OCD the real story.

Hello ATS.

Let me start this thread by saying that I'm a long time sufferer of OCD, I have been for a long time (20 years) and will be for the rest of my life. I have been diagnosed with severe, purely obsessional OCD and had various attempts to reduce and mitigate the effects.

You often hear people chime that they have OCD traits or that they're convinced they're OCD because they like order and things to be a certain way. I cringe when I hear it, and often times I feel slightly bitter that people can take such a debilitating and life changing disorder and make it a mockery. So I've decided to finally make a thread about it, and my experience with it.

I'll start with what OCD actually IS. Not what people assume it to be. OCD has various forms and manifestations though it does have some defining characteristics - it's often said that people with OCD are one or two symptoms away from Schizophrenia - in some aspects that's true.

What is an obsession (to an OC) - An obsession is an intrusive thought; impulse; images; worries; doubts and fears. It can be all of these at once also. They are very intrusive and often times can be very vivid, seem real and take the persons focus completely away from reality. They are incredibly hard to ignore, and if not kept in check can spiral quickly into an episode of endless rumination.

The thoughts that come with an obsession are not voluntary, they come from nowhere and their impact can be devastating. They can cripple a person and often make them alter their behavior in such a way that they may start avoiding people or events and become isolated. I'll give you some examples from my personal repertoire - all these listed are obsessions, thoughts I have sometimes, the brackets are my reaction to the intrusive thoughts:

-- If I don't arrange these straws in perfect order someone I love will die tomorrow (also called checking) (insert picture of loved one in death scene).
-- I'm going to spit in someones face whilst they're talking to me (cue their reaction and my horror).
-- What if I'm a pedophile, oh God I have to avoid kids (cue avoiding children, family and pictures of kids, don't walk past a school).
-- I'm gay, I have to be (cue avoiding men, friends, family, pictures of men. Being overly masculine and checking voice pitch and movement of body, am I moving around gay? Am I talking gay? Is my hair like a gay mans hair?)
-- I've stabbed someone, (cue hiding all the knives in the house and making sure that they stay hidden. I also feel the guilt associated with having hurt someone even though I haven't).
-- I'm going to beat this person up, all of them, all the time. (cue them on the floor and me standing over them all feeling the shame and sadness having hurt another human being. The reality that I haven't only kicks in when objectivity returns).

These are some of the thoughts I have gone through, usually in a pattern, at different times, over many years. All of them intrusive, NONE of them based in reality and all of them had a major psychological impact on my life. I felt all the guilt, the anger, remorse and sadness of actions that I hadn't committed, the fear of being caught out by someone and the horror of my peers when they found out - this was all mentally felt. The whole time I was aware that these thoughts weren't real, I was always aware that the thoughts weren't me, that I could never do any of these things to people. But I WAS a monster because on some level it was ME thinking them. The more I fought it, the more vivid it would get, brighter, louder and more astute. The more I used my intelligence to rationalize, the more my OCD would use it to re-rationalize it's point. A small example would be this. Double quotation for a thought, single for rationalization.
""I'm gay, I know it. How am I going to tell my gf, this will ruin me""
"How can I be gay as I'm in a loving and stable relationship, I love my gf and men don't turn me on"
""How do you know you're not gay, your friends are male and you haven't experienced it, you're lying to yourself""
"I questioned my sexuality seriously as a youngster and after much soul searching it didn't appeal to me, nor does it now"
""Yes it does, you're lying you like men""...... Ad infinituum....... It was always the same, with different scenarios, so replace gay with you've stabbed someone.... You get the picture.

This is the effect of OCD on your psyche. Imagine having this internal battle whilst someone is telling you about their day. They're trying to speak to you about something that you ARE interested in, but in your mind there's a war going on between you and an internal monologue. Your loved one is telling you how work has been, but you can't listen because you have to check your facial expressions in your mind (am I pulling a weird expression? Will they notice? They'll think I'm ignoring them! Oh no they're on to me) then when you regain focus you find the conversation is over and you didn't take any of it in. None of it. This is OCD. The real side of it that no one talks about.

It's a disorder of anxiety. Discomfort and unease. The anxiety comes when the obsession is interrupted by your own logic. It starts a battle with you. Then images flood in, relentlessly until you cave under their weight and start regressing into yourself. The discomfort and unease are pounded into you by images and sometimes internal plays (like a film reel) that plays out whilst you're trying to go about your day.

I mixed in some compulsions there too. A compulsion is the RESULT of an obsession. It's what most un-informed people ascribe to be an OBSESSION which is completely different. A compulsion is the reaction. My compulsions are.

-- Saying something 200 times so it comes true.
-- Hiding knives when the image of me stabbing someone is intrusively put in my head.
-- Avoiding children when the obsession focus' on pedophilia
-- Clenching my teeth so they don't fall out.
-- Saying out loud a counter-response to negative news to counter it's effects, like magic.
-- Saying the same word, or reading the same sentence 100 times to make sure it's right, it sounds right and it's being used properly.
-- Emphasizing the first letter of each word to a silly degree to make sure people know what word it is.
-- Keeping the lights in the house on to avert an enemy bomber blowing our house up (one of my faves as usually people turn them off).
-- putting pressure on my fingernails or knuckles in hope the feeling will distract me from a thought pattern.

As a sufferer of purely obsessional OCD my compulsions are mostly tied to what's known as 'covert compulsions'. These happen in my head. All day, every day. Though not all my compulsions are mental, some do manifest as psychical actions.

I have to seek reassurance every day for things I know to be true from my gf, and it puts enormous pressure on her and me in our relationship. My obsessions and compulsions as well as ruminations take up most of my time. I live a relatively normal life and have a full time job and a nice home. But I have a demon inside. One that questions everything I do, examines it under a microscope and then spends the week trying to torture me with images of why people I love will be hurt as I did something wrong, and have to go back and fix it.

The real struggle for people with OCD is how other people react to being told about it.

I have told a few people how OCD has effected my life and how it works and what it does only for them to tell me that "I think I have OCD too, I like to arrange things in a neat little pile".

This works me up. I just wish people would inform themselves and stop being so frivolous with OCD. To stop treating it like it's a humorous side effect of being neat and tidy. When in reality it's a life crushing, all consuming mental disorder with very very hard to manage symptoms.

I've been getting help for a long time and only now am I able to SOMEWHAT manage my obsessions and compulsions. I would just like, if anything from this post people to carry with them the severity of the disorder and the crippling effect it has on people's lives.

Please be patient with us as we're already tortured enough. With enough help and support our obsessions and compulsions can be reduced and managed. But it takes time. People making light of the situation only helps the OCD establish itself further in the psyche of those suffering.
It's easy to make a joke in the hopes the person will realize they're being silly, but it just doesn't work that way with OCD, it literally feeds it.
Thank you for reading this post. Have a great day/night. And PLEASE help those around you

My OCD, which i think i take better control of now a days, wastes me so much time everyday.

Sometimes im late for work because of it.

I know exactly what you mean by those "What if i am....".. i dealt with them as well.

I try to avoid real life death scene if i can, because my mind will convert it as a family members and the compulsion kick in to satisfy and prevent such fate.

Its the feeling that if you don't do this, anything that you do from then will not be right.

Simple example would be.. lets say a fav program is on, if i do set the volume specifically at a #(going from low to high), i cannot enjoy the program until i get it done.

Same with Car audio volume, car air conditioner and fan.

There is so many.

If im alone, it will just get worse, only time i forget about it when i'm with my friends.

In trying to understand what you are going through, I find I cannot. I do believe you though. If superstition rules your actions (like "if I don't do such and such someone will die.") then I wonder why you would allow superstition to rule you like that? Even if you did do something that by coincidence happened at the same time someone did pass away, why can you not see it as mere coincidence? Are you not giving superstition too much place in your lives?

a reply to: Joneselius

I start to chew on my fingernails before going to do something and end up not doing it and chewing all of them to where they all sting the day after. I either have OCD as you described or full blown schizophrenia. I rap and make music though so it's beneficial to me. But oh man, i can pace for hours in indecision, I always involuntarily smile when conversing, even in serious conversations about death or like me telling the truth. It's tough. I also had that gay thought process becauae of my insecurities in my inability to acquire a female girlfriend. You eventually get over it, but it's living hell at any moment. And it sucks because sometimes it only lasts a few seconds, sometimes days.

Its not simple.

Its like telling a depressed person(clinically) to not be depressed.

The superstition are so intertwined that if you skip it, that day would be the day it will happen.

That day would be the day when someone breaks into your house because you didn't check the lock.

Its hard to explain tho, imagine someone holding your loved one hostage and says, do this(even if its menial as not stepping on the line on the side walk), its something small to pay for the fact that you don't need to think about the loved one being at risk.

Its a mental hostage negotiations.

Thank you for the thread. I never knew what OCD was about other than someone 'turning on/off a light switch 100 times' or whatever.

After reading this, it is amazing you can get through the day. That takes a lot of strength. Hats off.

a reply to: ABNARTY

That's precisely why I have written this thread.

OCD is one of those disorders that people 'feel' they understand, but you can't imagine the torture that the sufferer goes through. It's self mutilation of the mind on an hourly basis and it makes concentration VERY difficult.

Today for example, I repeated a sentence 300times in my head because I wanted to put more emphasis on each letter in every one of the words. I was trying to see where it sounded 'nicest' because that nice part would make the sentence complete and a complete sentence is beautiful. Though, not really - I snapped out of it too late and realized someone was talking to me as I did this. I missed the entire conversation and then started analyzing their eyebrows for symmetry!

It'd be comical if it wasn't so debilitating. It's a curse!

a reply to: Lynk3

The gay thing is often referred to as HOCD and is more common than you might think, there's whole support groups set up to help people get over that one, crushing, aspect of OCD. It's usually, aside from the pedophile one, the worst.

You don't sound Schizophrenic, I'd know my mother is Schizophrenic. Schizophrenic people crave isolation and solitude. OCD people want connection and someone to tell them that their thoughts aren't manifest. A Schizophrenic is happy in an empty room with no color - that's an OCD nightmare. Plus Schizophrenic people hear voices outside their heads and often have mood 'slumps' where they'll stare off at a wall for hours.

a reply to: aboutface

It's not superstition. It's apart from it. It's not something we 'believe' per sea. We know our thoughts aren't real but the images and sometimes scenes that play out in our heads 'feel' real. I'm not a superstitious person at all, not really.

It's not that we think our thoughts WILL actually kill someone. It's something you keep telling yourself, then what happens is the OCD bullies you with an image of the person dead already, you'd usually be stood next to the body in this rumination and maybe even holding a weapon. It's very subtle, but everything that OCD does is geared toward guilt and shame. I give superstition no place in my life, I can't. If I did it would totally dominate every aspect of my living. We also need to stay away from games with micro-transactions! LOL. If we don't it could be VERY costly.

a reply to: luciddream

You're exactly right, it's all mental negotiation, the only problem is our brain plays the part of captor and hostage. And we feel the guilt!

Very enlightening thread. I appreciate you taking the time to share this. My image of people with OCD usually runs along the lines of overly neat freaks who wash their hands 100 times a day and and spend all day scrubbing the baseboards of their house and checking to make sure the pictures on their wall are perfectly straight. I never gave much thought to the thought process behind OCD.

As a horribly disorganized person I never thought of myself as OCD, far from it, but now, I can see that I can some what relate. I can have obsessive thoughts sometimes, but mine are solely related to a traumatic incident. I get the, if I don't do A then B will happen but for me B is something that happened in the past, and fear happening again.

a reply to: calstorm

Yes that's pretty common.

As I say, it's basically trauma based thinking. I've lived through the trauma of hurting someone, even though I haven't. I've lived with the death of my family because of my actions, even though I haven't. I, at one point would only use plastic knives for like 5 months so the thoughts couldn't associate them with an image..... It did anyway, instead I was just holding a plastic knife around a bunch of dead people. It never actually shows you hitting them, or knifing. It's always innuendo, every time.

It really can be a pain. It's manageable, don't get me wrong. But it's very VERY hard to manage. Usually those people wash their hands to avoid the thought processes I'm talking about. They'd rather do that for 4 hours than have images and scenes torture them.

originally posted by: Joneselius

I'll start with what OCD actually IS.

OCD=The highest levels of insecurity .

Have you heard of Jeffrey Schwartz, He is making some good progress with this.

For those that don't know what OCD is it is where one side of the brain has too much electricity and continually loops a thought round and round creating complete fear in the mind even though the person is fully aware that the action they are thinking is not real.

I would also try some health things they may sound stupid but if i was ill i would try anything the first thing would be to try a yoga practise called Jalaneti www.falconblanco.com... This will cool your brain down and may lessen the electrical influence.

You could then try a detox program as so many of our afflictions are caused by pollutants being put into our food and water I would say the most obvious cause would be heavy metal poisoning so first go and buy some Bentonite clay this has the least effect on your liver and kidneys and will remove a great deal of the mercury from your body, always put lots of fiber into you as this binds with the poisons being excreted from your liver and is the only way to remove them, if you don't have enough fiber then your body will just absorb the poisons back into your system and make them even worse, then move onto Borax (make sure it has no scent added to it as this is poisonous for us) this will remove a lot more of the poisons and helps remove them from the brain as well as strengthening the membranes of your cells and enabling the cells electricity to work much more efficently.

See how you go with that and then if you notice a difference you could attempt a water fast as this will push a lot of the deeper embedded poisons that are in your system out, After 8 hours without food your body will automatically push the poisons out of you but its best to clear them out gradually as this can overload your liver and kidneys and cause a lot more damage,

One other thing is to meditate learning how to quieten your mind may not be possible if you've got OCD I don't know. the trick to meditating is just to listen It can take a couple of months to get the hang of it sometimes so don't just give up on it if its not working.

The best way to learn about meditation is to read the art of true healing by Israel Regardie An interesting perspective in my opinion

Good Luck

Hi guys and girls

Thank you so much for talking about your daily struggles it was a godsend really to stable over this thread, even tho I do not suffer from OCD, I feel like I am a sufferer because my whole family depends upon understanding it...

My girlfriend suffers with OCD and anxiety... Our relationship can at time be at times quite strained as she has bouts of mild to severe OCD & anxiety

I can deal with the anxiety that's not a problem looking after my women gives me comfort and I help her with It to anytime she's feeling scared or worried about Anything, she's a shy type... where as I'm the loud sociable type, but it works well for me as I require that kind of balance to contain the lunatic party animal inside,

Not just that... but because of my older brother who I could never really help, it is for me very rewarding to help others that are less fortunate or suffering, just helping people is probably one of the most rewarding feel good things I've done In my life, Im totally selfless... I care more for other people problem rather than tackle my own which has always been my downfall bit I don't care.. which was kinda how I feel for her, not to mention she is a stunning woman, she just did to know it

The problems we have, is her at times... server insecurities, her insecurities at times can be very stressful for me it is almost like talking to a brick wall and absolutely uncalled for, I'm not the flirty type, I'm the chatty sociable type..

It may be (mainly is) with her mother, if I'm Laughing and joking with her, she'll come out with things like I see the way you look at her, or do you find her more interesting and fun than me... Or... You're leaving g me out of the conversation, I've tried so hard to. Ring her up to speed or involve her, but she just doesn't really know how to be chatty and sociable tbh

Do you have any advice for me to understand how she arrives at these conclusions or things to tell her as it seems "just stop being stupid" doesn't cut it...

I understand she probably doesn't feel great about herself after 2yrs 2 babies, but it seems to me she is reading from a total BS delusional script in her head and instead ignoring reality... What can I do? To squash this last irritation in our lives? No amount of reassurance is ever going to resolve this, would regaining. Her confidence change much?

I'm am a very understanding person, my eldest brother, as mentioned.. there is a years gap between us I also have two other brothers and a sister

I've come to understand my brothers condition, (paranoid schizophrenia) which he has had for many years now, I thought when I met her, her shyness and quietness was just that, but never quite understood the full extent of her conditions

I love her to bits and we have two children together, but In All honesty.. now it really has started to get to me, I want to try, if I can to help her control her condition as so it is mild at best (that I can Live with) and that it doesn't reach the severity it can, I understand her condition worsen when she is stressed and her diet goes from health to junk foods

I would also like her to try cognitive behavioural therapy again, other than these extreme bouts of OCD/Insecurity, as I said I can deal with the anxiety... we have a very loving happy relationship with two beautiful kids

What do you guys and girls suggest ?

Thanks

a reply to: TritonTaranis

The insecurities might be not because of OCD but might be some other issue.

OCD suffers hurt themselves and not others. They hurt themselves mentally to prevent loved ones from being hurt.

True insecurity is there, but insecurities is abundance is many couple.. and it does not have to be because of OCD.