Anonymous
- Date posted
- 4y
BomalleyBomalley
- Date posted
- 4y
I’m here for you, this whole community is here for you. I’m gonna try my best to say something helpful without giving you reassurance, because that just makes it stick around longer and feel worse. You can do this. Believe me if I, an infamously immature and lazy twenty year old, can do it then I assure you that you can. And yeah it’s a lot worse when you’re stressed, even if it has nothing to do with your ocd themes, so the simplest thing I can tell you to do right now is just outlast it. Don’t try to disprove it or fight it, just let it pass and wait until the inevitable good feeling comes back. Much love to you my friend ❤️
Anonymous Anonymous
- Date posted
- 4y
Thank you so much
hegaxhegax
- Date posted
- 4y
Hi there anon ❤ Ocd is so much worse when I'm stressed. I have had obsessions/compulsions come and go through life. I've had suicidal ideations at least for seven years and can speak a bit on that but wanted to make sure you got a response quickly!
hegaxhegax
- Date posted
- 4y
I started having thoughts about suicide during a challenging year in highschool. I was incredibly depressed and had a lot of difficult classes and extracurriculars. I didn't notice them for a while, but the thoughts would always ramp up around deadlines and exams. I didn't really have a therapist at this point. My mom had me start going to counseling (therapy but the person doesn't have a PhD in psychology). I saw the counselor thru the end of highschool. We mainly just talked, and I still thought about killing myself. My second year of college was awful. There would be weeks or months where killing myself was a soft presence like an exit sign, or blaring like a fire alarm when I did something wrong I was very lucky to have friends who knew to call for help when I needed it. I somehow never went to a psych ward, but I could barely focus on schoolwork or conversations because of how terrified I was. I ended up dropping a lot of classes and clubs, but don't worry, that's not the end of the story I had a real therapist at this time, besides talk therapy, she taught me how to tolerate having the suicidal thoughts so that they were not as disruptive to my life. This app doesn't really teach that in a constructive way as far as I can tell. Lemme say more on that!
Anonymous Anonymous
- Date posted
- 4y
Thank you, and I’m not suicidal, I don’t feel hopeless or that life is not worth living. I want to live my life more than anything. The idea of suicide scares me to death. :( I’m just scared that these thoughts are gonna stick around so long that I’ll end up acting on them
hegaxhegax
- Date posted
- 4y
@hegax My therapist specialized in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, which is done with individual with group therapy, and helped me join a group. We went over Distress Tolerance skills, Emotional Regulation, Mindfulness, and Interpersonal Effectiveness (how we interact with those around us really affects our inside experience!) DBT really changed the game for me. Instead of CBT or other ways that just told me to "not overthink it," or to just sit tight and not respond to all the thoughts, I was able to understand how the thought was working in my head. As I got more experienced, I might have a thought of killing myself as I'm driving and realized I forgot to do an assignment. Rather than getting panicked as I used to, I could notice the thought, realized killing myself wouldn't help a paper done and wouldn't help me get to my friend's house faster, and I was able to let it go. All in under a second. I was only able to do that after months of distress tolerance and emotion regulation So yeah. Seven years later from that year in highschool, I do still think of killing myself. But I'm able to have the thoughts without them distressing me. They're like cues at this point.
hegaxhegax
- Date posted
- 4y
@Anonymous That's a very real concern, obsessions can be so powerful :( These days I might think of killing myself in the middle of having fun with friends. I acknowledge it and can let it go most times. Once they start happening more often, or it starts taking me longer to let go than usual, I need to take a serious step back and see what's going on. Bc just like you said, I don't want to die. My brain seems to just be confused and think that suicidal is the helpful and appropriate response to what I feel are personal failings. My brain is trying to protect me and my life just as much as I am, it's just confused. So, to answer your question, in my experience suicidal obsession ebbs and flows. I had three solid months in 2019 that I didn't think about killing myself at all. Right now it comes up a few times a week, so I'm being extra conscientious and kind to myself and getting more help :) It's not ideal, but it's all OK in the end
Anonymous Anonymous
- Date posted
- 4y
@hegax Thank you for all the advice and sharing your experience. I’m hopefully getting set up with a therapist & psychiatrist within the next week and will ask about this type of therapy. But I’m a little confused, are you suicidal or did you have suicide themed OCD?
hegaxhegax
- Date posted
- 4y
@Anonymous Both of them at different times! Life is funny like that. I don't know the experience you have in mental healthcare, but the exact symptoms are important for diagnoses and medications and not always other stuff. A lot of the same coping skills can be used across the board :) That's what can be really cool, I don't need to get hyper specific tools for every unique problem. Once you overcome one issue other ones become bigger. It's like how you wouldn't notice a needle through your foot when there's a knife in your leg. But once the knife is out, the needle is really obvious. Once you start digging there are more problems, but that means you're succeeding in healing urself, not failing ❤
LetJesusTakeItLetJesusTakeIt
- Date posted
- 4y
Sadly yes my theme doesn’t provoke much fear or disgust in me anymore
Related posts
This is me!
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 20w
Aging and death anxiety
I’ve been perturbed for a couple of months now with incessant thoughts about aging and dying. I really am not sure what to do. This feels like other OCD themes, but also really different, because this time, what I’m afraid of is sure to happen. I will either die, or age and then die. It’s been so difficult to enjoy anything lately. I just want to pull a blanket over my head and wait until death comes. Has anyone else felt this way? I feel quite alone. I am trying to enjoy life, but I just remember that it will all be gone in a flash. Nothing really seems to help me feel better. The only escape I have is in my dreams where I can fantasize about never aging or dying. Or at least being able to rewind the clock to have more time.
Medicine2021_
- Date posted
- 19w
Suicidal OCD and harm OCD
I’ve recently been struggling a lot with OCD. I have had OCD for a long time I just didn’t realize it until more recently. About seven months ago I developed panic attacks one day randomly at work. I thought I was having a heart attack and went to the hospital where they told me it was just a panic attack and I assumed I would snap out and be better within a few days. However it didn’t. Here’s where it gets scary, I was staying at my then boyfriends house while dealing with blurry vision, anxiety attacks everyday, and more (unsure of what was going on). But at some point I saw my bfs (pew pew 🔫) on his table and it sent me into an anxiety attack after sudden thoughts that I was going to hurt myself with it. I begged him to put it away when I’m not looking so I didn’t know where he put it. He did. These thoughts lasted for about four days but began to go away. (I thought that was it and I would be back to normal). Unfortunately though I ended up moving back in with my family when we couldn’t get my panic attacks under control in time for me to get back to work and pay bills. However, coming home brought up a lot of trauma from when I was kid. My anxiety got worse but I didn’t have those thoughts again. About two and half months ago though, I got sick and went to the hospital where they gave me steroid pills and a steroid shot but sent me into some kind of psychiatric event. Ever since then though, I have been suffering from harm OCD, I have had moments of intense anger that I usually have to completely walk away and go on my own because of how intense they are, and it feels like it’s getting worse. Today I felt fine until about and hour and half ago where I started to dwell on the fact that my suicidal thought was influenced by my OCD and at the moment my OCD is at the worst it’s been. This caused me to get suddenly really depressed and I started crying thinking about how I can’t handle this. I then saw a post talking about how suicide rates are high for people with this form of OCD and it made me question if I am mentally strong enough to pull through this. I fear that at times I’m getting worse. I have good days but I have a lot of bad days. Unfortunately this sent me into such a bad panic attack I went over to my nanas crying about how I can’t deal with this. I took a 0.25 mg Xanax which helped calm down the panic attack portion of it but my brain is still uncomfortably active. I guess I just need hope. I’m so saddened by this. It’s like my life took a total 360 in 10 months and got even worse since the steroid shot. Idk what to do about it. I can’t stop the spiral. I talk to two different therapist weekly and start more next week, making it 5 times a week. I feel no improvements…
beloiter
- Date posted
- 18w
how do i survive this?
i want to get this out of the way; i’m not suicidal. i’m a 17 y/o guy whose been living with OCD for what i assume is most of my life despite only getting the diagnoses last year. i’ve been hustling on despite my mental health really consuming my life to moments in time where i question my sanity and self control. it’s the lack of control that really kills me with this disorder. each day i wake up, it’s the same persistent reminders; it’s the same meaningless conversations replaying; it’s the same small rituals that just barely let me breathe before the thoughts return. nothing i do is gonna stop that unbearable monogamy where i have to sit back and let my eyes be peeled open; i don’t know how to live with that. no pill has worked on me, and any response i give the thoughts just make them worse. right now i’m trying to just sit through it and not care. don’t let it effect me emotionally; try not to feel the discomfort. then it starts to manifest into physical pain where i feel the bones of my chest have this pressure—like staples entering them at the rhythm of a heart beat. i’m getting though this, but i’m not enjoying my life when doing so. i don’t know if i have a future where it isn’t just this repeating through the process of each day. i don’t want to spend the rest of my life avoiding the one thing i’m supposed to have control over. i also don’t want to drown my days in self medicating or get addicted doing so—like i already am. i don’t see the way to make this life of mine work, especially given how much i don’t have to do deal with at my age. of course that will come to. look, i’m not at risk; i really don’t want in anyway to die despite being basically hopeless. i’m numb to the pain of it, i don’t feel anything in my desire to escape these cycles, i just need an out. i’m not seeing a way to move forward. i’m willing to hear anything.
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