- Date posted
- 1y
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What does an OCD episode look like?
What does an OCD episode look like?
For me having anxiety attacks, ruminating, overwhelming guilt (sometimes), excessive worrying. Basically feeling so overwhelmed
They hit different. Sometimes I'll isolate and try to hide from the feelings. No activity, no talking to anyone, no doing anything really. I basically regress back to a cacoon like state. Other times for some reason I'll nervously pace in circles like a dog chasing his tail. I've been doing this ever since I was a kid. I do this when I'm overwhelmed with feelings of shame/guilt. I either avoid or run in circles 😅
@Insert Clever Username I definitely isolate myself as well. I have extreme difficulty showing vulnerability so I get it.
For me, I get panic attacks and anxiety attacks. They often occur when I process a highly distressing thought, and my brain starts to catastrophise. I can instantly tell when they are going to happen and I can handle them but they are awful, actually had one today 😞. Isolating is a common thing I do when they happen - and ruminating in silence about whether or not my fear would happen and what that would mean for me…
@Bee. I fully relate to this. Had 2 episodes the past two days and they were horrible. Hope you feel better ❤️🩹
@v333 Thank you so much, I’m sorry you experienced that too - OCD episodes are the worst… Hope you also feel better ❤️
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I asked this question cuz I wasn’t sure if what I was having was an OCD episode. I thought they had to be solely related to doing compulsions, but after relating to all your responses I can definitely consider what I experience as OCD episodes.
How do any of you guys deal with OCD that’s latched on to something real? I don’t mean real event OCD but a real thing?
I’ve always had OCD, and for most of my life it was little things that seemed manageable at the time or something that would phase out of my head within a couple days/weeks/months. But, the older I got the more severe it became, I’d find myself collapsing deeper and deeper within my own head trying to out think the thoughts that bothered me. About a year ago I had a thought that rattled me to my core. My brothers and I were watching a movie in our mother’s room when my youngest brother turned to me to say something. His close proximity to me triggered a fleeting sexually explicit image in my head and that thought caused me to spiral. Asking questions like, “are you attracted to your minor brother? Are you attracted to minors? Are you gay? Etc.” a couple days went by and my mental stability continued to crumble until I broke down to my mother, she was understanding and we found a a psychiatrist. I got on medication and for a while everything was slowly but surely trending in a positive direction. The thoughts would still pop into my head but they were becoming more manageable. As we all know OCD and mental illness comes in waves. Currently my OCD has been pretty severe. I feel those intrusive thoughts latching on in my head and it’s been very hard to kick them. It’s gotten to the point where I find myself being uncomfortable being in close proximity with my little brother because I feel as though I am capable of harming him in any way. And the more uncomfortable I become being around him the more I find myself lashing out in anger towards the people I care about the most. Those moments of anger cause me to spiral even farther as my head fills with ideas like “what if you are capable of hurting someone or even murdering them?” There’s times where these thoughts rattle me so much that I feel like it would be better to be in prison where I couldn’t harm someone or that even being dead would be a better solution than possibly running the risk of hurting someone in my life I care about. This is about the jist of it, a majority of the OCD I have is centered around the idea that I am capable of harming my little brother physically, mentally, sexually. It’s been exhausting and it feels like there is no end in sight.
What irritates me the most is that during intimacy with my husband, it happens that OCD puts an image and scene in my head, my sister or someone for whom my OCD is attached and it's literally as if that intimacy is happening with that person, and it seems real that I can and it's exciting! I'm working on ERP during that, but it's still hard to digest... I don't know if it's the same for you?
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