OCD Chat
Hey guys, I'm making this thread so that anyone and everyone has a place to talk about and ask questions about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I hope you will all enjoy talking in this forum!!
Hi Everyone,
I am new to understanding OCD and ive been dealing with something lately. I am constantly up and down about my feelings for my boyfriend. Hes great, hes a lot of what I want in a partner, and he makes me happy, but I can't shake a feeling that something is missing. Any chance this is OCD? and If so, how do I determine OCD vs a gut feeling?
@amiableCurrent6758 What exactly is making you doubt your partner? I think doubtful feelings are pretty normal in any relationship, but you obviously feel like something is off because you posted in these forums, instead of a relationship forum. Can you be more specific about what you think is missing? Is it just a feeling, or is there something more specific?
go check out ocd take back control of your life on youtube, this guy actually has ocd and can relate to us and in his 40 yrs with this disease his insights have really helped me and my family...........god bless you mark
Anyone suffering from pure o? I found myself having this about a year ago and it tends to come in waves. Some days and months Im great and then others Im miserable. The anxiety from these intrusive thoughts make me feel horrible and the pain its causing is getting beyond bareable. The intrusive thoughts are about hurting myself or the people around me and when I first started having them I about lost my mind. Theres no way I would ever hurt anyone or the people I love and these thoughts made me feel like the devil. I find comfort in knowing that Im not the only one suffering from this, and that its not just me going crazy, but the thoughts always return and sometimes with a vengeance. I know what its like to deal with this silently, not knowing what it is, so if this can help anyone out there thats great. If anyone has the same feelings and would like to talk please feel free!
@Epocd I have this exact thing. I'm traveling today, but once I get back to a keyboard I want to write you a longer post. Lol these stupid iPhone keyboards...
Hang in there.
@Blinkk look forward to it, thank you!
@Epocd Yaaaaas I got back. Okay, I'm sitting at a keyboard now.
Ugh, I feel just like you. Mine started about a year ago. I was seeing a therapist for something else, and he noticed these weird Pure-O symptoms in me. We are pretty sure I've always had OCD since I was a kid, but it's always been harmless stuff so it's gone unnoticed. Something really stressful happened about a year ago, and it triggered the evil side of OCD.
I deal with very violent thoughts and horrible sexual thoughts. Mine are targeted towards myself, and people that I love and care about. When these thoughts come, they are all encompassing. It's like, I can't even focus on a conversation because this violent thing is "happening" to the person in front of me. It gets so bad that I can't really concentrate on reality. I have to deal with this bizarre event that my brain is making up.
I know what you mean about being a silent sufferer. My therapist tells me that it's good that these terrible thoughts freak me out. He says it shows that I'm of a good moral value. I don't know if that helps your or not, but the fact that these things frighten you THAT MUCH means that you are not evil. Actually, you're the opposite of evil. You're a really, really good person. It proves that you aren't attracted to violence, and in a world where we have school shootings and bombings, we need more people who find violence repulsive. I'm not sure how much that helps, because I know while these bad thoughts are happening, it's absolutely terrifying. Man, I get it, I get it.
What do you do when you're on a bad month? How do you cope with that stuff?
@Blinkk Its great to hear I
@Epocd oh no, I'm so sorry to hear that you have to cry it out. :( What you're going through must be really heavy. I'm so sorry. I'm glad you started watching videos that make you feel like you're not alone. I think that's a big part of this; feeling like you're the only one. I have looked into OCD or anxiety support groups in my area, but they're not really what I'm looking for. If you have some cool support groups near you, it might be worth checking out a meeting or two.
I know exactly what you mean when you say you lost connection with your loved ones. Uggh, it's so frustrating. It's hard because you can't really explain it. At least I don't. I haven't told anyone in my family or any of friends. It's a very bizarre thing for someone to try to understand. I just don't want to deal with them knowing. But it makes me feel distanced from everybody.
Yeah, I have a very weird and specific thing that makes it really terrible for me. Like I said, I went through a nasty event a little over a year ago. Now, whenever I'm in a closed or locked room with another person, my violent thoughts go wild. It totally has to do with this other event that happened. The other thing that freaks me out is if someone leans in too close into my personal space uninvited. That triggers a bomb of bad thoughts to go off. Ugh. But other times, it's totally random. Like last week, I met a girl who I really liked. She was really really cool and we weren't in any closed spaces at all. I was really happy because we got along so well. I thought we could be good friends if we hung out more. And then BAM - I got hit with a nasty, nasty image that just wouldn't freakin go away. I couldn't even concentrate on our conversation. I felt like she knew I was thinking these horrible things about her and I wanted to leave as quickly as I could. ...but that would've seemed insane because we were having such a good time.
Something that helps me is to play mind games with myself. I have a bunch of hobbies, like playing guitar and throwing knives. Ever since this stupid OCD thing came up, I got pretty hardcore about my hobbies. I started taking these intensive death metal guitar lessons. Not because Ilike the genre, but because I need my brain to focus on something reallllllllllly difficult. If I'm having a bad OCD day, I've got my wicked hard scales and solos to practice. It actually helps a lot. I have to practice something that's so difficult, it eats up 100% of my focus. That way, there's no room to focus on violent thoughts. If my guitar isn't around, I do this super dorky thing where I memorize poetry. Again, if I'm having a bad OCD day, I will recite the 25 poems I have memorized. I just do it in my head, so nobody thinks I'm weird or crazy as I sit there and quietly mutter poetry to myself. I have to do something really challenging, so my brain can focus on something else for awhile. Weirdly enough, I'm thinking about getting a Playstation, so if I had a shitty day, I can just chill on a game for awhile. lol which is funny to me, because everyone says gamers are lazy and unmotivated. Imagine if I told someone I was getting a gaming system for my mental health. I'd be laughed out of existence. :D
Aside from watching videos, is there anything else you've tried that helps you? Even just a little bit?
@Blinkk I was actually looking into support groups in my area and I think I might check one out! Ugh that must be horrible to meet someone and have intrusive thoughts mess up your chances. Ive learned that even if you think they think youre thinking bad things, good chance is that they arent. I get like that sometimes too. Like oh no what if they know I just thought that and then I start acting weird and I think thats what makes them be weird. Glad that you have some kind of outlet that really helps you! I was planning on trying yoga or maybe a mediation class to help. Some thing that helps me the most is going to the beach and sitting on the sand. It helps me realize Im so small in this giant place and my thoughts are just as small. Do you think youll ever tell anyone? Ive told two people and it was really scary, but they were surprisingly very understanding. I think even though they didnt really understand it, it was nice to say it out loud. Saying what I was thinking out loud made my thoughts sound more ridiculous and made me feel a little better. Did something cause this pure o to be triggered for you? And did you always have some kind of ocd as a kid? After my pure o got triggered I realized that I had it growing up and just never realized it.
@Epocd omg yesssss. I always feel like everyone around me knows how bad my thoughts are. Then I start acting weird, because I'm trying to act NORMAL, but in trying to act normal, you just end up acting weird. It's a very difficult concept to explain to someone. I know you understand.
I've heard other people say that yoga helps them a lot. Honest truth: I find yoga boring. xD But if that works for you, you should def try it out. Yoga and meditation are both really good things. It's not my deal, I find them both kinda dull, but honestly...I think there's a beautiful kind of meditation in playing guitar too. As long as you are highly focused and doing something with good intentions, you could be meditating. Experiment with some stuff. Find out what works for you.
I'm so glad you have someone you can share that stuff with! I have not told a SOUL! My family is not very understanding on things like therapy or mental illness. They laugh at labels like "alcoholics" and stuff like that. They're not bad people, it's just that they don't think these ideas are real. A lot of people in my family think people with depression "just need to get over it." They're those kind of people. :( I'm pretty sure their reaction to me would be something like, "Okay, so just stop thinking about it." Aaaaaand if it was that simple, you and I would have done that already. No one would actually conciously choose to live with this.
What happened when you told those two people? Did they start treating you any differently? Or was everything just cool afterwards?
Yeah, we think I did have OCD as a kid. I would do innocent things. I sometimes get words stuck in my head and I need to say them over and over until I pronounce them in just the right way. Then the word isn't stuck in my head anymore. I thought everyone was like that. That's harmless, so it was never caught and diagnosed. I sometimes have a narrator running in my head. He'll narrate the things that are happening around me, but the words he chooses to use are really important for some reason. It's weird to explain online. I have a thing with words. I do a few other things, but seriously, it's all been harmless stuff like that.
I never really got on the "compulsion" train. I never developed rituals like other people with OCD have, where they'll have to turn the stove on and off three times. All my OCD lives in my head. Are you like that? Did you do weird things as a kid?
Yeah, I went through a stressful event last year. I made a decision during an emergency and someone I love very, very much died because of my decision. After that, my OCD became severely evil. I hear that's pretty common though. You can have mild OCD your whole life, but during a stressful event, it flares up and gets really bad. Did you have a stressful event happen to you?
@Blinkk When I told my friends they didnt seem to quite understand how it made me felt, but they really tried to be understanding. Its hard for someone to understand what it feels like unless they go through it. It felt good getting it off my chest though. Im sorry to hear about your family and how they may not understand :/ I havent told any of my family either, just close friends. In fear they would respond that way as well.
I dont have any physical OCD tendencies either. Its purely repeating words or thoughts in my head. Sometimes I catch myself repeating words without even realizing that im doing so.When i was a kid i remember having these thoughts of being worried that my family was going to die and it would stress me out all the time. So I know i had it long before my trigger, but it didnt come into full affect until about 2 years ago. Before you found out that you had pure o, how did you feel? Before I found out, i thought i was going to have to be admitted to the hospital because I couldnt shut my brain off. Eventually I would just be able to fall asleep.
Im so sorry to hear about how it got triggered for you. I cant imagine how hard that must have been and I'm very sorry for your loss. Mine was triggered, what i believe anyway, when I almost overdosed on drugs and when I came to I slowly fell into the intrusive thoughts. I havent touched anything since then for about 4 years. Not too sure if it was a curse or blessing. Catch 22 type of feel I guess.
Do you go through phases of not having those thoughts or is it all the time 24/7? For me, I'll be okay for a month or two and then it hits hard again for a couple months and its just a giant cycle.
@epocd That's awesome. I'm really glad you have friends who attempt to understand. Even if they don't fully get it, they are trying to understand. There's a lot of power in attempting to see things from someone else's point of view.
Ha you're just like me. No outward compulsions at all. I really really like that about myself. I feel grateful that there's no physically identifing compulsions that I can't control. I hear people struggling with that a lot. I know a guy who has the classic "wash your hands" thing. It's OCD, and his is kind of insane. I know that feeling he gets, there's a kind of feeling inside of you that's so strong - it tells you that you HAVE TO wash it off. Or in my case "stop imagining those bad things." It's the same tension we both feel, even though different things bother us.
Yeah, that's scary. To constantly worry that your family will die...man. That's tough. They say that's part of it though. Worrying about things like that are classic. I'm always afraid that I will make a mistake when someone I love is nearby, and I will accidently maim them.
Believe it or not before I was diagnosed I thought I was just a masochist. I'd think of these horrible, scary, painful things and it's like, "Oh, but there's a whole subculture surrounding pain." Turns out, that subculture is actually enjoying it. I am not enjoying these thoughts about violence and pain. It's not attractive. In fact, it's very scary and I'm not comfortable with it.
Omg I'm really sorry to hear that you OD. That sounds like a very dark time for you. I hope you have support now. Drugs and abusing meds can sneak up on you. It's very easy to keep saying your fine, but then one day wake up and realize how far over the line you've fallen.
YES I have phases. Mine are a little more frequent, about 2-3 weeks of nothingness. But then it kinda bubbles up slowly in a wave. I can feel it coming on. Nothing I can do about it. It gets progressively more and more intense over the next two or three weeks. Then it fades away and it's back to regular.