as my mind has now had time to relax and so I can see much more clearly. It’s really difficult to rationalise when the intrusive thoughts / obsessions / are raw. It’s almost like I need a ‘cooling off’ after the obsession has occurred in order to look at this from a more rational perspective.

On 06/05/2022 at 03:12, Handy said:

From talking to other moms with this they were all on coffee.

@Handy Thank you, luckily I’m not a heavy coffee drinker.

 

On 03/05/2022 at 20:43, MarieJo said:

I often find myself ruminating but then consciously stop (if I can do it after 40 years of suffering you can do it). It helps. Stupid torturing thoughts go away. I still sufferer as my ocd morphed to my kids safety whilst out but I am working on my checking compulsions ie calling and texting them.  Ocd will get worse and does get worse, bigger like a snowball unless you stop turning the snowball in the snow adding to it's size. Leave it alone.

Thanks @MarieJo. I’m sorry you’ve had to cope with ocd for such a long time. I hope that you can see how strong and resilient you are despite what a big challenge this is/was for you. As a mother, having obsessions about your children is incredibly tough. They say ocd plays on what you love the most which makes complete sense. 

[ocd veteran]

As Mariejo says "STOPPING RUMINATING IS THE KEY". The more you ruminate the more you feed the Fear. You may need to just cut down on Rumination to begin with as you might not be able to do it all at once. But try at the very least to Ruminate less and less every day.

[Lynz]

Hi Ma, I'm sure I've asked this before but are you under the perinatal mental health team?

[Ma29]

Thanks everyone

@Lynz I have had an absolutely horrible experience getting under the perinatal team. I was automatically not seen as a tier 4 patient and so was not prioritised to see a psychologist OR to receive CBT. I was judged because I refused to go to a mother and baby unit as I had family with me at home and so they didn’t think I was bad enough to be under their care. It’s been horrendous. After months of not being taken seriously I lost it at them and finally got to speak to a psychiatrist and the head of psychology who apologised for the way the perinatal team had treated me to date. 
I start therapy sessions next week. 
Due to the above, I have had to pay for private CBT therapy since December which has obviously cost me a lot of money, we are talking over £1k - not how I thought I’d be using my savings but I was in a terrible place, feeling suicidal and something needed to be done.

Sorry for the rant