Suicide OCD - going off meds

Hi everyone This is my first post here. I am a 28yo female from the UK and I have suicide OCD which I have been suffering with since the age of 8 years old roughly. Its mad because when I'm not experiencing a flare up and I'm thinking about my OCD it seems so bizarre that I would ever be scared of doing something like that to myself but then when I get an intrusive thought it's as if rationality goes out the window and my body instantly reacts with adrenaline and I'm so scared I will act on it in a moment of madness. I understand the science behind it but it doesn't make it any less distressing. I am trying for the 3rd time to go off my SSRIs. The first 2 times were unsuccessful and one thing I'm noticing is that my adrenaline spikes are worse not on the meds. I have been on them for 7 years now and wish to stop them for a variety of reasons - weight gain, numb feeling, lack of motivation, insomnia, lack of sex drive, lack of creativity, wanting to be pregnant one day etc I tried ERP but the sessions were too expensive and I didn't really like the therapist. He told me that I wasn't extreme enough for him to help me and that it was really weird for someone with OCD to get panic attacks due to intrusive thoughts. It left a bad taste in my mouth but I have been employing some of the things that he suggested. I don't know if socialising on here will be helpful for me, or if it will be triggering but I'm willing to try anything to help

benjita1

Date posted: 1y

I’m too in the UK, Are you able to do a self referral? I’m from Dorset and we have Steps2wellbeing here where we can self refer. They book an assessment and then an appropriate plan is put in place for treatment. Have you spoken to your doctor about the meds. There are several different types and I know a certain amount of trial and error occurs when trying to find the ones that work for you. I understand you want to come off them but probably worth the conversation! I also have issues with this theme. It’s very unpleasant and upsetting.

SavageCricket

Date posted: 1y

Hiya in the past, the NHS put me on CBT which worked well but more of like a coping mechanism rather than fully dealing with it you know? I thought ERP would be a more robust solution but they aren't offering it on the NHS.. I've tried several meds and those were the ones that worked the best. All of them made me feel numb and as a result I stopped writing poetry which was my passion and I'd love to get back to it if I can.. I know it sounds silly but I feel like on the meds although the ocd doesn't bother me, I'm also not living my life. It's good to speak to someone else going through it. I remember being 13 and being absolutely convinced that I was the only person in the world experiencing this! I wasn't diagnosed til 19, the doctors didn't know what was wrong with me

benjita1

Date posted: 1y

@SavageCricket I start a 12 week group course which involves ERP therapy. This is provided on the NHS. CBT worked for me with my health anxiety but when I completed the 6 week low intensity CBT recently is actually made my OCD worse! I believe OCD is level 3 out of 5 which involves things like ERP etc… I kept getting diagnosed with GAD with OCD tendencies until recently when they redid the tests and have agreed it’s OCD. I think it’s well worth contacting your GP or mental health team again and see if you can get the correct treatment for you. I have had OCD for 20 years now and it’s basically taken this long for a proper diagnoses. I did resist medication up until recently but with the recent themes I thing it had actually helped me! You will get back to writing your poetry again, just takes a little time. OCD will not win!

SavageCricket

Date posted: 1y

@benjita1 Thank you for this, it's super helpful ❤️ you're right, it will never beat us! We are still fighting 20 years on! Xx

galina

Date posted: 16w

New here and want to connect

I’m new to treatment and only realized I have OCD a few months ago. I went through a tough and abusive marriage and ended up getting divorced. I had my first panic attack several years ago and ended up needing to go on Lexapro. This helped me significantly and allowed me to leave my partner. Several years later and I decided to stop Lexapro because I thought I was good to go. I’m in a very healthy relationship, have a great job, friends/family, go to the gym and have a wonderful life. It’s been about a year off the meds and I’ve had some panic, but I’ve been able to manage it. For some reason, the last three weeks has been really difficult for me. I have different spirals and different thought processes: what if I’m schizophrenic? What if I have a deeper mental disorder? What if I hurt someone? What if I need to leave my partner? What if I end up becoming so depressed that I end up hurting myself? My brain just goes from one what if to the next and once I conquer one, the next one pops up with even more intensity. I started taking NAC and inositol and I’m taking saffron during the day because I really don’t wanna go on back on medication but sometimes my thoughts scare me and I’m convinced that I’m not gonna get better and I know that’s just the OCD loop, but I’m wondering if this resonates with anyone else!

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…

KTomsich

Date posted: 7w

Need advice

I'm new to NOCD and have been dealing with harm/suicidal, and Pure OCD for some time now. It started off being healthy related anxiety that led to compulsion where I would research information on an uncommon illness or something I thought I had. Now it has snowballed into intrusive thoughts and images of me killing myself in various ways or my wife. The former is what has been the most debilitating and hardest to shake. Recently I seem to find triggers almost every where I look. "What if I killed myself this way" if I see a kitchen knife or a bottle of pills. A friend talked about going to a gun range a while back and an image popped up of me being there and turning a gun to myself which is something I dont want to do. I love life and its so painful to go through thoughts that try to tell me otherwise. That particular image/thought has really stuck with me. I know about ERP and my therapist said I could rip the bandaid off and go to a gun range but it terrifies me. I don't own any weapons but I often think, "what if I buy one and im actually suicidal?" Just typing it makes me anxious. I'm wanting to start a low dose of Prozac which opens up another can of worms about worried my "overdose thought" will come true, on top of potential side effects. This is long winded but im looking for any advice to get through this. I know others are worse off than me but considering I've never been like this and it only started 6 months ago, I'm really struggling. Thanks everyone.

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Suicide OCD - going off meds

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