- Username
- Ocd_istheworst
- Date posted
- 4y ago
It hurts when there’s not much of or any reply to posts. So, your OCD is improved, and you finished ERP on here. But now, you feel super depressed and like you can’t function. It feels like you have two options 1) cause permanent damage to your body by taking meds which will help you function or 2) avoid the permanent damage of drugs and remain unable to function. Did I hear you correctly? If I don’t respond right away, it’s because I’m actively trying to cut down the amount of time I spend on this app.
Yes exactly!!! Which now seeing it as point blank, seems like quite a good ERP script ... It fees like either one I’m a hopeless case.
@Ocdaim Awesome! Script away! Back to the depression. Maybe it would be helpful to consider: 1) what does “functioning” look like to you? 2) You listed two options—is there a third, fourth, fifth?
@Alyosha These are good points! For me functioning would be being productive in anyway towards my goals I have in life and not just do laundry and lay down all day bc I’m mentally drained. I used to have motivation and ambitions and plans and it seems to me like every day I say “I’ll feel better tomorrow to get ____ started.” And then it rolls around and I’m too depressed for do so. Other options than meds though would be trying out other things like maybe CBT? For my anxiety. I have no idea if it can help with depression also. And maybe having someone hold myself accountable for some small things to do during the week. I do also need to find a new general therapist.
@Ocdaim Great ideas! If you don’t mind me asking, when did your depression start? It seems there are two kinds: this low-level but chronic condition that spans years, and this high-level, episodic type that knocks you down for a few months. (I’m not a doctor, and could be wrong about that, but that seems to be the case from what I’ve read.) What is your depression like?
@Alyosha My depression has been back ever since I weened off my ocd meds which was about a year ago. It gets very severe at times with episodes lasting weeks if I have an OCD spike, but If it’s not ocd related then its just at a flat low-level most of the time
@Ocdaim Hi Ocdaim! Just letting you know Alyosha probably won't be back till Monday. Didn't want you to think she's ignoring you ☺.
@Ben84 No worries at all! Thanks Ben for letting me know! ? hope you are doing well
@Ocdaim Not too shabby. How about you ☺?
@Ben84 Same old stuff different day lol
@Ocdaim Thanks for sharing!
I'm sorry that you've fallen through the cracks here. How can I help?
I’ve been off of my OCD meds for about a year now or close to a year. I wanted to get off to give myself a chance to see if I can function on my own, and honestly because it took away my sex drive. Since coming off, I just can’t function or do the goals I want to accomplish in life. I feel like I’m wasting my life away already. I feel like I may need meds again just to get functioning again and achieve some life goals... but worried about the post side effects after again or fear of staying on forever and having bad side effects from that too.
@Ocdaim I just bookmarked this post so I can circle back to it tomorrow. My brain is shot for today I think ☺. I want to give you my best self. Have a good night and I'll talk to you tomorrow!
@Ben84 Of course! Thank you Ben
@Ocdaim It looks like Alyosha has a good train of thought going, so I'm going to just let her go with it ☺. You're in good hands with her. If I see I can add something to the conversation, I will. I just want to apologize if you've been ignored on this app. I hope I get to know you better over time ☺!
Gotcha. I agree with the above poster. Propranolol is coincidentally really good for OCD, for example.
Do you know that your heavenly father loves you? His word says he came that we may have life more abundantly....it doesn't seem like your living life more abundantly and I'm sorry for that life is very hard, stressful and when we fix one thing another comes up, but life with Jesus is alot easier, yes you will still go through things but you will get through them better then you was before not worst.......... .The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. John 10:10-16 NIV Jesus never leaves us, people, friends, family at some point will fail us it's not their fault we are all only human and all make mistakes but Jesus will never fail us or leave us I struggled with depression and Jesus has set me free I pray in Jesus name he will set you free to seek his face James 4:8 says come near to God and he will come near to you The Bible says when you seek him with your whole heart you will find him ♥️
I always seek the Lord! ?
Oh man; I feel ya on this. I don’t often get hung on possible side effects because I have autoimmune issues for which I have to take meds forever. But I have had battles with antidepressants and their side effects. Have you had a nice, lengthy chat with your doctor about meds? I know the prospect of trial and error is no fun at all, but there are so many different kinds of meds. And so many meds can ease symptoms for which they aren’t mainly intended. Example: antihistamines treat nausea and are sometimes used as sleeping aids. My point is that maybe you can find a balance between a med with far less side effects that could ease, if not in the same way as your SSRI, some OCD symptoms. It’s also good to have a doc that will talk with you about non-med help, like maybe a specific type of meditation or a certain activity that you can try adhering to as though it were prescription. Sending you good wishes!
Thank you for taking the time to write this out! I sometimes feel like drs are very cold and robotic when I bring up mental health and they always say the same “seak professional help and maybe get on some meds.” And then they are on their way. I feel like just a number to them that needs fast fixing. I do hope to find a very good and caring pyciastrist eventually though that won’t rush me onto something because it has the ocd label on it. Having a certain activity as if it’s a prescription is honestly such a great idea- I need someone to hold me accountable to try XYZ and see how it can help me in time. Thanks for this feedback ?
@Ocdaim I know what you mean about doctors. Finding one who will really listen, consider every point of your discussion, and not race you out the door can be so hard. They do exist; Godspeed in finding one soon! I sometimes post here to hold myself accountable before I do something hard that will help me be better. Sometimes I find the right friend to start a healthy habit with, but if I can’t, there are other ways. And of course there’re habit apps to develop and track new, healthy behaviors.
I'm so sorry. I don't know where else to go. My intrusive thoughts happened in March for first time. I worked hard to fight them through diet and excercise since I had to wait for my insurance to kick in during April. It got better with alot of work but then I went to friend house and had an anxiety attack. Since then I have breathing ocd. I've tried lexapro, zoloft, exxefor, seroquell, now luvox all with horrible side effects and no luck. I don't want to try anymore meds. This is the first time I try pharmacological agents. I don't know where to turn anymore. Im 48. This is not where I saw my life going. There has to be an answer for me. My God.
Hi I’m Matt. I’m new. I’m struggling a lot even to write this, my mind feels confused, uncertain, tired, I can’t line up my thoughts, I’m not even sure I know how or what to think anymore, I feel dizzy, anxious, short of breath, cold, frightened, empty, and I just want to sleep. That’s how I’m feeling right now and every second of my life in general. It didn’t use to be that way, it just happened over the past few years and became unbearable during the last. I’m not very good at being concise, but I’ll try. I’ve had OCD since I was a kid, it started out when I was around 8 as what looked like a contamination fear. I would wash my hands several times a day until they bled. Then a couple of years later it morphed in some sort of mystical/ethical/moral OCD. I’m agnostic but I was brought up catholic, and that education really messed with my head. Religion terrified me. I would always feel dirty, guilty, a sinner and I would do the sign of the cross hundreds of times a day. My parents saw all this, they thought it was a quirk, a phase. And did absolutely nothing about it. Growing up, in my early teens I started to have verbal intrusive thoughts (horrible insults directed at dead people kept coming up and I would do mental compulsion to chase them away). I was also scared of hurting people. When I was around 14/15 I started fearing of beating a pedophile and that I would end up murdering the people I loved the most, as well as hurting people in general. It was very distressing to me and I did not talk about to anyone. I felt so guilty towards my parents too, because I tried to avoid any family situation that involved younger children (bear in mind I was a child too, 14-15) and when I was forced I would behave weirdly and try to avoid those children as much as possible. That showed and my mother hated me for that. I saw a couple of therapists and even though I talked about my fear of arming people and the fact that I was uncomfortable around children (I didn’t specifically say that I was afraid of being a pedophile at the time, because to me that was way worse than being a murderer). No of them figured out I had ocd. I discovered I had it via my own research when I was 24. I was a textbook case. All check boxes ticked. I was living all over Europe so I did not see a therapist for a few years (also because my previous experiences were so discouraging). At the age of 28 the intrusive thoughts were giving me a really hard time. So I sought for help. I was broke and I didn’t want to ask my parents for money (also because the general idea there was: psychologists are just for nutjobs and weak people. Buckle up) so I called the Italian NHS and ask for therapy, they said the waitlist was at least a year… but hey, if you wanna take drugs no problem, the psychiatrist can see next week). I have always been against psychiatric drugs but I was so desperate at that point and I thought that my ailment was so incurable that I caved in. During a 20 minutes visit the doctor confirmed that I had OCD and gave 20mg of paroxetine which was soon replaced by lexapro 20mg. Ten years have passed since then. I’ve been on and off medications and therapy until I got tinnitus right before the first lockdown and that was devastating. I started doing therapy again and they gave me a mix of ssris, antipsychotic drugs and benzos. Those drugs destroyed me and I felt so numb and pathetic and I lost interest in everything. There was also some cannabis use going on (which before the meds was good for me. I started smoking THC very late in life, Whalen I was about 33, to come off the benzos I was prescribed and I hated. Before tinnitus and meds, I would smoke weed and watch history documentaries for hours, after that I would solely smoke for the purpose of numbing myself). Tinnitus with OCD is an explosive mix, because it’s a sound that works exactly like an intrusive thought, if you engage with it, it gets worse). I was completely destroyed end not functional at all. I started obsessing over my tinnitus, the fact that I would never hear silence again, the fact that I couldn’t sleep, make music, read, focus, work, even think anymore. I would check my IQ to see if tinnitus was causing neurological damage. I thought that I had become completely stupid and I couldn’t recall anything anymore. The therapist I was seeing was well aware that I had severe ocd, I was very specific about that, but she would just “treat” the distress, my episodes and the subsequent depression. She did nothing for ocd. The kept medicating me and finally they gave me venlafaxine which made me suicidal. What did my therapists do when I told them that such meds were giving me those thoughts? They recommended hospitalisation telling me a fairy tale about this wonderful place that did individual and group therapy, group work and exercise, walks, talks, even a gym! It turns out it was the kind of 1950s sanitarium you see in scary movies. Worse than a prison, I’m not kidding. All they did was pumping people full of sedatives and drugs and there was no therapy whatsoever. I went there voluntarily with the specific purpose of coming off meds in a protected environment and so I did, even though they made me stop cold turkey and they kept insisting on giving me other drugs, which I refused. That was last October. I haven’t taken any meds since them and I don’t want to take any anymore, I’m still suffering from withdrawals and I still don’t feel like myself. Well it comes to recent days and my last therapist who I tried to be as accurate as I could with and after while she told me that I had to choose what problems I wanted to work on, and eventually when I was talking about my financial issues (never saying I couldn’t pay her fee) she told me to “come back when you have the money”. Obviously she did not even address my ocd. Now I’m all alone and hopeless. I’ve got maybe two friends and my best friend basically told me she does not have the time and the mind for this and she’s very busy. So I’m basically living with my mother who has a ton of issues too and even though she’s great and loves me dearly does not really know how to help me. What I have now is completely all-encompassing. I can’t work, I can’t watch a movie, read a book, be around people, nothing… my inner monologue is always there and has taken over every aspect of my life, my ocd is everywhere and makes me doubt everything about myself, my choices, my life, even my own thoughts. I don’t trust anyone and especially I don’t trust myself. Every second of my life is pain, mental torture, dizziness, tiredness, anxiety. I don’t enjoy anything anymore. Nothing. I loved music, IT, languages, history, politics, diy, so many things… now? Nothing. I just wanna lie in bed and go through my paranoias for the millionth time all over again. Hoping I would soon fall asleep but at the same time fearing it because then I’ll have to wake up an live. I don’t wanna die, but I can’t live anymore. I thought my OCD would just stay the way it was (I had kinda learned how to cope with it a little bit) but now it has morphed into this life consuming thing that never goes away. On top of that in the past 3 years I went to a fair share of trauma: tinnitus, a very heavy breakup that I’m still obsessing about, met a very abusive and manipulative person that completely destroyed what was left of me and my life. Those are the most notable ones. I also have major depression, autistic traits and probably narcissistic traits. Ok I guess that’s it, sorry for the very long post.
I am 21 yr old and I had OCD type of thoughts since I was very young. At 17 I was misdiagnosed from psychiatrists until my late 20 where I finally got diagnosis of OCD. My problem is , that I once had a very severe allergic reaction to antibiotic where I completely ruined my health. After that I went to therapy and I was put on various different meds , including olanzapine and prolixin , zoloft , depakote and lorazepam. I was zombified during the time and after 8 months I stopped taking all of my meds ( under psychiatrists and safely tappering off) . The biggest obsession right now is that those medication ruined my brain . I am very scared because I spent endless time reading horible stories from people that were taking those medications , and I am frightened that those meds permanently damaged my brain and that I cant have normal emotions. Even tho I can feel anger, sadness , I can cry , feel goosebumps and excitement , my brain tends to ruminate 24/7 about whether I am damaged or not because most of the time I feel weird about those emotions… I don’t know what to do anymore , it’s always there , and no matter what I do , I have a big fear that I damaged my brain and it’s only matter of time where I am going to off myself ( which I don’t want to ! )… I made a lot of progress since last year , but I am fearing that I may be back at square one and it’s horrible …
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