- Username
- Anonymous
- Date posted
- 4y ago
I totally understand the part about therapy over the phone... it's hard to adjust to I can't Waugh for this all to be over so things can be more accessible! I'm sorry you're going through this :( we are here to support you!
Totally hard to adjust. I can’t wait for all of this to be over as well. Thank you for your support🤍🤍
I prefer face to face in a room too. My home isn’t the safest place to talk to a therapist. I got family who say they won’t try to listen in, but I know their curiosity is much more powerful than what they say. I have dark shit to talk to my therapist about, and I don’t want anyone else to listen in to anything I say. This quarantine will be the most toughest time for people with mental illness, and all we gotta do is try to help ourselves as much as we can to pull through this. Hopefully when the time comes, we can all to face to face therapy.
Right! Like I definitely do not want my family to hear what I have to say! They don’t even know about my OCD I embarrassed to tell them. Quarantine has made everything worst mentally for sure, I’m gonna have to find ways to help myself because the phone therapy can’t even be an option for me.
Hey man, I’m sorry you’re this deep in distress right now. I want to say that everyone messes up sometimes and falls into an old compulsion. It’s okay. Try again tomorrow. This disorder IS hell, so I’m definitely not ignoring that. And I know what you mean by looking back and feeling like nothing has changed. Try to take it day by day anyway. One battle at a time. And enjoy the parts of each day that you can to keep going. For insomnia, mine used to be so bad I would fall asleep at 7 AM. I fall asleep at 12 now, which is a bug improvement. There’s a lot of different strategies that might help if you want to hear them (besides meditation or meds bc that’s a given haha)
Thank you for that. I always try to tell myself to take it one day at a time, because if not I’ll start worrying about the next few days and I’ll lose it from there. What else do you recommend for insomnia? Because seriously I hate being up at night not doing anything besides worrying. Sleep is like my only time off lol
@nowsheindistress Sure thing! It might be long, srry I’ve tried a lot of different things , so YMMV. If you want supplements, valerian root is safe. Ofc supplements aren’t the first measure, but this one is noticeably calming and safer than the way people will use, say, weed to calm down. Try making a “resting” vs “sleeping” zone in your place. I realized that when I couldn’t sleep and wouldn’t get up from bed, I was starting to associate bed with pressure + stress. So now, I either use my couch, or rest with my head at the FOOT of my bed to chill first. These are zones where I can relax, but there’s no pressure to fall asleep. Once I’m almost sleep there, THEN I go to my actual bed. I know this sounds like a ritual but I’ve done it without it being an obsession. I find I can adapt it as needed to different places. I know intrusive thoughts are probably the root of losing sleep. Buy a journal and write all that stuff out. You can schedule 15 minutes to just write. The worries will still probably be there, but their weight will reduce. Also, consider avoiding tech for maybe for an hour before bed. Not because of the light, but because it’s easy to go down a rabbit hole online. If you read a book in that hour instead, it’s a lot less engaging and energetic than tech. TLDR: rest zone vs sleep zone, journal thoughts, no tech before bed, valerian root Remember you can’t force yourself to sleep (I wish). And you can’t control thoughts. But you can control making your environment encourage calming down.
@rootytooty Thank you so much for this !!! Definitely going to be trying some of these things !!
I’m sorry to hear that you’re feeling this way. I completely understand you about the phone therapy. In my case I started treatment with a new therapist and the next week of that a lockdown happened. Now with do therapy by phone. I going to be honest is not the same. But I don’t know what I would have done if it wasn’t for those phone treatments. They help me a lot! Game changer. My suggestion is to maybe reconsider the phone therapy as a positive option. Also meds help me a lot. I hope things get better.
You are right, while I am against it, it could be a postive outlet for me. I just feel like I wouldn’t be listened to as much as I would be if the therapy were face to face, but idk. I’ll look into it. I’m glad to hear that you are doing well though and that phone therapy has helped ! 🤍🤍
I feel like my compulsions are taking over my life. Every freaking night i spend so much of my time doing and redoing all my actions from walking up the stairs to crossing a certain part of my room to getting it o to bed. i close my bedroom door like 9 times until it “feels right” and have to sing songs and focus on bones in my body just so that i don’t have a negative thought so that i don’t have to do it again. I’m so over it. i feel like i waste so much time stressing myself out about my thoughts and not having the thoughts so i do things to combat and distract from the thoughts and i just feel freaking insane. yes my medication is helping and makes be wayyyy better than i was three years ago but it still feel like it’s taking over my life. i cant stand it and i feel like the more i do it the more i’m getting g comfortable with other people seeing me do it which just means i’ll do it more. i just can’t !!! so many thoughts and so many actions and it’s all based on people i love so i feel guilty if i dont do the compulsion. And even when i realize that this is all ridiculous and that’s it’s apart of my OCD, i just get sad because i’m still going through with the compulsions and start thinking about how this is my life and how i’m stuck doing this stuff forever!!
I finally got a virtual appointment with a psychiatrist and spent an hour on an appointment for her to tell me that she won’t give me meds to try which would be my first time trying meds to help with my OCD. It was a big step for me and she told me I would need to drive into a doctors office everyday to get meds. I also have a gut disease and Cant do that plus it’s just kind of nuts to expect someone to not have a job life or be able to put there life on hold like that. And my OCD is so bad it’s like all I am doing is compulsions. I feel so depressed. I sleep slot or not much there is no happy medium. I wish I Dont wake up every time I do and trying to fall asleep is a nightmare. Full of compulsions and just one more thing I need to do before I can just go to sleep. I Dont know what to do. This is also my first post here.
I miss my life before ocd. When I would never wake up in a cycle of overthinking and worry and the moment I open my eyes till the moment I sleep, it’s non stop intrusive and unwanted thoughts. It scares me, I don’t want to live my life like this forever. I cry so much, as I’m sure most of you would relate. My heart just feels heavy, that’s the best description I can give, I feel like I’m just existing not actually LIVING. (Not an existential theme) I feel like I just bring everyone down around me, my mental illness has an affect on those around me and though I can’t help I am mentally ill, it takes a toll on me when I KNOW I’m hurting others when they see me so sad all the time, including my daughter… I’ve been dealing with this for somewhere between 1-2 years, which doesn’t seem like a long time but when your life is this constant never ending doubt every single day sometimes all day long, it feels like forever… I just want to be HAPPY. Is that too much to ask for? To just feel genuine happiness and not have these obsessive ego dystonic thoughts 24/7, or at all… I try and keep my head above water and just keep swimming, I wish I could see an ocd therapist but im sorry even with NOCD, it’s TOO EXPENSIVE. I live in Australia so don’t have access to Medicare through NOCD therapy… what options do I have. I’m at a low point, trying to function every day and distract myself from my head by cleaning, looking after my daughter and dog, doing little activities to occupy my time. But there’s only so much distracting you can do I guess.
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