grap333
- Date posted
- 5y
JonasJonas
- Date posted
- 5y
Absolutely! I have trauma from being shocked at work (I am an electrical apprentice) and it has activated the worst OCD I’ve had since I was a kid. I cannot accept the lights/outlets I’ve installed are safe) or that equipment I’m working on is de-energized. I check and check again. It’s making me work slower and perform worse. At home I sit and ponder if the work I’ve put in is exploding or causing fires while I’m not there. I am afraid it’s not worth pursuing the career anymore but I’m so close to being licensed and I have done so much school it would be such a waste.
Sunrise22Sunrise22
- Date posted
- 5y
You’d be better off continuing the work and avoiding the checking (both physical and mental) that you’re doing. Let your work become your exposure therapy. The reason I say this is that experts say that the way to recover from OCD is to keep living a life according to your values. For you, that would be continuing what you started and have almost finished. Also, chances are that your OCD would latch onto something else if it weren’t this, so leaving will just make you feel defeated and frustrated.
JonasJonas
- Date posted
- 5y
@Sunrise22 Thank you very much for the insightful advice. You are spot on about OCD latching on to some other aspect of my life. I can think of other obsessions I have that have nothing to do with work and would not be affected by me quitting. I wish I had the knowledge to help with your trauma. If the abuser lives in the same rural area as you that must be very difficult and anxiety inducing thinking you could go to the grocery store and run into them. Would it help if every time you left to go in public you could go over a plan in your head in case you do see this person? Planning exactly what you’ll say or how you’ll react might make it less traumatic? But maybe an expert would say that’s not the best advice and really you should work on not being re-traumatized by the idea of seeing them again. I really hope you can get help at home or through this app!
Sunrise22Sunrise22
- Date posted
- 5y
@rewho Thank you for your kind words! Fortunately I live across the country from my ex, so no worries about running into him ??
Sunrise22Sunrise22
- Date posted
- 5y
YES!!! You’re the first person I’ve seen comment about this. My theme is specifically regarding someone who abused me and fear of being in contact with them again. It makes exposure challenging because scripting involves basically re-traumatizing myself over and over. Because I’m in a rural area, there are limited trauma specialist and no OCD specialists that I’ve found, so unfortunately I’m working towards overcoming this on my own.
grap333grap333
- Date posted
- 5y
i feel you. it's difficult when OCD and trauma intersect. hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. a big theme for me has been keeping myself from experiencing the abuse again. things like, "if i breathe a certain way they won't hurt me" or "i have to have the exact right facial expression and body language or else they're going to abuse me" I've gotten alot better about it though. I live in a pretty big city and it's STILL so difficult to find ERP therapy. ugh
FathomableFathomable
- Date posted
- 5y
Yep, a lot of my themes are linked to traumas or developed after trauma. It's actually pretty debilitating.
Star-LordStar-Lord
- Date posted
- 5y
I used to get bullied and fight a lot as a kid and together with low self esteem, it has effected me a lot.
ThreeLittleBirdsThreeLittleB...
- Date posted
- 5y
Yes
Related posts
Wessers19
- Date posted
- 24w
Could being exposed to content as a kid affected me in this way?
Trying not to seek reassurance, but rather connect the dots on my OCD and possible reasons as to why I am the way I am. I have severe OCD (or at least I hope I do) mainly surrounding POCD. I've had symptoms of OCD the majority of my life but this theme has come up more recently. When I was a kid, and i'm talking 6-7, I was first exposed to some really gross adult content online. It was introduced to me by a friend of mine around the same age of me. I saw some really disgusting things that a 6-7 year old should definitely not see. This was not a one time occurrence, as I had been exposed to taboo topics online years to come after that, such as the same friend introducing me to Omegle... And i'm sure you can imagine how that went, theres a lot of genuinely disgusting human beings on there. Coming back to the reason for making this post; is it possible to early exposure to this content could be one of the reasons I struggle with POCD? It genuinely scares me to death because you hear that real p*dos dealt with simular situations when they were kids, so thats kind of making me feel that this could be more than OCD, and I could be a genuinely bad person. My POCD feels so real, that at times i'm fully convinced its not OCD. Sometimes I can't even distinguish the feelings of attraction between a younger person and an older person, except for the feeling of anxiety and fear. Its really hard to explain without going into detail, but it just feels so real. Some feedback on this would be great, thank you all.
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LnB90210
- Date posted
- 20w
Flare ups when stressed.
Does anyone Else’s ocd flare up bad when in stressful life situations? I was doing amazing and now that I’m having some drama with my life it seems to have come back with a vengeance. Anyone else?
Lorrielle
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 8w
How has your trauma shaped your OCD?
I feel like after years of living in survival mode from various back to back traumas, I don’t know how to turn off my brain. It’s always in some sort of overstimulated cycle of overthinking, rumination, self checking, and seeking reassurance. I know there will be more peace after treatment. But just hating like I’m stuck in always feeling like I’m waiting for the next shoe to drop when so many shit things have happened to me early in life. How am I suppose to be excited about what’s next?
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