I need to actually start living

I am struggling with living and trying to function in a normal life. I am married, have a great house, no children but three dogs who are everything to me, and work part time while finishing my doctorate degree. I struggle with obsessing that something terrible will happen to my dogs every time I leave the house. Because of the fact that we never had children, my dogs are everything to me in the thought of some thing happening to one of them is so overwhelming that I have a hard time coping when it comes to leaving them, even if it’s just for a short time. I had a traumatic experience from the loss of one of our dogs seven years ago, due to negligence of a veterinarian neurosurgeon who made a mistake and caused the death of my dog. I blame myself for this every single day and I probably will for the rest of my life. I also have a lot of anxiety, which started when I was probably around five or six years old. My parents would travel a lot and I was constantly afraid they would die in a car crash or plane crash. I am terrified to fly or take a train. I have to drive all the time and sometimes it becomes exhausting. Every time I leave my house I have the check, check again, and re-check again to make sure everything is “OK.“ I check to make sure every door is locked, I make sure the knobs on the stove are off, And when I lock that front door and leave I jiggle the handle several times “just to make sure it’s locked“ even though I know it is. While I’m at work I’m constantly worried that something will happen to my dogs or at my house. If my husband comes home a few minutes late I panic that he was in an accident. It causes a strain on my marriage because it takes me so long to actually get out the door, it constantly makes myself or my husband and I late for any event. I’m not doing it on purpose I just can’t feel calm until I complete all these “rituals.“ I would not wish this on my worst enemy.

thereishope:)

User type: NOCD Alumni

Date posted: 2y ago

Hi kym123, I am sorry to hear what you are going through. I can empathize with very similar OCD-related fears (fear of something catastrophic happening when I'm not home, not properly locking my door, etc.). And agreed - I would not wish OCD on my worst enemy either! Please know that 1) you're not alone! 2) there is help available and 3) there is hope! The experts at NOCD who helped me, and who help so many others, see many cases like ours. Their goal is to help us 1) recognize that our intrusive thoughts / strong emotions tied to OCD are purely generated by our brain (and therefore have no inherent truth or falsehood) AND 2) teach / train us to accept whatever OCD throws at us and keep living life based upon our true goals and values. Many days, I am posed with the questions "did I turn the stove on," "did I lock my door," etc. before leaving, with my brain also highlighting the catastrophic impacts if something were to go terribly wrong because I left my stove on / did not lock my door / etc. My goal is to see those as the same good ol' thoughts OCD loves throwing my way and accepting that I COULD have left the stove on or COULD have left the door unlocked, but don't have much reason to believe that's true at all. Either way, I know that if I check 1000 times it will never be enough for OCD. While I may check the stove if I actually cooked something that day, or check my door if I can't remember if I locked it, etc - I am often now able to keep COMPULSIVE checking over and over to a minimum so that it no longer completely disrupts my life. Personally, medication also helped me a lot by reducing my baseline anxiety and the emotional response stirred up by distressing thoughts OCD produces. That could be a helpful route for you too - I would talk with your doctor, therapist, psychiatrist, etc. Hope this helps - godspeed on your journey and just know that you're never alone in this!

kym123

Date posted: 2y ago

@thereishope:) Thank you so much for your kind words. I have tried Lexapro in the past- wondering if there is something better for OCD and panic?

thereishope:)

User type: NOCD Alumni

Date posted: 2y ago

@kym123 - I am unfortunately not on expert - but I'm sure your doctor / therapist / psychiatrist might have thoughts there! Good luck :)

kym123

Date posted: 2y ago

Thanks again. Hugs and I hope you are doing well and keeping this nightmare at bay :)

BeeCee87

Date posted: 21w ago

Intrusive thoughts Help.

I’m having a very bad evening with my intrusive thoughts. I was doing really good dealing with them but tonight one hit me hard. I’ve been having a lot of different intrusive thoughts but I’ll have one occasionally about hurting my mom or my dog who I love and they’re the only family I have in my life. They’re my world. I was helping my mom put away the dishes and I had the big kitchen knife in my hand and my intrusive thought was you could stab your mom. And then my brain said I had a twitch in my hand and that meant I wanted to do it. Let me just say that I wouldn’t hurt a fly. I actually caught a fly in a glass and put it outside instead of killing it this evening before this intrusive thought happened. I’m such a gentle and compassionate and caring person and these thoughts instantly cause me to have a panic attack. And I have no one to talk to them about. I know they’re hard for my mom to hear and I don’t want to be any more of a burden than I already am. I do desperately want to tell her and have her reassure me that I’m not crazy or a psycho. Then my thoughts wander to if your hand did flinch could you be a psychopath. Is hurting someone in you. I know it’s not but I feel like my mind is out to get me and hurt me. I’m working so hard and I thought I was doing so good but I need to know why I have these thoughts. They’re not ok. I need someone to help me make sense of why. I know we aren’t supposed to ruminate but I shouldn’t have thoughts like this about people I love and care about the most in the world.

sara_24

Date posted: 20w ago

Anxious about everything

Guys I need help. I feel so alone . Basically I have this compulsion where I feel the need to write everything but this stems from me being anxious about EVERYTHING. Like my mom came in my room and I was irritated and snapped, immediately regretted now I keep writing “don’t be mean to mom next time” but I keep thinking about it. Then I think about how I finally left my house today and all the surfaces I touched that could’ve been contaminated and now I’m writing “next time don’t touch this and this”. Then I think about all the things I need to be doing for this week and I’m writing “don’t forget to do this and this” even though I’ve written it 5 times already. This is what happens everyday btw. My brain always thinks about something I need to be doing and making me anxious that I’ll forget it which is why I write it down on my notes app. I’m sooo mentally exhausted I need help pls!! Anyone have any advice ? I used to think I need to stop the writing but really I need to stop the anxious thoughts coming into my head . People say I need to accept the thoughts and let it go but that’s too hard for me

Anonymous

Date posted: 15w ago

Can't be home alone. How can I over come ?

It's been a year since I've been able to stay home alone. I don't know how to fight this. I feel like the world will collapse on me. That the house will cave in. Or I'll just lose my mind and scream and run outside screaming and saying the world is falling type thing. I don't know how to help myself. I'm to scared to even try to be alone. I have to have my son 18 stay home with me or my aunt stay with me when my son does leave. It's horrible. I feel like I'm holding my son back from so much. I don't know how to beat this. Please help

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I need to actually start living

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