Tips on Overcoming these OCD Symptoms?

Hello, I'm wondering if anyone has had a similar experience with OCD to the one I recently had, and how you got through it! I have dealt with a variety of intrusive thoughts and OCD symptoms for many years now, and recently learned that these symptoms were actually signs of OCD. These symptoms bothered me now and then, but the didn't really impact my daily life, relationships, or joy. That all changed over this summer when I experienced a stressful life event. The event sent my OCD symptoms into an intense spiral where I could literally not stop thinking about what happened and kept going back to try to "solve it" in my brain by reliving each detail. This only made me feel worse. However I felt like I had to keep thinking and talking about what had happened in order to process it and make my thoughts calm down. I then started freaking out and feeling as if I had lost control of my mind. My emotions started to rotate between numb and intense anxiety, and I felt like I couldn't focus in conversations with loved ones or be present anymore because my mind, body and emotions were constantly racing down a dark spiral. I felt no rest or peace and had 5 nights of literally zero sleep during this intense period of my life. As of recently I have started medication and meeting with a therapist. I only have a few intrusive thoughts per day about the life event now, and seemingly random things trigger those thoughts. It feels like the days and people surrounding this event are always in the back of my mind, wanting me to think about them. Other symptoms spiked up after this event that have not gone down as much as I would have liked. For example, I am constantly checking to see if I am truly present with whoever I am with, if I am truly being myself and saying what I would normally say, or enjoying myself as I normally would had I not gone through the stressful event and been left with these strange side effects. Its like a mental trap, because the checking to see if I am engaged and enjoying my time with friends and family is what keeps me from being engaged and enjoying times with friends and family. Have you experienced anything like this before? Any tips and support would be appreciated!

Joey92

Date posted: 2y

Hey! So I have definitely been through what you are going through. So a few things that helped me: - ocd is kinda like an uncontrollable sickness (to me a least), in that you can never truely know what triggered your symptoms or how long they will last but the goal is to just keep pushing on and not questioning why it’s worse now than before (my opinion atleast) - it sounds kinda like Real Event OCD so maybe have a browse of that sub of NOCD and see if theirs any applicable advice - everything around it, like the symptoms you experienced, like zoning out of convo, checking if your present, etc etc is essentially a compulsion (Ruminating) and as I like to remind myself Compulsions fuel Compulsions, so and this helped for me atleast, as soon as I notice myself ruminating, I start to sing the first song that comes into mind, and I focus on that (essentially medicate) until the anxiety spikes and while you could argue that it’s still a compulsion I don’t really do it in that manner and I find it help me pass those intense moments of rumination - also one other thing someone posted that helped me was that with real event ocd was time and patience can make it better - finally I’m really sorry to hear that you are going through this, honestly what I hold onto and to summarise, just try to do as little as possible, just accept that it’s a shitty time and hope that eventually it softens. I have found that when I just say “hey I feel shit and guilty etc” but I don’t do anything and just try to march on, it kinda makes it easier. Like almost accepting your just sick and that your mind and body just do their thing, kinda helped me. Hope that’s not a triggering statement for you and hope my advice helped! Stay strong, you can get through this!

Jesse M.

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 2y

This is beautiful 🙂

Joey92

Date posted: 2y

Sorry above I meant until the anxiety dwindles, not spikes* and the more times you beat it, the less you compulse and ruminate (in theory!)

Becca1996

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 2y

Thank you Joey! This was very helpful <3

Ellen_l

Date posted: 25w

Advice?

I’m having a big OCD relapse and would like to hear anyone’s tips on how to be present and healthily deal with these intrusive thoughts and the “need” to preform compulsions. Thank you!!

Andrea Wells

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 24w

My OCD Journey

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?

Hyades

Date posted: 22w

OCD Teaming Up With A Real Life Bad Experience.. Help?

So, I know my capacity to get fixated on things. And it's normally something that's relatively remote but, my latest issue is really getting to me and I was wondering if people have any advice. I'm avoiding getting too into specifics, as I don't want this to get reassurance-y but, in essence.. I came to the realisation recently that people who I'd been "friends" (feels like the wrong term now) when I was younger were not very nice people, and normalized a lot of very unpleasant behaviour towards other members of the group. They really normalized it, sold themselves as figures of authority, as older and more responsible and grown-up than others, and looking back, they acted horribly. And coming to this realisation, that I'd been manipulated into just accepting their behaviour has just... broken me. My OCD has latched onto it and I can't stop feeling irreversibly tainted by it. I've talked to others about it, and they've reassured me, told me it's not a big deal and that I hold myself to too high a standard, but none of that sticks. I feel better for a bit, then think 'Maybe when you told them you were skewing it to make yourself look better' or 'Did you leave out a crucial detail'. I keep ruminating over and over, trying to remember exactly how everything played out, trying to figure out if I fed into the behaviour, if I did something bad myself (because y'know, I feel like I was accepting of it at the time, so what does it say about my own values?). I know I need to stop doing all this if I want to improve, but then some part of me keeps saying 'So, you're just going to let yourself off the hook then?' Normally, I can rationalize my own fears to some degree, assure myself something won't happen, but the realness of the situation, and the fact I only came to understand the reality of it because the thought had been bothering me means it feels so much more all-encompassing. I know confessing in itself is a compulsion, but I keep feeling that if I'm not I'm somehow concealing what I 'really am' from others around me, and any positive interactions are me deceiving them in some way. I feel like I can't enjoy anything in life right now, and a good part of me feels I should not enjoy it ever again. If anybody has any advice on it, I'm all ears. Or even hearing if you relate to these feelings, I might appreciate the solidarity at least.

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Tips on Overcoming these OCD Symptoms?

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