Hi all, I will try to make it short (and will probably fail). I had my first real bout of pure ocd 15 years ago (I was 15). It started after smoking weed and a sort of depersonalization episode. Back then I did not understand what was happening so I spent almost a year keeping things to myself. The first obsessions I had centered around not being able to tell if I was real, or in a dream which created acute anxiety, I was also afraid of losing my mind as I did not understand what was happening. When I finally talked about it to my parents, they sent me to a therapist but he only wanted to give me meds and I was against it so I had to find another way. Through research and from experience I developed an habit of blocking thoughts that I started to recognize as obsessions by saying "I know this is all in my head". The disorder came and went throughout the years, I had many different themes, homosexual OCD, paedophile OCD, BDD. It was insufferable until I recognized it as a new theme (partly because it was listed as one on wikipedia) and then after a few weeks of telling myself this was just the disorder morphing I started to get better. I got a lot better, I went to study abroad, had the best year of my life, met my girlfriend who is wonderful. I think for three years I barely felt any deep anxiety, at least nothing compared to what I use to feel. But things got out of hand some months ago, I think due to life stressors (having to reconsider my career plans, feeling mike a failure, money and relationship problems). I think I went through a massive depressive episode, I lost interest in my creative passions, I was too anxious to feel anything anyway. I got a bit better but what I struggle with now is kind of hard to shake. See music as always been my main passion and it helped me a lot to get over ocd in the first place. But since this episode, I started to develop a fear of not being able to feel anything, especially toward music. I have tried to treat it as OCD and expose myself to the fear, but I can't help checking my feelings whenever I listen to or make music which I think might be a mental compulsion. I'll just tell myself "oh see you aren't feeling anything" or "you are feeling anxious listening to this song that you use to like so that must mean you don't love music anymore" and it makes me feel really anxious because I feel like it is a part of me dying and of course I can't enjoy the music because I'm constantly judging my feelings. It's kind of tricky because it is not really a typical theme, which maintains the doubt that it might just be real. Although I sort of see it as somewhere between ROCD (the loved one being music) and health OCD (the fear of having damaged my brain because of anxiety and thus being unable to feel joy anymore) So does anyone as ideas about what I should do if I want to use ERP for this thoughts ? Try to accept that maybe I lost my passion ? And do they sound like OCD at all ? Thank you ! (And sorry for the long post.)

Ant

Date posted: 7y

Hello Korie, thanks a lot for your reply ! I guess that is what it is, it's connected so strongly to who I am and my relationship to the world that I am just really scared of losing this. OCD always targets what I care about anyway. I'm trying to be patient and to tell myself that once I am in a better place mentally it will be fine. At least, you are right, music won't go away and it will still be there for me when this happens. How do I go about sharing a song with you ?

Ant

Date posted: 7y

Alright. There's this one by the band Girls, Hellhole Ratrace. Quite a sad song but the chorus always reminded me that I should stay hopeful for tomorrow and that one day I'd be able to be free and dance again.

Mjs110160

Date posted: 7y

Tha is for sharing

Korie

Date posted: 7y

I don’t have any ideas but I understand what you are saying completely. Music saved my life in my teens, it is the running theme of connection within my family, it expressed and validated every emotion and became a playlist of memories and feelings and accomplishments and mostly an ode to myself. Music was my lovenote to myself. I could hear a song and remember where I was it saved me and I could recognize the progress I’ve made since then. Physical proof that I felt and loved. And now music is just noise and it breaks my heart. And I’ll obsess on the fear that not connecting to music now MUST mean that I don’t connect to my family, it MUST mean that I haven’t really made progress at all, it MUST mean that I don’t feel anything anymore. But I do. I feel heartbreak and I miss it. Which means that I feel. I believe that someday I’ll hear the music again. I believe you will too. You don’t miss something that didn’t exist. Music IS real for you and me. And more than anything, because it isn’t human, it doesn’t have a timeframe that it’s available to us. Meaning: music won’t get overwhelmed by our obsessions, or limits. It doesn’t expire. Music will be there when you are able to hear it and when you are not. And it is not a fault of yours that you can’t “hear” it right now. YOU are the one that needs to be heard. And when you know you’ve been listened to, and when you are not drowning in your sounds of fear and discomfort, and you can speak your song of bravery, the music will come back to you again. If it helps, we can both recommend each other one song that is or was significant to us and I will listen to yours and you can listen to mine. I wish you luck, my friend.

Korie

Date posted: 7y

Just tell me the song name and artist and I can look it up on my own.

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