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  2. PolarBear
    This. This right here needs to be sent to every sufferer the world over. Totally truthful and great analogy. Well done.
  3. PolarBear
    ERP is easy with what you've described. The exposure is to tell yourself you did do the feared thing. You can go further and list all the bad resulting consequences.
  4. PolarBear
    You do realize that you just walked into the OCD trap. You took the thought seriously and analyzed it. There's a compulsion. Now you are wracking your brain, trying to remember. Another compulsion. Round and round you'll go, with no solution evident. The only way out of the trap is stop doing the compulsions. Let it go.
  5. PolarBear
    Sufferers do compulsions for two reasons: to prevent a bad thing from happening or to relieve the distress caused by obsessions. I suspect one of your big compulsions is checking. Some people call it testing. You set up a thought or situation in your mind then check what your reaction is. Deep down you likely hope your reaction is negative, which would give you reassurance that you are not what you fear. That in turn would make your anxiety go down and make you feel better. See? Two problems with this. First, you aren't really in control over your emotions and physical sensations. You might wish to react a certain way but your mind can decide something else. It is not confirmation that you are anything. Second, because you have OCD, no amount of checking is enough. It doesn't matter what the check reveals... OCD will require you to check again and again.
  6. OCDhavenobrain
    This is just general whine. NOW he wants me to dig it UP, well why in the.... do you pour it out if you have to dig it up either way. I mean if he wasn't my dad I would just look the other way. Is it normal for a person who only is 65+ to be this way? Also, I have told him many times that the garden have to go because nobody is taking care of it. I guess it is his overuse of alcohol who makes some damage to him but that is not possible to tell him. Just some whine on the topic. I really hate that I have had this condition for so long, why do i not have a normal life.. edit: Don't do alcohol. I know I won't touch it, too many alcoholics in the family for me to touch it for just once in my life. Nope i will NOT do that.
  7. MentalChecker
    And I'm trying to remember the moment I checked it and said 'fine' and can't recall the moment therefore I feel like I need to recheck it again.....
  8. Today
  9. MentalChecker
    Alex I understand where your coming from as I've had similar worries. All my worries are before this moment in time, not about the present, not about the future, but only before this moment in time. Therefore how can we use exposure and response prevention if it's not something we can ever prove if it will come true or not? Because we are worried if it has already happened right? And in our situation there is NEVER anyway of knowing it.....therefore it means living a life full of worry unless we can find a way of forgetting about the worry? But why would you want to forget about something so serious? However, I was speaking to somebody a few months ago with my mate (none of my mates know I have OCD) and we were just talking in general and my mate happened to mention that they get worried when they get home after driving that they may have gone through a red light or too quickly through a speed camera and they may get points and a fine through the post. And they would then start to back track through the drive thinking about it trying to recall jumping any red lights of seeing any speed cameras go off and they can't and it then makes them worse with worry. And the other person then said 'you can't remember what you haven't done....' and that really hit home with me and I said to him that sounds very psychological where did that come from and he said he did a course in phycology..... There you have it, you can't remember what didn't happen, no matter how much you try to get the feeling that it didn't happen, your trying to disprove something that didn't happen and you can't because it didn't happen in the first place.....
  10. rachel23
    Thank you for your response. Why does it have to be so hard? It’s like living though a nightmare. I’ve recovered before and been nearly completely free of ocd but this time feels worse and scarier and I just can’t seem to stop doing compulsions that I know I’m not supposed to do. I don’t even know why I’m doing them, I’m not trying to prevent anything bad from happening, i don’t even know what the reason is to why I’m doing them. To feel better in the short term I guess but when I get unwanted feeling from analysing the thoughts, I feel even worse. I just wish I could magic this away, such a cruel and unfair thing to have to go through. Sorry for being negative .
  11. rachel23
    Thank you for all your responses. The paper doesn’t reference this. It states that if people have ocd then if they develop a paraphilia, they can use ocd compulsions as a way to cancel out, Supress their fantasies. This has scared me so much.i often test how I feel about a thought because I have felt aroused in the past about it, as in emotionally aroused. But then I question whether the arousal is true because I don’t feel that way when I’m well and free of ocd, I’m not enjoying thinking about the thoughts (but then I do feel excitment/arousal) at some point, I don’t masturbate about these thoughts. But then I start to think , would I masturbate about them if I didn’t feel bad about them? Then I wonder if it’s all just my brain playing tricks on me, convincing me that I find them arousing because I don’t want to. It’s all just really really exhausting and I wish I was free of this dreadful problem I have. What do you mean Ashley? What are these specialist ocd clinics? I’m seeing an experience therapist in ocd and have had previous treatment with ocd specialist. Just feeling really down and low with treatment and reading ocd books. I’m just getting worse, no better. Im still carrying out so many compulsions but I’m just so scared to give them up but not because I think anything bad is going to happen or anything is going to change. I’m so confused and my mind is just so mixed up. I’m so scared about who I am.
  12. Gemma7
    Yes i get it. That's what happens after all OCD checks.
  13. felix4
    I wouldn't say that either are an easy fix? My experience of SSRI's has been to only take the edge off of symptoms, and with regards to CBT, I think severity is a huge factor! Having progressed, I can almost see a correlation with the two, so perhaps you are talking about OCD in its mildest form there, Handy.
  14. MentalChecker
    Hi Gemma thank you for your response. I'm pretty sure the memory is real but being worried about it/my response to it wasn't warranted. Hence why when I thought about it I realised it was 'fine'. But do you get that when you think about something and realise it's 'fine' and then afterwards worry that maybe you didn't check it thoroughly enough or if you even checked it at all or really did conclude it was 'fine'?
  15. Gemma7
    Yes I've had this. Remember an intrusive memory is just a thought like any other, no matter how vivid. Checking to see if the memory was real or not was a compulsion, you declared it fine, then have doubt over whether it really was fine. This is typical OCD. You can never know whether the memory is real or not 100%, but you have to look at what it seems like, which is OCD and act accordingly. Stop checking and trying to make sure, it will only lead to more doubt and make you more muddled. You have to take a leap of faith that your brain just made something up because that is most likely. When it comes to memories you have to trust you acted appropriately at any given time and leave the past in the past. That's the only way to stop OCD popping more supposed memories into your head.
  16. MentalChecker
    I was doing so well until last night.... Last night a memory came into my mind that worried me and it made me break into a hot sweat until I eventually gave into it and analysed it in an attempt to reassure myself. To be honest the problem I have is I don't know if this memory is real or not. The subject matter I. E the time and scenario its from is around 6 months ago. Therefore if it is a real memory then it's weird how it's only just started bothering me now? But then I worry maybe I missed it back then and that's why it's only recently started bothering me? I took it on board and looked at worst case scenario of it being real and thought about it twice last night and realised that it's 'fine', a word I say to myself after checking meaning it's nothing to worry about. But now I'm thinking whether I did really think about it properly as I remember the first time wasn't a full on 'fine' but I think the second time it was.... But I'm worried whether the second one was a proper 'fine' and if I really did think about it thoroughly enough and really did come to the conclusion of it being 'fine'.... Anybody else get this?
  17. Gemma7
    Hi Mia So all the checking online about personalities is a compulsion that you need to stop. OCD is just trying to get you to be 100% sure of something that it is impossible to be sure of. What you can guarantee is doing all the checking will make you feel a lot worse and make OCD bad again. It can be hard when you overcome some OCD problems to not just shift to worrying about something else. What you need to realise, which i think you're beginning to, is that worrying about things doesn't ever help, it only generates more worry. Try focusing more on the present and enjoying yourself now and not focus on what might never happen in the future. Look out for signs of OCD, like anxiety and doubt and fight the urge to buy into the fears with compulsions. Have you had CBT? Have you got any notes you made in the past to refer back to, to remind yourself of the tools you learnt. Gemma
  18. taurean
    Can you do this by creating a separate topic please Handy?
  19. leil
    I’ve always suffered from responsibility OCD in the sense that if I think I’ve made a mistake, no matter how small, I’ll obsess over the potential catastrophic consequences of it and ruminate/replay the scenario over and over in my head. I’ve been learning to keep this in check with the support of my counselling psychologist. Lately I’m finding that I’m starting to doubt my own memory of things (mainly when it comes to driving), wondering if something bad happened that I’ve missed or if I’m mis-remembering things. It’s always after stressful scenarios ie someone came shooting out of a side road the other day so I had to brake and go around her. I know the road ahead was clear but afterwards I started doubting this and wondering if I nearly hit a car etc. This memory doubting is something I’ve never done before and I think it is due to amplified stress/tiredness as I have a newborn baby who hates being in the car at the moment and it’s virtually impossible to not have a physiological stress response to their cry! I don’t enjoy driving at the best of times anyway so when something happens on the road that I have react to I’m already in a heightened stress state. Unfortunately this situation is not always avoidable as I have to drive to nursery/medical appointments etc. so i’m just looking for advice on what is the best way to deal with these ‘memory doubts’ when they crop up? Thanks
  20. Ashley
    There is always hope Phil It's a cliché I use a lot on here, but it is true. It's not the 20 year old contamination we need to change, it's your perception of the 20 year old contamination. If and when that is changed, the thing you feared will no longer be something you avoid. Hard work and being willing to take a risk I would suggest. Of course it's not that straight forward, but in essence the way every single person overcomes OCD is through putting in really hard, anxiety provoking work and learning to be willing to take a risk (that something may be contaminated) but using/touching it regardless. I have a few photos of me doing just that if it is helpful I can share. I don't know if I am understanding this part correctly Phil. Is your therapist saying you should bleach something to make it clean as a way of doing therapy? You're on the fence about CBT? If so then it may be that right now CBT is not for you. So if we look at my fear of using toilets. I started my CBT knowing one day I would have to touch a public toilet seat and put my hand in toilet water. I was never comfortable about it, I didn't want to do it, I was getting anxious thinking about it.. but I knew I had to do it to overcome my worries and fear. If you can't see the benefits of doing the therapy (even if it worries and makes anxious) then I am not sure the therapy will actually work at this time whilst you're in that mindset. Talking about issues, counselling isn't CBT of course. CBT is meant to be a talking and doing therapy. Overcoming OCD will not happen without talking and doing. I hope my points are not too blunt, but as someone who's been there I thought some straight talking was needed.
  21. Ashley
    Thanks so much to everyone for responding, it took a bit longer than planned but we have now received lottery funding for this project which will be starting later this year. I am in the processed of recruiting a project lead, once recruited we will come back to this thread and update you all further. The project lead job will be East Midlands based if anybody is interested in working with us then shoot me a message.
  22. OCDhavenobrain
    Germs and such are everywhere. They really is a part of life. You can't control it
  23. 7zurg
    I can't do it. I can't do it. I mean, before the loss of aesthetic attraction, when I had things like a false attraction or wondered if I was really heterosexual, I could understand that it was just intrusive thoughts and it would get better. But the loss of aesthetic attraction is different. It's not a thought, it's not a feeling, it's not an image. It's just as if my tastes have changed. I can't handle it at all, I just want it to come back, but.... No matter how much less I think about it, no longer have anxiety, fewer compulsions, nothing changes. Girls in general are no longer aesthetically attractive at all. I don't see how it can come back. I don't understand the mechanism around it. Being in a relationship has always been very important to me, but without finding them beautiful, it won't be possible (I'm aware that it's not just the physical, but it matters a lot). I can't take it anymore, sometimes I just want to get it over with.
  24. BelAnna
    Thanks Dksea! Yes you're right- it's probably better to reframe it. I know that some people find it helpful to personify OCD because then you can claim to be 'fighting against' something but maybe it's better to think along the lines of 'this is just fear and cannot physical stop me!'. Today's worry so far is that my Dad has just walked along a walk-way near to our house, which is often caked in vomit and then I walked barefoot into the hallway where he had walked his shoes. I am trying to resist engaging in rumination and to resist imagining the worst case scenario (that we will all come down with a sickness bug). I need to live life and I have to choose between life and OCD really.
  25. Ashley123
    I pretty much know how my OCD works at this point but it still grabs me which is annoying. But it's nice to know about that template. Will take a look
  26. Ashley123
    Good to hear about this book, hopefully I can learn some things. I like that idea, I might make some notes of the top sections I've found in books and maybe sticky note them on my wall as a reminder, not for reassurance. Just things like: Thoughts are thoughts, actions are what matter etc. Maybe that is reassurance in itself though...
  27. taurean
    Break Free is a very good self-help book, and will help you "map out" how your own OCD works and how to tackle it. Plus in the appendix is the template for a relapse recovery blueprint, which is excellent. My own one is saved onto my computer and easily updated.
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