- Date posted
- 3y ago
- Date posted
- 3y ago
Totally with you. Just like with cancer, I believe there is different severities of OCD. Mine is so bad it’s to the point where everything triggers me and ERP is hard to complete. It’s a struggle getting out of bed and even working from home. This illness is the absolute worst. And you may think I’m just writing back to your post just to do so but deep down I want you to know, I am there for you as is the rest of this community. Hang in there and try your best.
- Date posted
- 3y ago
Thank you so much for being there for me, I’m so sorry you’re also suffering with a very severe case of ocd. I’m here for you to
- Date posted
- 3y ago
Fuck ocd You’re not defined by your thoughts. Ocd / intrusive thoughts and nice planned/unplanned thoughts merge into each other and they slip in and out the mind like crazy and they can cause you to doubt, be feared, and compulsivey do mental checking like think of disgusting horrible thoughts to “see your reaction” or to question or move them aside. It can give you false feelings/ urges that are FALSE because they give you more anxiety. Pleasant feelings will give you more prolonged goodness and happiness. I have ocd. It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I still obsess every day but I’m trying to do better and you are too. You are doing the right thing by seeking help and fighting through this. I’m rooting for you stay strong bro.
- Date posted
- 3y ago
Dude! I feel ya! Seems like for me , everytime I'm breaking thru, I sabotage it, with another thought of, wow. I'm so glad I'm not thinking about that anymore... then BAM in my face it starts all over. .. then I get sent down another rabbit hole, self analyzing, self absorbed in my thoughts. I was told to take 5HTP. Just started, so I have no idea if that will take the edge off or not. ... what is TMS. ?
- Date posted
- 3y ago
TMS is Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, they put a cap on your head and it buzzes. It’s supposed to narrow in on the part of the brain with thoughts and slow it or stop the bad thoughts, it might be very beneficial I just was to scared to do it. Thanks so much for the nice comment I’m sorry your struggling also
- Date posted
- 3y ago
Oh yeah... its really something that no one else can understand until they've been thru it. There's no one else in my family that has what I have, so they can't relate. So i just dangle out there wondering. Why me!!!
- Date posted
- 3y ago
The struggle is real
- Date posted
- 3y ago
Yes indeed
- Date posted
- 3y ago
OCD and depression. It’s like you are walking around lifeless. Waiting for night to come so you can just sleep.
- Date posted
- 3y ago
Exactly, I just want to sleep it’s exactly what it’s like
- Date posted
- 3y ago
It really is so fucking hard. I’m sorry therapy didn’t work for you. I am hoping it works for me. I have seen some progress with more minor obsessions but the big ones still make me defecate my pants, and I am struggling to see progress. I was anything but determined a year ago, but now I am determined to figure this out. I am 25 and have gone through all this blind until I discovered it could be OCD. I have really heavily considered suicide in the past few years. I have found reasons to live and I don’t want to do that anymore (though I think about it in my worst slumps), but there were times when it felt like only a matter of when. OCD sucks to say the least. You kind of touch on something that is a feature of a lot of human problems which is that they are self-reifying. For instance, poor people have fewer means to become not-poor than not-poor people do. The answer in very external cases like that might seem something like people with greater means helping them, which may still require that the poor take some agency, but still there is a substantial external component to intuitive solutions like that (leaving behind the economics of it). With mental health disorders, it’s unfortunately not that way. They are internal. No medication or surgery available can restructure your brain in such a way as to not make you have OCD. They, at best, mitigate the symptoms. So it’s really just out of necessity that it relies on the agency of the person with OCD. It isn’t the mental health professional’s fault. But of course, people with OCD have limited agency and a limited sense of what agency they do have. It feels weird to ask these people to do things to fix their own problem right? It can seem cruel to place responsibility in the hands of the sufferer for something they didn’t choose to suffer through. They’re going through enough. We need to remember that we ask things of OCD sufferers such as ourselves because no one else has access to the problem. If you want to dress it up a little, we’re not the archvillain threatening the peace of the land, we’re the chosen one prophecied to save it (that metaphor is fucking stupid, I know, but for some reason it has some saliance for me). Some people take that to mean it’s our fault, but it’s never ever our fault that we suffer from something we didn’t choose. It’s just that all mental health professionals can do is give you some meds and tell you some things which research has shown can help you recover, may be keep you accountable to them. But everyone is different and some people really do struggle with ERP. And even some people who do well with ERP may find certain themes harder to deal with. Sometimes it requires the intervention of other kinds of therapy. I would at least urge you to entertain that it is possible, if only merely possible, that there is something out there for you. I say this not really knowing your ERP history, but I would simply ask you not to completely discard the possibility of it working for you when you figure out what that missing ingredient is. It might be ACT or mindfulness; it might be religion; it might be a different or more complicated diagnosis; it might be focusing on eliminating mental compulsions rather than just physical. I hope this doesn’t sound condescending. You may have tried all these things and I’ll believe you if you say they haven’t worked for you. At least, I try to keep some hope ERP will work for me.
- Date posted
- 3y ago
Thanks for the nuanced response, based on my post and as you astoutly mentioned, I am warren down to say the least, I appreciate the advise however and I hope your ocd thoughts don’t torment you as do mine, as I’ve aluded to. One thing that I believe I’m learning is that we’re all different and we may need different approaches. Anyway thank you and I wish you peace
- Date posted
- 3y ago
I feel like a zombie every day. It's the worse esp. When people wanna have a convo, and the OCD brain is like. NOPE, you can't think right now, cause I'm large and in charge.. hurry say something and answer them and Get back to your desk and fret. Ugh.
- Date posted
- 3y ago
I totally get where your coming from, the zombie feeling with ocd is strong, it takes over so many facets of life
Related posts
- Date posted
- 18w ago
Hi, I don’t know what to do anymore Pocd kills me I had many themes before but this theme is the hardest for me. I’m tired. I’m on therapy and meds but I barely do erp . I don’t have a reason I just don’t want to do it but today I will because I have to. I’m taking meds and they help with the anxiety for sure. But the obsessive part is still here . I’m almost 2 months on it (40 mg on Prozac) but I’m still super obsessed like I can have thoughts 24/7 every second of the day and not leave me alone. I have experienced a thought right now for a month + . It’s a thought to do compulsion/urge. My therapist says to let go and gives me tips how to she also tell me to do more erp. But I have this thought to do compulsion for more then month. Im scared what if I don’t have ocd the thought is 24/7. Do you think I should switch meds im so tired.
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 13w ago
Looking back, I realize I’ve had OCD since I was 7. though I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 30. As a kid, I was consumed by fears I couldn’t explain: "What if God isn’t real? What happens when we die? How do I know I’m real?" These existential thoughts terrified me, and while everyone has them from time to time, I felt like they were consuming my life. By 12, I was having daily panic attacks about death and war, feeling untethered from reality as depersonalization and derealization set in. At 15, I turned to drinking, spending the next 15 years drunk, trying to escape my mind. I hated myself, struggled with my body, and my intrusive thoughts. Sobriety forced me to face it all head-on. In May 2022, I finally learned I had OCD. I remember the exact date: May 10th. Reading about it, I thought, "Oh my God, this is it. This explains everything." My main themes were existential OCD and self-harm intrusive thoughts. The self-harm fears were the hardest: "What if I kill myself? What if I lose control?" These thoughts terrified me because I didn’t want to die. ERP changed everything. At first, I thought, "You want me to confront my worst fears? Are you kidding me?" But ERP is gradual and done at your pace. My therapist taught me to lean into uncertainty instead of fighting it. She’d say, "Maybe you’ll kill yourself—who knows?" At first, it felt scary, but for OCD, it was freeing. Slowly, I realized my thoughts were just thoughts. ERP gave me my life back. I’m working again, I’m sober, and for the first time, I can imagine a future. If you’re scared to try ERP, I get it. But if you’re already living in fear, why not try a set of tools that can give you hope?
- Date posted
- 11w ago
I started dealing with OCD when I became fixated on health issues, particularly the fear of contracting a life-threatening disease. If I experienced any kind of medical symptom, no matter how small, that even remotely hinted at something potentially fatal, it would drive me crazy, and I couldn’t stop obsessing over it. Then one day, I started having intrusive thoughts about accidentally hitting someone with my car, and I would end up driving in circles to check if I had. Eventually, I found myself overwhelmed by a flood of new obsessive thoughts and compulsions. One day, while I was at the park, a squirrel came near me, and for some reason, I felt like it attacked me. I Googled it and learned that squirrels could carry rabies, which spiraled me into a deep fear of rabies. I became consumed with the thought I received a bite from a squirrel, raccoon, or bat any time I’m in areas that trigger me. It started off only being inside then transferred to even being in my own home. This made me obsess over every physical sensation in my body, compulsively checking to make sure nothing was wrong. One compulsion that I hated the most would to be putting rubbing alcohol on me to make sure that I had no open wounds. Every day feels like I’m walking around in a fog of anxiety, constantly worrying that I won’t even make it to old age. Sometimes, it gets so overwhelming that I just want it all to end. It stresses me so bad at times to where my brain feels like I’ve been studying all day.
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