Most days I feel very trapped and depressed due to my severe ocd and specifically my intrusive thoughts. Did SSRI’s help anyone with intrusive thoughts? My brain tells me I did terrible things in the past, and it can be very exhausting and debilitating. I don’t want to live my whole life like this.

Thank you guys all so much for answering and leaving words of encouragement and advice.. it really helps me feel less alone dealing with this hell called OCD.. it also makes me feel more positive and encouraged to try the SSRI’s and to keep pushing through life.

That is where the SSRIs will help you my friend, they will help balance your mood to enable you to complete ERP so that you don’t get so distressed while doing ERP

Do the SSRI’s help with making the intrusive thoughts easier to dismiss? The thoughts come and go, and when they come they feel so real, but when they eventually go, I realize how irrational and silly they are. However it really negatively affects my life, relationships and work.. thanks for the information btw.

ERP can help with intrusive thoughts. Most of my ocd is just intrusive thoughts and mental compulsions. What you need to do is label the thoughts you’re having. For example, if you get an intrusive thought you can say “ okay ocd I know what you’re trying to do and I’m not going to fall for it. You are making me analyze this thought which doesn’t need to be analyzed.” So basically labeling each thought as what it is. When you let the thoughts sit and ruminate is when they really start to take over. Also cut all the mental compulsions. So no asking for reassurance, etc.

1. Things that raise serotonin: exercise, meditation, sunshine, probiotics, avoiding alcohol (this one I find the hardest), black seed oil, happy movies, avoiding negative talk (lowers serotonin), playing with dog, getting hugs.... (this lessens the intrusive thoughts a lot). 2. When the scary thought happens I accept that it’s my brain trying to protect me but it’s in overdrive. Ultimately if something upsets me it will show it to me over and over until it no longer upsets me. If I ignore it and do something else (all the while my hands are shaking and my heart racing) it tends to lose its intensity and often goes away for good. 3. Reading about others ocd reminds me that it’s a neurological issue and I’m not bad, weak, or crazy.

Yeah I did that at first, I’m now waiting for therapy but you have good days and bad days

Thank you all so much for all the great info. It can be such a debilitating and scary disorder to deal with. I am going to a psych very soon and will hopefully find relief through the SSRI’s to better my erp therapy. I have been trying to accept that my brain is malfunctioning and i probably did not do the awful things I convince myself, but it can be very hard and tiring. Thanks again for all the help

Exactly- that’s similar to what I do but I do it with my long term relationship which makes it very intense and upsetting. I would never do anything to hurt my significant other but my brain convinces me I have and can’t remember. It makes life so debilitating.

Great way to think of it! Thanks! I try to remind myself to trust my actual real memories, not suggestions from my brain. That has helped a bit, and helped me dismiss the past few without doing my compulsion of confessing

I was put on an antipsychotic to help with intrusive thoughts and I have found it to be more helpful than my SSRI

Yeah, therapy helps but for it me it didn’t work on the intrusive thoughts until it was in combination with meds

I was put on an SSRI (paroxetine) for my OCD a few years ago and have found it very beneficial. It’s still there and I’ve got some psych appointments coming up that I’ve been putting off for a while but it’s much more well managed. I still get the intrusive thoughts but since taking the SSRI I find it much easier to ignore them or assign less importance to them.

Also, I find that I still obsess over past events that happened before I started the meds (mine is mainly about harm minimisation and contamination), but I don’t obsess over as many incidents that have happened since then.

You are not alone. OCD presents differently for everyone and it is normal That what works for one person may not work for another. I feel like I’ve tried it all including ERP But still struggle on a daily basis. OCD is cruel.

Yes SSRIs can help improve mood but I would thing therapy would help you

I have been going to the best ocd specialist in my area for a few months, we have done erp and it has helped with my cleaning, organizing, and contamination ocd but not the intrusive thoughts :-(

Have you covered your intrusive thoughts with the therapist?

Yes we have, and the erp just doesn’t seem to work. It becomes to distressful and upsetting for me to properly do erp, and it comes back stronger and worse. I ruminate over the thoughts and have an incredibly hard time allowing the anxiety levels to naturally go down. It seems like a never ending battle, and it has made me very depressed.

I have found that cbd oil lowers the anxiety enough to let the thoughts pass more easily. But I do a crap ton of other things to raise my serotonin. When I fail to do this stuff the thoughts are torturous and debilitating

Margo- what other things do you find help with your intrusive thoughts? Thanks

Well, the thoughts are still there but you may not want to hear this but your thoughts will not go away as you are paying attention to them. The more attention you pay to them, the more anxious you will become. The SSRIs increase serontin which increases your mood and it will reduce your anxiety

Yeah that has been my problem- paying to much attention to them and they become much stronger. I have heard that SSRIs help some people dismiss the intrusive thoughts quicker and I’m hoping that’s the case for me.. willing to try anything at this point

I read something recently that helped: don’t do ANYTHING to make it go away. Especially any form of reassurance. Even self reassurance gives it fuel.

That was my biggest problem, I would search through old emails, facebooks, texts exc and reassure myself constantly that I didn’t do anything wrong, and then the thoughts would get worse. My intrusive thoughts mainly attack things such as “what if I did ___ horrible thing in the past and can’t remember” rather then thinking I will do something in the future which adds a whole other component. Have any of you dealt with that?

I haven’t had in the far past but would serve food and then later at night try to remember if I cooked it enough. I then would try to replay the cooking over and over and read about symptoms of food poisoning etc... the looking up always always makes things worse.