Always worried I'm gonna make mistakes at work and it's super frustrating. I think yesterday was my lowest point in a while. Feeling better today but damn it's scary when you get stuck in that state of mind.
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That's right. We can't make decisions under duress. So creating boundaries, guidelines, principles, standards, ethical understanding and goals to support us through these moments can be of benefit during duress. Medical field is entirely over stimulating. You're doing so good seeking support! Hang in there!
It definitely is a balancing act of trying to be careful, but not OCD careful. The biggest struggle with OCD and intrusive thoughts is how they can change seemingly out of nowhere! Thank you for sharing your personal experience dealing with OCD it means the world to me! So many times I've tried to explain what our brains deal with and nearly everyone just gives a puzzled look back haha. Best of luck in your medical career and feel free to reach out if you ever need someone to talk OCD with!
What if you just accept that you will likely make mistakes at work, at home, and in life? This is what we do, we make mistakes. OCD will tell you that it is the worst-case scenario, maybe I'll get fired, maybe I'll get reprimanded...but then what...play out the story, maybe bad things will happen but you know what, you will get through them, you have to teach your brain that you can tolerate distress, even when scary or "bad" things do happen. You would be amazed at the resilience of the human spirit. Your ability to tolerate distress. The truth though is that most of what OCD tries to tell you will happen never happens. Although it is frustrating to be bombarded with thoughts about making mistakes or needing to be perfect or things to go "just right", they are just thoughts- you don't have to give them meaning or engage with them. You don't need to "do" anything with these thoughts. The more you allow the thoughts to be there and don't engage in compulsions, the more your brain recognizes this as a false alarm- you are not in "actual" danger after all. You can do this.
Thank you so much for the reply! Talk about putting things into perspective. Really appreciate the information and helping to make me feel less isolated 🙌🙌🙌
Mistakes are vulnerable teaching moments. It's okay to feel vulnerable, scared, aloneness and sad. We're all learning and accepting that can help you to find peace with yourself. Management is supposed to understand this well and that's why retraining people is policy before firing employees. At this point in time it's even protected via lawsuits. Try to remember that we got here today because enough mistakes were made that caused capitalism to take a knee and acknowledge our humanity. Just because we are born doesn't mean we will eat. First we must learn.
Thank you for the reply and for the reminder that it's okay to feel vulnerable. It's tough to handle when caught up in the moment but hoping to get better at managing my emotions!
@mjg2021 I can tell your a good egg. You got this!
This woman has a great video on empathy as well. OCD attacks you when you're vulnerable so empathy can help you out when that happens.
Often times I find myself spiraling out in the morning about all sorts of things. When I try and catch myself and figure out what I am obsessing over it’s like it goes away. I haven’t moved. I have been sitting frozen on the floor because I can’t go to work because I am behind on work and I hate being late and I hate being messy but I am frequently late and my room is cluttered and full of stuff. I want to be good and move and go to work but I don’t know what is coming today and I hate my job so I know I will get bored and when I have nothing to keep me busy and engaged I like start thinking and taking an inventory of what is going on and then I will feel a sensation and what is the sensation? How did it happen? And I know that I will pick up the bad emotions in the office and get contaminated, I was really worried about things like this as a kid too I cried because I had to touch dirt in kindergarten. I know I am this way and I have been this way for a while but at the same time I think I might just be normal and like I don’t know why I get stuck in thinking like this. Then I begin to doubt that OCD is real because everyone has a brain with wiring and everyone gets stuck in thought sometimes. I feel disabled from whatever this is because I am stuck. I literally cannot move because I don’t know what’s wrong and I know I have to go to work even though I feel like every moment I spend there is making everything worse because other people are so stressed and I get it from them. And I don’t feel ready because I just feel off and something is wrong and I just don’t know what to do because if it’s OCD or not OCD everything anyone knows about me is coming from me and I worry that I am often masking all the thinking I’m doing because thinking all the time is rude and inconsiderate and inconvenient for those around me, but I can’t stop. I just don’t feel right, right now - and I want to know WHY?? Why is everything off all the time? How do I even know that I am not making up the experience of OCD in my head to cover up something really wrong with me and now I am taking on the symptoms of OCD like an actress, because this could be something that I can latch onto as a final hope for explaining why I am stuck. So stuck so deeply and terribly stuck sitting on my floor next to my bed just scrolling to avoid thinking because any time I start thinking I am left with no answers or help or anything just this swirly feeling. I know I am trying, maybe not my best, but as much as I possibly can. I want to be a Special Education Teacher but I have so much so so so much doubt and uncertainty about every decision I make and everything I know that I can’t get there right now. I can’t do anything right now until it feels ok and then I will. It never feels ok. I know I have to be ok not feeling ok about it. I can be unsure and still be ok. I know it’s just my thinking and my body but I just can’t get past this feeling. And then I know that because I can calm myself and be ok even though I spent 2 hours of my life today already feeling stuck and spinning around and around and around in my head - I don’t feel sure about my OCD and I think it’s a bit of a scam made up by people to cultivate pathology around deep human thought because one day I might figure it out and we all think a lot.
Never feels like I can fully put my mind to rest. The problem with OCD for me is once I'm over one worry there's another buried deep into my mind that I'm not fully over. The two events I'm not completely over is when I tried to help a 17 year old with POCD when I was 19 and the topics unfortunately were detailed and even then I explained to them I wasn't comfortable with talking to them. I guess I just had a hard time saying no to someone needing help but it eventually made me so uncomfortable that I stopped talking with them altogether at some point. Then the other thing is being so worried that I committed a crime because my elbow touched someone's behind when I didn't want that to happen at all. I didn't want to listen to my OCD by saying move my arm or something horrible is going to happen so I didn't and then something bad actually did happen. I thought it would just be a light touch while zipping a bag up but then it was worse than I ever wanted it to be and it was so awkward and I hated it. I feel like I just won't be able to get back to the way I was before OCD started all of this. Aside from that I've just had extreme health anxiety but am too afraid to reach out to a PCP even though I need to. Something deep down is telling me I should do this but I'm just so anxious and embarrassed about sharing things to them. I can't even enjoy the things I used to do because this is constantly just messing up my life. I'm hoping I get a start of positivity next time I see my therapist. This just sucks. Feels like others around me are doing so much better than I am and I'm just kind of stuck on these same problems and feeling absolute shame and guilt from the past over and over again. I'm just so sick of dealing with this every single day so I just use escape whenever I can. Even that doesn't really work. I just wish I could go back in time.
Does anyone have OCD regarding always feeling like you are not good enough at your job? I'm 58 years old now I've had OCD since childhood. Every job I've been at I never felt as good as my colleagues. I am a nurse but I worked at that for 15 years I had a breakdown of sorts in 2017 and went on disability. I now work part time as a a swim instructor for kids. I always was afraid of killing someone when I was a nurse. Then I tried dog grooming but I was afraid I would do it wrong and hurt the dogs. At least now the stakes are lower. But my OCD is the same. I work with colleagues who are about 40 years younger than I am . I am afraid of teaching certain classes bc I feel like I wouldn't do as good a job as someone else. I know I can do it but it's like I have a fear of not giving them their money's worth. I've been at my current job for 2 years . I've gotten very positive comments from my managers but I can't seem to believe them. I feel a lot of shame bc I lost a lot of my life to OCD and I am at an age where people are starting to retire after long and successful careers and here I am working at an entry level job. I'm planning on trying to get out of my comfort zone and teaching some of the classes I'm afraid of .it's really hard. I'm always scared what if I lose my benefits and had to work again as a nurse how would I do it.
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