- Date posted
- 3y
- Date posted
- 3y
Question: do you think it is helpful to explore the underlying trauma to enhance the recovery from OCD? Or is it damaging? I have seen various viewpoints.
- Date posted
- 3y
Great question! I believe it is absolutely beneficial to the recovery of OCD. I explore a lot of research questions in my field, and one of them is the correlation between trauma and the prodromal stage of mental illness. I can tell you that although many of us with OCD are aware that we have had trauma, there is also a large portion who are in denial of that trauma and/or lack the social reference to understand their trauma. OCD is currently being researched through this lens in various labs. For example, a few researchers posit that OCD stems from trauma. Even if the patient has not experienced trauma personally, they carry generational trauma (i.e. biologic and genetic factors) that predispose them to this disorder. In a personal note, I made more progress with my OCD by unraveling that trauma than I ever seen with the average ERP session. Truly understanding the cognitive process is a very helpful guide. I suggest taking a local course in child development and cognitive psychology because you may self reference a lot of the topics and intuitively see that they are in fact connected to your disorder. This is of course my personal experience. Please let me know if you are interested in the current research of OCD. I love to share these findings with others! :)
- Date posted
- 3y
@NOCD Advocate - Kylee C. I am very interested in any research you can share. For many years I have believed that my OCD was “linked” with underlying trauma and I have begun a journey of exploring these areas of my life. Your comments were both inspiring and informative. Thank you 🙏. One follow up question: have you explored whether any of the forms of psychedelic therapy treatments (e.g., ketamine, MDMA , etc.) that are being used for PTSD are beneficial for OCD linked trauma? My research would indicate there may be some benefit at exploring the underlying trauma. Curious to get your views.
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- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 23w
Looking back, I realize I’ve had OCD since I was 7. though I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 30. As a kid, I was consumed by fears I couldn’t explain: "What if God isn’t real? What happens when we die? How do I know I’m real?" These existential thoughts terrified me, and while everyone has them from time to time, I felt like they were consuming my life. By 12, I was having daily panic attacks about death and war, feeling untethered from reality as depersonalization and derealization set in. At 15, I turned to drinking, spending the next 15 years drunk, trying to escape my mind. I hated myself, struggled with my body, and my intrusive thoughts. Sobriety forced me to face it all head-on. In May 2022, I finally learned I had OCD. I remember the exact date: May 10th. Reading about it, I thought, "Oh my God, this is it. This explains everything." My main themes were existential OCD and self-harm intrusive thoughts. The self-harm fears were the hardest: "What if I kill myself? What if I lose control?" These thoughts terrified me because I didn’t want to die. ERP changed everything. At first, I thought, "You want me to confront my worst fears? Are you kidding me?" But ERP is gradual and done at your pace. My therapist taught me to lean into uncertainty instead of fighting it. She’d say, "Maybe you’ll kill yourself—who knows?" At first, it felt scary, but for OCD, it was freeing. Slowly, I realized my thoughts were just thoughts. ERP gave me my life back. I’m working again, I’m sober, and for the first time, I can imagine a future. If you’re scared to try ERP, I get it. But if you’re already living in fear, why not try a set of tools that can give you hope?
- Date posted
- 21w
So, I know my capacity to get fixated on things. And it's normally something that's relatively remote but, my latest issue is really getting to me and I was wondering if people have any advice. I'm avoiding getting too into specifics, as I don't want this to get reassurance-y but, in essence.. I came to the realisation recently that people who I'd been "friends" (feels like the wrong term now) when I was younger were not very nice people, and normalized a lot of very unpleasant behaviour towards other members of the group. They really normalized it, sold themselves as figures of authority, as older and more responsible and grown-up than others, and looking back, they acted horribly. And coming to this realisation, that I'd been manipulated into just accepting their behaviour has just... broken me. My OCD has latched onto it and I can't stop feeling irreversibly tainted by it. I've talked to others about it, and they've reassured me, told me it's not a big deal and that I hold myself to too high a standard, but none of that sticks. I feel better for a bit, then think 'Maybe when you told them you were skewing it to make yourself look better' or 'Did you leave out a crucial detail'. I keep ruminating over and over, trying to remember exactly how everything played out, trying to figure out if I fed into the behaviour, if I did something bad myself (because y'know, I feel like I was accepting of it at the time, so what does it say about my own values?). I know I need to stop doing all this if I want to improve, but then some part of me keeps saying 'So, you're just going to let yourself off the hook then?' Normally, I can rationalize my own fears to some degree, assure myself something won't happen, but the realness of the situation, and the fact I only came to understand the reality of it because the thought had been bothering me means it feels so much more all-encompassing. I know confessing in itself is a compulsion, but I keep feeling that if I'm not I'm somehow concealing what I 'really am' from others around me, and any positive interactions are me deceiving them in some way. I feel like I can't enjoy anything in life right now, and a good part of me feels I should not enjoy it ever again. If anybody has any advice on it, I'm all ears. Or even hearing if you relate to these feelings, I might appreciate the solidarity at least.
- Date posted
- 21w
Does anyone else struggle with this? It's been the main thing powering my POCD, and it's only been getting worse. Especially when I see posts online of people sharing their personal stories relating to CSA, specifically grooming. It's so triggering now, but before this theme developed, the most I'd feel while reading posts like that would be disgust targeted towards people who did those things. Now, my first thought is, "What if I do something like that one day? What if I've done it before and I don't remember or didn't know I was doing it?" I have many, many different intrusive thoughts or worries related to this theme, but it all circles back to this specific fear that I'll become like the people who hurt and took advantage of me. Does anyone have advice for this? I'm not sure if I've asked a similar question in the past or not, but is this something I need to deal with separately before beginning ERP for OCD? I'm just curious and also lost on where to begin with all of this. I'm just glad I'm able to begin working through all of these issues now, rather than later in life when I'd probably have a lot more responsibilities. Anyways, any feedback is appreciated! 🤍
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