- Date posted
- 5y ago
- Date posted
- 5y ago
How do I make them aware that I have OCD without going into too much detail? (I’m from uk btw) x
- Date posted
- 5y ago
Instead of giving them specific thoughts try to tell them how the thoughts make you feel and convey the level of discomfort you are experiencing
- Date posted
- 5y ago
Amazing, thanks so much guys. Would you say it’s a good idea to go to the GP about it? I have been paying so much money for therapy and it hasn’t done anything yet :( have your doctors given you a lot of support?
- Date posted
- 5y ago
Thank you! :) I had a look and there’s none in my area :( I’d have to travel to the nearest city which I could try I suppose!
- Date posted
- 5y ago
You don’t necessarily need to get into the details. Mine wasn’t really familiar with OCD in general. But instead she sent me a link to IAPT where you can get a referral to an OCD specialist. I’m still waiting for mine but then again I was told it can take weeks so it’s pretty normal.
- Date posted
- 5y ago
I’m in the UK as well. I mentioned I have had violent and sexual intrusive thoughts and that I do compulsions to ease the anxiety. And although I was seeking reassurance there, when I asked my GP if she thought it sounded like OCD she told me it was very probable. And from there she told me where I could find an OCD specialist
- Date posted
- 5y ago
I think you should cause maybe they can refer you to a psychiatrist and maybe a more suitable therapist.
- Date posted
- 5y ago
My GP has been quite supportive and understanding of what I’m going through. She didn’t see me as insane or a monster, even though that’s what my brain was telling me. She’s been keeping in touch with me whilst I’m waiting to meet an OCD specialist.
- Date posted
- 5y ago
How long have you been waiting to see someone? Did they refer you to a specialist or to a more general psychotherapist? And did they offer you medication?
- Date posted
- 5y ago
I was offered medication but I held off on it. I’m a bit afraid of the side effects I may get but your GP will definitely suggest it if you feel like you need it. As for the referral, there’s a website called IAPT where you can refer to an OCD specialist. It takes about 6-8 weeks though to hear back from them. They send a survey during that time to keep track of your mental state. It’s been about two weeks now for me, so it’ll be a couple more till I hear back from them. In the meantime I’m attending an OCD support group, which my GP highly encouraged.
- Date posted
- 5y ago
That’s interesting and helpful thank you! Is the support group useful? What is your ‘subtype’ of OCD if you don’t mind me asking?
- Date posted
- 5y ago
I have POCD. Used to have Harm OCD as well. I actually haven’t attended the support group yet, as the meeting is this Thursday. From what I’ve been told, they can be really great in just finding people who suffer from the same thing and not feel as lonely. Every once in a while they also bring actual OCD specialists to give helpful techniques. Since you live in the UK, you can always check out the website OCD Action where you can find support groups near you if you’re interested.
- Date posted
- 5y ago
No problem! It still might be worthwhile checking either way. :D
Related posts
- Date posted
- 16w ago
I've never been diagnosed with OCD, but have thought for a long time that I do have it. I've tried to bring it up in therapy but have been shot down as "OCD tendencies". Luckily I'm with a new therapist and am planning to bring it up again. Especially after reading a lot of your posts, I'm really resonating with them. Especially my anxieties and obsessions with my health. God forbid I feel any weird pain or ache, I instantly think I'm dying. Sometimes I get a weird pain in my head and think it's a stroke or aneurysm. Ill go as far as the perform the stroke FAST test. This happens multiple times a day. I also have HUGE anxieties about death and my mortality. If I think about it too much, I get this deep cold pit in my stomach and spiral. Even talking about it causes me sooo much distress. I'm just worried I'll be dismissed or told I'm just self diagnosing because I related to a post online. But if any of this sounds accurate, please let me know. I'd love to be reassured of my obsessions rather than just dismissed as being anxious.
- Date posted
- 14w ago
It started when I became an adult, and started receiving my mental health diagnosis. I hyper fixated on each and every action I did and how it could be related to my diagnosis’s. It then lead to fixation to my physical health — making appointments and seeing every specialist I can to rule out every possibility. I currently have been suffering with obstructive sleep. I woke up the past few days with severe pain from the lack of sleep whilst believing I was oversleeping. Luckily my fit watch tracks my sleep cycle and it turns out I am not receiving any sleep. I had an extreme panic attack — bursting into tears on the phone with my mom wondering what this case might be. She told me it could be sleep apnea and that a simple sleep study could figure this out. However, knowing my family history I made appointments to every specialist I can to make sure it is nothing serious. The unknown of health can be scary to me. Watching my mother suffer with her physical health chronically since I was a child lead me to be very conscious and aware of how my body is functioning. This morning was one of the worst moments of physical pain. I should just take one step at a time with the sleep doctor instead of taking measures to see every specialist that could pertain with this issue. However, that is very hard to me. I don’t want to ever wake up in the pain I was this morning. Does anyone else suffer with health-related OCD? And if so, how do you find a sense of ease during moments like I expressed?
- Date posted
- 13w ago
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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