Fear of Loosing Control/Harm OCD

Hi everyone. So I’m reaching out to see if anyone has been successful when it comes to an OCD issue with harm OCD and “the fear of loosing control”. I have had OCD for most of my life. In 2013, I was engaged, bought a house for my fiancé and I, and found out a few weeks later that they were cheating on me. Long story short, that event really messed me up mentally for awhile. About a week later when driving to my grandmothers, I had a random image pop up of me shooting myself in the head with my dads hand gun. It was very detailed. At the time, I had no idea wtf I was experiencing. Was one of the scariest times of my life. Finally after going to a psychiatrist, I was told this was OCD. Over the years, I was on and off of Lexapro which helped for awhile, tried TMS therapy and recently just completed ERP therapy mixed with mindfulness meditation. The ERP and mindfulness meditations have overall really seemed to help. Over the past 10 years, my self harm image comes and goes. I sometimes can have very good days as well. My main issues still is that I can’t seem to move forward with where I can loose control at anytime and harm myself. I always feel like my brain is trying to protect me “just incase I do loose control”. Let me be clear, I love the life I have and am not suicidal. ERP helped me adjust to the image of me harming myself, it’s the “what if I loose control” factor that is still bothering me most days. I can be doing an ERP exposure with my weapon out on my lap (my gun is also never loaded during my exposures), but as soon as I put it away I seem to go back to telling myself I can still loose control one day. My mind usually goes to “I was fine right now but how will I be tomorrow? Say I loose control.” Then I get extremely frustrated and my mental compulsions start. I try to do more ERP where I tell myself that yea I might loose control one day, or who knows? which doesn’t seem to help much. I can take the easy way out and just get rid of my weapon, but I’m truly trying to heal and face this issue so I can live my best life possible and not just have a temporary fix. I am looking to maybe find another exercise or way to be ok with the uncertainty of the fear of loosing control. If anyone else has has had a similar issue and found a solution please let me know. Thanks :)

Ktt25

Date posted: 2y

Thank you Mike! Yea you’re right, it definitely gets worse with daily stress. When I’m alone it tends to act up more as well. I am a pretty active person. Usually try to get a 3-4 mile walk in every other day. My main thing is trying to not let that fearful thought get to me. I’ve also been working on making a name for it so I can make it separate from my other thoughts. I really appreciate your feedback :)

Mike1975

Date posted: 2y

I have harm OCD about others, not myself. Probably when you have the "lose control moments" those are periods of stress. Stress makes it worse. So you have to learn how to manage your stress. Keep in mind, you're not going to get rid of the thoughts. You have to learn to manage them, disregard them, etc. ERP does that, I guess, but even so you'll have problems from time to time. When I am stressed, I always feel like I"m going to lose control. It's normal for everyone, OCD or not. When you have OCD it's worse because of the images/thoughts. If you're not active, try exercise. Simply walking every day for 20 minutes can help.

anxietypoops

Date posted: 23w

The RP in ERP

Hi! I've been on my OCD healing journey for about half a year and I have seen a lot of success. I'm reaching out for advice, I am very willing to do exposures because I know the more I do them, the more I get better, but I struggle with the response prevention part. I don't know how to control my brain when it comes to facing the fears especially since most of my compulsions are mental. I can tell myself the typical things "I am okay with the uncertainty of this happening", etc. but its like my brain doesn't believe them. I've been stuck in this disconnect for a while and would love advice you have heard from a therapist or learned that has really help you.

overthinkerh...

Date posted: 18w

ROCD/ Harm OCD

Anyone experience this? I have had OCD for past 9 years, over the course of that time I have had multiple themes from POCD, false memory OCD, contamination OCD the list goes on. Right now I am struggling with the thought that an ex is going to harm me, my family and fiancé. I am about to get married and my fiancé makes me so happy I am in love and finally found the person that truly completes me. However, of course OCD latched onto that. My OCD convinces me that if my ex finds out I’m going to get married that he will harm me and my family. The other day I did a compulsion and looked at my blocked list which my ex and his family and friends are on, I quickly glanced at their little profile pics to make sure they were okay and that they weren’t planning on scheming to harm me and my family and my fiancé. Immediately after I did this I started to freak out, my OCD made me think I was a cheater and that I secretly want to reach out to this ex. I was recently diagnosed with PTSD from that situation because I went through a traumatic experience with this individual and this is what had lead me to believe that he will harm me. Anyone else experience similar?

Medicine2021_

Date posted: 13w

Suicidal OCD and harm OCD

I’ve recently been struggling a lot with OCD. I have had OCD for a long time I just didn’t realize it until more recently. About seven months ago I developed panic attacks one day randomly at work. I thought I was having a heart attack and went to the hospital where they told me it was just a panic attack and I assumed I would snap out and be better within a few days. However it didn’t. Here’s where it gets scary, I was staying at my then boyfriends house while dealing with blurry vision, anxiety attacks everyday, and more (unsure of what was going on). But at some point I saw my bfs (pew pew 🔫) on his table and it sent me into an anxiety attack after sudden thoughts that I was going to hurt myself with it. I begged him to put it away when I’m not looking so I didn’t know where he put it. He did. These thoughts lasted for about four days but began to go away. (I thought that was it and I would be back to normal). Unfortunately though I ended up moving back in with my family when we couldn’t get my panic attacks under control in time for me to get back to work and pay bills. However, coming home brought up a lot of trauma from when I was kid. My anxiety got worse but I didn’t have those thoughts again. About two and half months ago though, I got sick and went to the hospital where they gave me steroid pills and a steroid shot but sent me into some kind of psychiatric event. Ever since then though, I have been suffering from harm OCD, I have had moments of intense anger that I usually have to completely walk away and go on my own because of how intense they are, and it feels like it’s getting worse. Today I felt fine until about and hour and half ago where I started to dwell on the fact that my suicidal thought was influenced by my OCD and at the moment my OCD is at the worst it’s been. This caused me to get suddenly really depressed and I started crying thinking about how I can’t handle this. I then saw a post talking about how suicide rates are high for people with this form of OCD and it made me question if I am mentally strong enough to pull through this. I fear that at times I’m getting worse. I have good days but I have a lot of bad days. Unfortunately this sent me into such a bad panic attack I went over to my nanas crying about how I can’t deal with this. I took a 0.25 mg Xanax which helped calm down the panic attack portion of it but my brain is still uncomfortably active. I guess I just need hope. I’m so saddened by this. It’s like my life took a total 360 in 10 months and got even worse since the steroid shot. Idk what to do about it. I can’t stop the spiral. I talk to two different therapist weekly and start more next week, making it 5 times a week. I feel no improvements…

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Fear of Loosing Control/Harm OCD

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