Scared to talk to my psych about ocd

[gloomwood]

Hi everyone, this is my first post here. I'm diagnosed with Bipolar and GAD, but a few months ago I came across a video of someone talking about pure OCD. I couldn't believe how close it was to my experiences throughout my life and now I'm convinced all this time it wasn't just anxiety, something was causing it. I also found out from talking to my mum that my uncle actually has it which I never knew.

I've asked my psychiatrist to give me a call Monday because I want to put it to her and get her opinion on it, but I'm really scared she's just going to dismiss it. I've been trying to keep some notes in my journal, but I'm not sure how much it will help. Any advice on what I could do to prepare or get my experiences across?

[Handy]

Why do you think you have Pure O?  It's just a made up thing. I saw an interview on YouTube with the guy that coined it & he said he just made it up that there is no medical basis behind it. Thus, OCDUK doesn't support it as far as I know.

[discuccsant]

Whether we name it ROCD, HOCD, TOCD, POCD, LOCD, Pure OCD, etc. doesn't really matter. It's just OCD in the end. And yeah, I've seen so many attempts of people to categorize their OCD themes by a different name, that I can't even catch up anymore. And I think it might be contra productive for recovery, if we're continuing doing that.

I think the core issue with that, is that by categorizing OCD themes accordingly to the intrusive thoughts the sufferer experiences, we already focused way too much on the content of the thoughts itself and also gave the thoughts some kind of importance → Thus we gave some meaningless, intrusive thoughts a meaning, which is the very core problem of OCD in itself. Focusing on the theme and thoughts, rather on OCD as a condition itself, is part of why people have troubles overcoming it. 

It's just OCD. The content of the thoughts don't matter. What matters is that we change our thought pattern regarding intrusive thoughts. 

 

[DRS1]

Hey @Handy, I'm not sure you quite understand the term Pure O and just to make clear to @gloomwood I would like to clarify it as its something I have experienced and have been treated for. The term is a misnomer. It doesn't really mean only obsessions but rather is used to explain having mainly mental compulsions. I think it can be helpful to have a label initially when learning about OCD but as discussant quite rightly says, its all OCD. However, for me at least in understanding the different facets of OCD, I did find it helpful to be able to have resources that were more related to the specific issues I went into treatment with and those resources being the Pure channel 4 series as well as the Pure book by Rose Cartwright. I only say this because I do worry that by saying Pure O doesn't exist may invalidate unintentionally a lot of people and their issues with OCD. Especially when I had my first spike, I thought (like every other person who didn't understand OCD), that I couldn't possibly have it because that would have to be handwashing or symmetry related, but of course that turned out to be completely wrong. Without having those initial Pure O focused resources I'm not sure I would have understood what condition I had.

Edited July 9, 2022 by DRS1
Typo - should've been doesn't not don't

[discuccsant]

I agree.

@gloomwood should just say to his therapist, that he suffers by anxiety from intrusive, distressing thoughts and that he does mental compulsions like ruminating, resassurance-seeking, testing, etc., which helps him to get relief for some time. This should give his therapist the idea, that he suffers OCD, and thus diagnose him accordingly. But using terms like "HOCD", "Pure O" and so on might bring unnecessarily confusion, as these terms are relatively new and more or less an internet-phenomena. 

[howard]

@gloomwood yes I agree that you should just talk to the therapist about your experiences. How your different disorders affect your thinking and your life.

Different disorders can have similar or over lapping symptoms, and affect perception.

Then let the psychiatrist make any diagnosis.

I can see that seeing OCD as a general understanding is good, and I can also see, as DRS1 says that specific labels can help those people find relevant resources.

 

[gloomwood]

Thanks everyone - just to point out I'm female. 

I appreciate those of you who've been supportive and welcoming; I used the term pure O because that's what I'd related to when I started to read about symptoms. I didn't realise it would get people's backs up by using it, I'm just trying to find words to describe what I'm experiencing and it fit.

Thank you @discuccsantfor the advice, I'll just stick to explaining the symptoms and avoid using any labels. I've been making some notes to help me remember everything!

@DRS1thanks for making me feel understood, it really helps to hear from others in the same boat.

Edited July 10, 2022 by gloomwood

[Handy]

On 09/07/2022 at 01:22, DRS1 said:

Hey @Handy, I'm not sure you quite understand the term Pure O and just to make clear to @gloomwood I would like to clarify it as its something I have experienced and have been treated for. The term is a misnomer. It doesn't really mean only obsessions but rather is used to explain having mainly mental compulsions. I think it can be helpful to have a label initially when learning about OCD but as discussant quite rightly says, its all OCD. However, for me at least in understanding the different facets of OCD, I did find it helpful to be able to have resources that were more related to the specific issues I went into treatment with and those resources being the Pure channel 4 series as well as the Pure book by Rose Cartwright. I only say this because I do worry that by saying Pure O doesn't exist may invalidate unintentionally a lot of people and their issues with OCD.

But you missed the point, the guy that coined the phrase "Pure O" says he just made it up & there is no medical basis for it . Additionally OCDUK says & I quote,

"does ‘Pure O’ exist?

Well as an online term yes, but as a form of OCD, not really, it’s merely a phrase. It’s certainly not a medically listed term, and we will try and explain why we don’t consider it a separate form of OCD."

 

Like any person

[DRS1]

On 11/07/2022 at 02:03, Handy said:

But you missed the point, the guy that coined the phrase "Pure O" says he just made it up & there is no medical basis for it . Additionally OCDUK says & I quote,

"does ‘Pure O’ exist?

Well as an online term yes, but as a form of OCD, not really, it’s merely a phrase. It’s certainly not a medically listed term, and we will try and explain why we don’t consider it a separate form of OCD."

 

Like any person

Well yes, but we can say this about pretty much any variation of the terms to describe different symptoms of OCD. As @discuccsant quite rightly said all these terms are still just OCD at the end of the day. It isn't helpful necessarily from a medical standpoint to go into your GP or into the local mental health services in your area and say I think I have Pure O or SOOCD as they could easily not understand what you mean, but in terms of describing to others with the condition and also being able to see others experience with the same sort of obsessions and compulsions and validating their own experience, I think it is invaluable. Hopefully this clarification makes more sense but I need to make clear I wasn't trying to suggest that Pure O or any variation on subtypes was an official diagnosis as a separate form of OCD. My point was more we shouldn't say these terms don't exist as they do exist as a way of describing I guess subsets of intrusive thoughts and compulsions as that could invalidate someone's experience. 

For example saying Harm OCD doesn't exist could mean someone misinterprets what you mean and thinks that the harm intrusive thoughts they are experiencing cannot be OCD and means they might not feel like they can disclose to a medical professional that they are experiencing harm intrusive thoughts and doing compulsions for the fear that there is no medical reason for why they are having these symptoms. I am slightly confused though on whether someone would see the listing of Pure O OCD, Harm OCD etc. and recognise it as a completely separate diagnosis or sub-diagnosis since all these descriptive terms do have OCD appended to them which to me was at least clear that its just describing aspects of OCD into common categories.

I'm sure we have both just misunderstood what each other were exactly meaning in our initial responses.