Wow. This is my night quite often. I’ve learned to try to meditate or tell myself it’s an intrusive thought, and change my focus to something good and positive things that happened in my day, or that many people love me and I am worthy. And yes, I pray. I know I am heard.
The hard part of those intrusive thoughts for me are when they hit me in my dreams and go a lot of different ugly directions, but almost always around the feeling of rejection, and just a lot of sadness and ugliness. I wake up in the middle of the night in panic attack mode. It’s so hard to go back to sleep. Sometimes , after I give it an hour of all the self talk and thought redirection,I get up to get my anti anxiety medicine. It definitely helps.
When I didn’t have coverage and didn’t think I could see my doctor to get my Rx refilled, I was staying alone in my empty rental renovating it for six anxiety filled months So many times, waking up in panic and no meds to help, just wanting to die, just so driven to throw myself in the pool with a weight on me. I sat in the dark terrified with this feeling, terrified that I might actually be driven to do this. I forced myself to get up and just keep walking around the house. I was afraid if I called for help, I would be put into a hospital. That was not going to happen, no way.
The next day I hesitantly talked to my daughters, who live far away, about it. They were thanking me for opening up and urged me to call an online therapist doctor to get me back on my meds. One daughter would pay for it. Yes, I felt like a loser that my daughter would have to pay for this. I had to let that go and let them help me.
The doctor was amazing. She understood what I was going through with PTSD from my childhood, all my adulthood, and the last 23 years being in a relationship with an OCPD/OCD and Covert Narcissist. She said that in itself will be a big cause of PTSD. It was so GREAT to be heard. She also understood how hard it is for people to leave these relationships when everyone else says, “Why do you stay?? Just leave him!!” They don’t understand the dynamics and what happens in our brains and thought patterns.
Today, for the first time, I heard about NOCD. I started reading up on it here and was surprised to read that these intrusive thoughts and ruminations could actually be a condition of the compulsion part of OCD. I’ve been in and out of therapy since I was about 13 (a loooong time). I was married to a man with extreme OCD. My daughter was diagnosed around 9 with OCD due to her overwhelming need for perfection and for things to just be a certain way. I had been diagnosed, like many women, in my 30s with ADHD, Anxiety, and Depression. Those are not misdiagnosed, but sometimes I would wonder if there might be a component of OCD in there. However, I did not have a need to wash my hands, etc that you learn as the example of OCD. One of my daughters is convinced that I have a version of autism that is just recently being looked at. Maybe, maybe not. I read up on it and just don’t know. My doctor and therapist disagree. She says they need to read up on it, as it’s not the typical findings in autism. Ahh, yes learn so much from the Internet. lol
So now, I’m looking forward to learning more about the possibility of Compulsion Disorder. Being Neurodivergent makes the world work differently than how Neurotypicals want us to fit in it. And, that right there can lead to intrusive thoughts galore. I would love to stop the repetitive songs that drive me crazy, but most of all the nighttime attacks to my subconscious brain.
BTW, it was the NPR commercial I heard while starting to wake up that piqued my interest. The founder said something about the repetitive songs in his head. I opened my eyes and thought, “What?! There’s a cure for that??” I went straight to search for NOCD. Can’t afford it yet, but I’m moving my business forward hoping to afford better quality things for my health, for my life.
