Is this OCD?

[early123]

Hello everyone who comes across this post,

I am very new to forums and discussing OCD in general so please bear with me. I’ll keep this sort as possible and to the point.

My name is James and I’m 28 and have suffered with OCD for as long as I can remember. It started during my childhood with the occasional checking of the tap and other similar obsessive tendencies.

As I grew up, it seemed to have subsided throughout my university years but now has come back worse than ever.

Without sounding like I should belong in a psychiatric ward; I will try my best to describe my illness as I am still unsure it is truly OCD?

The majority of the obsessiveness ranges dramatically from the typical ones such as ‘Did I leave the tap/stove/lights/TV on?’ to more ludicrous and severe thoughts such as ‘have I accidentally bumped a car when parking at a supermarket because I heard a noise?’

The strange thing is (or perhaps normal) that once a new obsession/worry has caused me more OCD/anxiety, then that almost takes precedence and I completely forget about the previous one!

So, the problem comes down to that my mind is totally obsessed and I cannot stop thinking about it to the point where I cannot enjoy life and is mentally draining. However, I do have days where I temporarily suppress it by thinking of inspirational people in my life and what they have overcome e.g. my mum.

I find that my OCD tends to spike when I want to enjoy something in particular. Almost like an auto-OCD activation to ruin my happiness.

Of course, the problems I have described above only really scratch the surface of the obscene thoughts I have. My latest obsession is, ‘have I deleted my dating profile properly?’. As you can imagine, this is annoying as I have to re-activate my profile a few times then delete again etc.

I have been putting off seeking help or advice for many years now as I felt it was something so ‘silly’ and can be overcome easily. It has got to a point now where I am tired of it taking over my thoughts and life.

I guess my objective with this is to ask you guys for advice. Is this normal OCD behaviour? Should I seek medical help or fight it on my own? Are there any coping mechanisms?

This has been hard for me to write, and I am very sorry, but I really hope there is someone who can help me.

Many thanks,

James

[DRS1]

1 minute ago, early123 said:

Hello everyone who comes across this post,

I am very new to forums and discussing OCD in general so please bear with me. I’ll keep this sort as possible and to the point.

My name is James and I’m 28 and have suffered with OCD for as long as I can remember. It started during my childhood with the occasional checking of the tap and other similar obsessive tendencies.

As I grew up, it seemed to have subsided throughout my university years but now has come back worse than ever.

Without sounding like I should belong in a psychiatric ward; I will try my best to describe my illness as I am still unsure it is truly OCD?

The majority of the obsessiveness ranges dramatically from the typical ones such as ‘Did I leave the tap/stove/lights/TV on?’ to more ludicrous and severe thoughts such as ‘have I accidentally bumped a car when parking at a supermarket because I heard a noise?’

The strange thing is (or perhaps normal) that once a new obsession/worry has caused me more OCD/anxiety, then that almost takes precedence and I completely forget about the previous one!

So, the problem comes down to that my mind is totally obsessed and I cannot stop thinking about it to the point where I cannot enjoy life and is mentally draining. However, I do have days where I temporarily suppress it by thinking of inspirational people in my life and what they have overcome e.g. my mum.

I find that my OCD tends to spike when I want to enjoy something in particular. Almost like an auto-OCD activation to ruin my happiness.

Of course, the problems I have described above only really scratch the surface of the obscene thoughts I have. My latest obsession is, ‘have I deleted my dating profile properly?’. As you can imagine, this is annoying as I have to re-activate my profile a few times then delete again etc.

I have been putting off seeking help or advice for many years now as I felt it was something so ‘silly’ and can be overcome easily. It has got to a point now where I am tired of it taking over my thoughts and life.

I guess my objective with this is to ask you guys for advice. Is this normal OCD behaviour? Should I seek medical help or fight it on my own? Are there any coping mechanisms?

This has been hard for me to write, and I am very sorry, but I really hope there is someone who can help me.

Many thanks,

James

So probably just to start with, it's normal for OCD to have a flavour of the week/month. Especially when whatever that obsession is can get you to do more compulsions. Also the things you have listed aren't abnormal within OCD because OCD can be about nearly anything.

 

OCD isn't something that is trivial to get over. It's definitely not like a switch you can just turn off, it takes learning how to react differently to obsessions and that can take a while. I hope you allow yourself to not feel like it's something that's easy to get over and instead can look at it as something you've done well to have dealt with for so long but also something that can be treated.

 

From your post, OCD is clearly getting in the way of doing what you want to do in life and that's very much the norm for most of us with OCD before we got treatment. 

 

I would recommend trying to get help for it as I found personally having someone who knew OCD inside and out as well as the ways to combat it and really just someone that was outside of my own head was invaluable. 

 

I wouldn't say there is coping mechanisms as such as we may want to avoid things like compulsive reassurance seeking but there is Exposure and Response Prevention that you will learn  to use in response instead of doing compulsions. This is the biggest thing we really have in our arsenal to deal with OCD.

 

Also another thing to point out is the way in which you look at this. You apologise for the post, but why? OCD can be so hard to deal with and you've posted on a forum that is full of others just like yourself. You are not your OCD. Separating OCD as something separate to you that you have to deal with can be so helpful.

 

So please do not apologise for anything when it comes to OCD. Be kind to yourself. I think it's great that you've been able to make this post and hopefully you get a lot from it.

 

Final thing to mention is if you aren't sure about how to go about accessing treatment, the people at OCD-UK would be a great choice to get that information from. People like @Ashley and @Gemma@OCDUK from the charity will be on the forums frequently too but the community also have a lot of regulars that will respond to posts as you may have seen. 

 

Welcome to the community and if you have any further questions then don't feel afraid to ask. Hope this helps

 

[OB1UK]

Hi James, if it helps I can relate to everything you just said.