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how does someone become an ex-sufferer exactly


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i was always wondering how someone like @PolarBear was able to successfully become a complete ocd ex-sufferer. Yes, I understand its because you cant act on your intrusive thoughts and react off your compulsions. But, how do you become a lifelong ex-sufferer, and completely beat it? I have vastly improved and thats with medication and cbt and confidence in myself, and my daily life and trusting the path im chosen to be on, BUT i still dont know how someone with ocd doesnt get any jolts of anexity and aggressive thoughts to that level, even if they overcome it fast, or do ex-sufferers still get the thoughts but just blow them off the second they hit 

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Personally I do still occasionally get the intrusive thoughts and sudden jolts of anxiety but thanks to spending many years persisting with what I've learnt in CBT I am now able to dismiss the thoughts as nonsense and they end up not bothering me and the anxiety quickly dissipates.

It really is down to consistent practice though and there's no easy way that I've found anyway to get around that. But the good news is practice really does make perfect and the more you persist with it then the freer you will become from OCD.

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1 hour ago, Lynz said:

Personally I do still occasionally get the intrusive thoughts and sudden jolts of anxiety but thanks to spending many years persisting with what I've learnt in CBT I am now able to dismiss the thoughts as nonsense and they end up not bothering me and the anxiety quickly dissipates.

It really is down to consistent practice though and there's no easy way that I've found anyway to get around that. But the good news is practice really does make perfect and the more you persist with it then the freer you will become from OCD.

im headed more to that then not at this point. I realize my thoughts and worries randomly popping up and worst case thinking is all just my compulsions and i learned more so how to idenfity it for what it is, because its just a circulation of random thoughts in different negative ways on the same topics that usually work out fine or are completely manageable fast. I just feel even without ocd, people have silly thoughts and actions, and they just overcome it within minutes, but i guess thats the same as an ex sufferer

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9 hours ago, Kcbell92 said:

i was always wondering how someone...... was able to successfully become a complete ocd ex-sufferer.

It is something I wonder about also.  Last year in the member's section I asked the question 'How do we defiine recovery?'  Different contributers to the thread gave good answers to how they personally saw their recovery. However the definitive answer is still for me yet to found.  Is there a definitive answer?

Likewise, to say one is an ex-sufferer and how we define that is for me is still a big question.  Is there a definitive answer to that?

In the meantime I am happy that I am in a better place than I was 2 years ago and OCD has lessened it's grip on me.

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I had many more episodes of ocd in the past than I do now.  

The things that helped me are using Inositol, just 1,500mg.  The literature says a lot more is needed, but I find it really helped me and so I take it.  

Another thing is not having too much gluten, especially in bread.  I find if I've eaten a lot of bread I'll notice ocd bubbling away.  Really.

 

Doing the CBT and exposure and response prevention definitely helped too.

And aside from that, these days I just don't go there.  I make that sound easy.  I know it's not.  But I think experience over time means that I can usually pick it up and put it back on the shelf, and allow myself to move on with my day and not get caught up in thought loops.  It means accepting that the thoughts are irrelevant, the content of them, that is, and it's the anxiety that is the clue that this is ocd.  

At the moment I'm struggling but that's because I've been ill and some of my ocd is around that.  But recognising it as ocd is a big part of dampening down the flare up.

Hope some of that helps 🙂

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They can be in  denial that they have OCD.   PB takes a lot of OCD medication & has for decades.  

If one is on OCD medication, doesn't that logically assume they have OCD?  One doesn't take OCD medication because they have high blood pressure, do they?

Being off all OCD medication & then not having OCD, would make more sense.

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8 minutes ago, Handy said:

They can be in  denial that they have OCD.   PB takes a lot of OCD medication & has for decades.  

If one is on OCD medication, doesn't that logically assume they have OCD?  One doesn't take OCD medication because they have high blood pressure, do they?

Being off all OCD medication & then not having OCD, would make more sense.

The way I define it for myself is not whether I have OCD or not but whether I actually "suffer" from it.

At the moment I don't actually "suffer" from it as it doesn't bother me at all. I wouldn't go so far as saying I'm "cured" because for all I know I could relapse at some point. But because I don't actually suffer from it at present then I class myself as an ex-sufferer.

I don't take any meds at all but rely on CBT principles to keep me "in remission" so to speak.

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11 minutes ago, Lynz said:

I'm "cured"

This is another phrase I would add to recovery and ex-sufferer as I stated earlier.  When I Iook at these phrases they all can be quite ambiguous and I still dont see any definitive meaning in them.  Each of the phrases will probably mean something different to many people.

I just accept that I am living with OCD.

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I think factors like length of time a person has had OCD issues and the severity are important. If it suddenly started for some reason then I imagine someone would like to return to what they previously saw as 'normal'. If it's so severe it seriously impedes someones life then they would seek some recovery.

I was thinking about that thread 'I hate OCD', and while I totally respect the poster's point of view in their situation, I don't hate OCD.

I mentioned before that I grew up in a chaotic and sometimes violent family. So OCD started early as a coping mechanism for me, a small bubble of control around me of order which saved me. I really don't know any different, still need to line up objects, minimal and clean environment, washing hands a lot, like to know I'm in control of finances, well stocked food, etc.

I plan everything to the last detail so that I won't have any anxiety. It's a bit too much sometimes and I do quite like the idea of some unforeseen problem as a challenge to my control.

It only really becomes a problem when I'm stressed and I start over checking switches are off, taps are off, etc, even though I know they are(which is the bit that bugs me. I knew the switch was off the second time I checked, but still go back a third and fourth time), then I get help.

I'm also concerned about germs and contamination, but again it means I rarely get ill and for example started wearing a mask(three layer sealed around face type) and  gloves in March 2020. I don't believe I caught covid so again I think it saved me.

I certainly wouldn't take medication for it.

I think I see it as part of my personality, I don't feel like I'm 'suffering' and to me that acceptance brings me peace. I also think in some fields like science and that arts obsessional thinking and perfectionism can be utilised.

I do remember seeing my son start to copy some of my obsessions though and had to point out that it wasn't necessary for him. I also told him that if he felt he had an obsessional nature, to find positive things to focus that on. Gaming was one, but he also carves wooden figures all the time.

 

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Lest we forget in 2013 many millions were cured of OCD in 2013 in that hoarding was no longer classified as OCD under the DSM classification system. Mind you hoarders now had their own classification. OCD is part of a classification system.
 

The boundaries of the disorder change over time. I wonder if there is an overlap with the category of delusional disorder where a patient believes that their obsessions are about true about things in the environment when others consider the content of the obsessions bear no relation to empirical  reality. I reckon that people with OCD know that their obsessions are over the top or they have insight.
 

Mental illnesses unlike physical illnesses do not have biological markers. So a diagnosis is made by a standard questionnaire or clinical interview. Whether we have OCD with regards the standard questionnaires depends on a score.  We have to score above a certain threshold to be diagnosed as having OCD. If you score goes down by a significant amount then you are cured of OCD. All research on OCD use the standard questionnaires.
 

Most people I reckon do not do the standard questionnaires nor have a clinical interview but depend on a far shorter questionnaire used for example those used in IAPT. 

Psychiatry defines a cure as the absence of symptoms or more practically as a substantial reduction in symptoms. Recovery means that we still may have symptoms but can still live a fulfilling life with the symptoms or some of them. For me recovery is also about time. You spend substantially less time being obsessed or feeling an urge to be compulsions. Also for me stressors in the environment can cause relapses.

Edited by Angst
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I usually get into problems straight away because I dislike filling out those questionaires(if it's the type I've been given with multiple choice answers).

The questions themselves, I just find difficult to give a fixed answer to.

I often just think they judge how well your therapy has gone by comparing your answers each time you go back, but there could be other factors like just how you feel on that day. They just seem like a 'blunt instrument' approach.

But some good points @Angst.

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23 minutes ago, howard said:

I usually get into problems straight away because I dislike filling out those questionaires(if it's the type I've been given with multiple choice answers).

The questions themselves, I just find difficult to give a fixed answer to.

I often just think they judge how well your therapy has gone by comparing your answers each time you go back, but there could be other factors like just how you feel on that day. They just seem like a 'blunt instrument' approach.

But some good points @Angst.

But it how the system works. And yes there is a comparison of your answers week by week. The success rates of therapy are measured by your response to questionnaires. The real problem, as I see it, is that there is no long term monitoring of your response to therapy. In comparison, a person’s response to cancer treatment is followed up over the years by consultations and biological tests. Things like heart conditions are monitored too as well as diabetes. That way the patient is cared for and we have data on success rates. At the very least there should be a follow up after six months and then every few years. Just having a person listening to your woes for a period of time could raise your morale. This could be a confounding factor in measuring treatment success. But I think the funding would not be granted. What I think is needed in mental health treatment is long term tracking of a person’s life experiences. Or at least a sample should be tracked.

Edited by Angst
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3 hours ago, Angst said:

Recovery means that we still may have symptoms but can still live a fulfilling life with the symptoms or some of them. For me recovery is also about time. You spend substantially less time being obsessed or feeling an urge to be compulsions. Also for me stressors in the environment can cause relapses.

Thankyou Angst.  That is similar to how I see my recovery and yes, my relapses are certainly related to environmental stressors (COVID lockdown was a prime example of that).

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1 hour ago, Angst said:

But it how the system works. And yes there is a comparison of your answers week by week. The success rates of therapy are measured by your response to questionnaires. The real problem, as I see it, is that there is no long term monitoring of your response to therapy. In comparison, a person’s response to cancer treatment is followed up over the years by consultations and biological tests. Things like heart conditions are monitored too as well as diabetes. That way the patient is cared for and we have data on success rates. At the very least there should be a follow up after six months and then every few years. Just having a person listening to your woes for a period of time could raise your morale. This could be a confounding factor in measuring treatment success. But I think the funding would not be granted. What I think is needed in mental health treatment is long term tracking of a person’s life experiences. Or at least a sample should be tracked.

Yes but I have to keep my rebel credentials🙂

When I spoke to the head of mental health services about getting some help and told her I disliked those questionaires, she said no problem, I'll just ask you a few quick questions and get you an appointment. The counselling service also didn't bother me with the questionaires.

I think a good therapist should just by talking to you be able to judge your present mental state and over the course of the therapy judge if you are improving.

Yes you are right they don't continue to monitor and support people. But then they do need to take people's mental heallth problems a lot more seriously.

There have always been some underlying attitudes in this country about mental health problems, 'stiff upper lip' nonsense, which have fed into that lack of real support.

Edited by howard
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On 18/03/2023 at 04:51, Kcbell92 said:

i was always wondering how someone like @PolarBear was able to successfully become a complete ocd ex-sufferer. Yes, I understand its because you cant act on your intrusive thoughts and react off your compulsions. But, how do you become a lifelong ex-sufferer, and completely beat it? I have vastly improved and thats with medication and cbt and confidence in myself, and my daily life and trusting the path im chosen to be on, BUT i still dont know how someone with ocd doesnt get any jolts of anexity and aggressive thoughts to that level, even if they overcome it fast, or do ex-sufferers still get the thoughts but just blow them off the second they hit 

Speaking only for me, being an ex-sufferer is more than not doing compulsions. It meant a wholesale change in the way I think, too. I had to teach myself to think differently, and not just about Intrusive thoughts.

I am on meds that help a lot with overall anxiety. When I get an intrusive thought, which is rare, I don't get that scary jolt of anxiety. I trained my brain not to freak out over obsessions.

Yes, I immediately ignore obsessions when they do arise. I'm very good at it. It comes from a whole lot of practice.

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On 18/03/2023 at 05:37, Lynz said:

Personally I do still occasionally get the intrusive thoughts and sudden jolts of anxiety but thanks to spending many years persisting with what I've learnt in CBT I am now able to dismiss the thoughts as nonsense and they end up not bothering me and the anxiety quickly dissipates.

It really is down to consistent practice though and there's no easy way that I've found anyway to get around that. But the good news is practice really does make perfect and the more you persist with it then the freer you will become from OCD.

All very true. Worded wonderfully.

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On 18/03/2023 at 16:39, Handy said:

They can be in  denial that they have OCD.   PB takes a lot of OCD medication & has for decades.  

If one is on OCD medication, doesn't that logically assume they have OCD?  One doesn't take OCD medication because they have high blood pressure, do they?

Being off all OCD medication & then not having OCD, would make more sense.

Oh how you twist things.

I don't believe I've said I don't have OCD. It's not apparent. I choose to call myself an ex-sufferer because I do not suffer from OCD.

I have not taken a lot of OCD meds for decades. (Where do you come up with this stuff?) I have been on high dose SSRI and a minor dose of an antipsychotic for 8.5 years. These were to help me with disabling depression, high anxiety and OCD. These were three separate diagnoses.

 

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1 hour ago, PolarBear said:

being an ex-sufferer is more than not doing compulsions. It meant a wholesale change in the way I think, too. I had to teach myself to think differently, and not just about Intrusive thoughts.

When I get an intrusive thought, which is rare, I don't get that scary jolt of anxiety. I trained my brain not to freak out over obsessions.

Yes, I immediately ignore obsessions when they do arise. I'm very good at it. It comes from a whole lot of practice.

:goodpost:

Exactly what Polar Bear said. :yes:

Overcoming OCD to become an 'ex-sufferer' is a matter of changing how you think and behave.

You do this by not giving intrusive thoughts meaning or value, training your brain to react differently and then also not doing  compulsions.

 

In my opinion changing your thinking and how you react in your thoughts is the most important part. Get that right and stopping the compulsions comes naturally (and relatively easily) thereafter. :)

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I wouldn't call myself an" ex-sufferer" but what i would say is my recovery over the last 3 years has been to a degree i never thought was possible compared to the very slow but definite progress i had during the previous 35 years of my recovery. The 9 years previous to that when i first started with OCD  was like a complete OCD nightmare i had no control of.

My recovery originally started with me seeing a Fantastic Physiatrist, learning to do the right things and medication that i have been on for 28 years. The off the scale recovery over the last 3 years is since i discovered Ali Greymond Videos.

 

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7 hours ago, snowbear said:

Overcoming OCD to become an 'ex-sufferer' is a matter of changing how you think and behave.

 

I agree with the principle of what you say but it still leaves the term 'ex-sufferer' open to a wide variety of interpretation.  The definition of recovery as Angst described earlier (and I agree with) has at best a rather vague and ambiguous meaning.

The claim to be an 'ex-sufferer' could also be misused.  Why does someone want to use the term ex-sufferer when the interpretation of the term is so ambiguous?

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1 hour ago, northpaul said:

I agree with the principle of what you say but it still leaves the term 'ex-sufferer' open to a wide variety of interpretation.  The definition of recovery as Angst described earlier (and I agree with) has at best a rather vague and ambiguous meaning.

The claim to be an 'ex-sufferer' could also be misused.  Why does someone want to use the term ex-sufferer when the interpretation of the term is so ambiguous?

Does it really matter what people who have OCD use as a label to describe for them how they feel about where they are at with it? We shouldn't be putting everyone in the living with OCD box if some feel like they are in recovery, or ex-sufferers. Even living with OCD can be just as ambiguous. What does that actually mean. I think that means something different for everyone. To one person that could be still really struggling with it but for others could mean they have the condition but aren't as impacted as they were before.

 

We should be letting people choose how they want to describe where they are at, not trying to put any limitations on that simply because it reads as ambiguous to others. We have all been through enough with OCD, I think we get to choose how we describe our progress by our own terms, not those dictated by anyone else.

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I like this idea that being an ex sufferer doesn't mean you no longer have OCD, but you no longer suffer because of it. That doesn't mean you will never get intrusive thoughts again. Intrusive thoughts are part of normal life and everybody gets them, everybody has some irrational fears or anxiety about something. I guess that most people just understand that these are irrational and are able to move on and not get into the downward spiral that we get into.

What I personally struggle with is that I am sometimes completely able to do this, and at other times, the thoughts I was able to dismiss become crippling. What is it that happens in the day to day interim that changes how we deal with things, I don't really know, but it makes me feel a lot less in control.

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I think some of us get complacent once we start to "feel better" after a relapse or anxiety period. That makes us go back to unhelpful ways of thinking in other areas and let our guard down. I think it may help to constantly see ourselves "in recovery" and keeping up the therapeutic work even after the strong anxiety fades. 

I've noticed my themes can evolve or change over time catching me off guard so I've decided to try and live a lifestyle of accepting I have an ongoing anxiety battle and keep trying to practice living with uncertainty and allow the anxiety and what if's to be there...not easy though!

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Something I've been thinking about and it links into this idea of being 'ex sufferer'(and I think @DRS1 has stated it above as well as some good points about 'labels'). (Labelling actually seems like an OCD thing to do).

This idea of 'is this normal?', 'I just want to be normal(ie: an ex-sufferer)', 'why can't I act in a normal way like other people?', because of course you can't, there is no such thing.

Obviously we are all physically different and psychologically different and therefor unique. If we learn to accept that, and just be ourselves then there is less anxiety about trying to conform to something that doesn't exist.

I mean I accept there are; conventions, accepted ways of living or behaving, even rules and laws, but even many of those are arbitrary.

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3 hours ago, DRS1 said:

Does it really matter what people who have OCD use as a label to describe for them how they feel about where they are at with it? We shouldn't be putting everyone in the living with OCD box if some feel like they are in recovery, or ex-sufferers. Even living with OCD can be just as ambiguous. What does that actually mean. I think that means something different for everyone. To one person that could be still really struggling with it but for others could mean they have the condition but aren't as impacted as they were before.

 

We should be letting people choose how they want to describe where they are at, not trying to put any limitations on that simply because it reads as ambiguous to others. We have all been through enough with OCD, I think we get to choose how we describe our progress by our own terms, not those dictated by anyone else.

:goodpost:

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