Tag: OCD Help

Mental Health Crossovers

Posted in Getting Help, Mental Health, OCD Coping Strategies, OCD General, worryTagged , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

One of the most interesting things for me when I finally got myself into some counselling was the realisation that what I was suffering from wasn’t just OCD but actually also anxiety and worry.  I had always just blanketed all of my thoughts and feelings under the OCD umbrella and it was enlightening to break it down and understand it all on another level.

I sometimes find it really difficult to differentiate between worry and OCD.  I will try now with a couple of examples:

A worry:  

‘I have to drive to the supermarket to do my shopping, what if I crash the car on the way or hit someone in the car park?  ‘  

An OCD thought after visiting the supermarket:

‘There was a pothole in the car park that I went over when leaving the supermarket, what if that was actually a child and I didn’t see them?  ‘  

Once you start to break the thoughts down, you can start to look at how to overcome them.  To be honest a lot of the methods work for both worry and OCD but there are some separate tools which could be useful.

For worry there is a tool called ‘The Worry Tree’, best shown by an illustration here.  I have personally found the worry tree very useful in helping to dismiss worrying thoughts when they come along.

Worry and OCD are also incredibly closely linked to GAD (General anxiety disorder) and the intolerance of uncertainty.

I’ve recently found the APPLE acronym  (Acknowledge, Pause, Pull Back, Let Go and Explore) which can be used to help combat GAD.  I’m going to be giving it a go (More information in link above page 2).

As always I hope this helps, Stay strong xx

Everyone has intrusive thoughts

Posted in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Getting Help, OCD GeneralTagged , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

EVERYONE HAS INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS!

You are not weird or strange for having them, you are just less able to dismiss them. During one of my sessions I was given the below information which I am now passing on to you in the hope it will help.

normal intrusive thoughts

The table below shows the results of research findings from a survey of 293 students (198 female, 95 male), none of who had a diagnosed mental health problem. The column on the left shows the type of intrusive thought and the 2 columns on the right show the percentage of women and men who said they had experienced that particular thought.

  item female % male %
1. driving into a window 13 16
2. running car off the road 64 56
3. hitting animals or people with car 46 54
4. swerving into traffic 55 52
5. smashing into objects 27 40
6. slitting wrist/throat 20 22
7. cutting off finger 19 16
8. jumping off a high place 39 46
9. fatally pushing a stranger 17 34
10. fatally pushing friend 9 22
11. jumping in front of train/car 25 29
12. pushing stranger in front of train/car 8 20
13. pushing family in front of train/car 5 14
14. hurting strangers 18 48
15. insulting strangers 50 59
16. bumping into people 37 43
17. insulting authority figure 34 48
18. insulting family 59 55
19. hurting family 42 50
20. choking family member 10 22
21. stabbing family member 6 11
22. accidentally leaving heat/stove on 79 66
23. home unlocked, intruder there 77 69
24. taps left on, home flooded 28 24
25. swearing in public 30 34
26. breaking wind in public 31 49
27. throwing something 28 26
28. causing a public scene 47 43
29. scratching car paint 26 43
30. breaking window 26 43
31. wrecking something 32 33
32. shoplifting 27 33
33. grabbing money 21 39
  item female % male %
34. holding up bank 6 32
35. sex with unacceptable person 48 63
36. sex with authority figure 38 63
37. fly/blouse undone 27 40
38. kissing authority figure 37 44
39. exposing myself 9 21
40. acts against sexual preference 19 20
41. authority figures naked 42 54
42. strangers naked 51 80
43. sex in public 49 78
44. disgusting sex act 43 52
45. catching sexually transmitted disease 60 43
46. contamination from doors 35 24
47. contamination from phones 28 18
48. getting fatal disease from strangers 22 19
49. giving fatal disease to strangers 25 17
50. giving everything away 52 43
51. removing all dust from the floor 35 24
52. removing dust from unseen places 41 29

Purdon C. & Clark D.  Obsessive intrusive thoughts in nonclinical subjects. Part 1 Content & relation with depressive, anxious & obsessional symptoms.  Behav Res Ther 1992;31:713-20

Catastrophizing

Posted in OCD Coping Strategies, OCD GeneralTagged , , , , 2 Comments

This has always been a big one for me, my mind seems programmed to always think of the worst case scenario.  This has sadly meant that over the years I’ve managed to talk myself out of all sorts of things, from simple things like going out to the shops, to bigger things like holidays, jobs, big purchases such as cars, houses, you name it.  As I look back over my life it is with a twinge of sadness that I’ve let OCD control so much of it.  I am however who I am and all I can do is look forward and not back.  So how have I started to take control and manage these negative thought patterns?  It is tricky and I have to admit I’m not always successful.

One nice method is to think in the opposite direction, think of the most positive outcome of a situation instead of the most negative for example:

The situation:  I need to go to the shops to get some groceries

catastrophizing thought:

‘If I go out in the car today I might hit someone, perhaps I should stay at home’

likely result:  you don’t go out, you stay at home and get more and more wound up about your thought and how to get the groceries you need.

Positive thought:

‘By going out in the car today I will get a step closer to conquering my OCD’

Likely result:  You get in the car, drive to the store & get your groceries.  You feel better for being out –  even if you’re a little anxious – nothing happens and you have achieved what you set out to do.

As hard as it is you have to, ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’, the only way the brain learns is by showing it, you cannot reason with the emotional side of your brain it does not listen to reason.

A problem shared is a problem halved

Posted in Getting Help, Mental Health, OCD GeneralTagged , , , , , 1 Comment

I think one of the things which sets OCD apart from other mental illnesses is the shame it can generate within the sufferer.  The thoughts can be so repulsive to the person suffering that they don’t even want to admit them to themselves, let alone tell someone else.  This is why so many people with OCD suffer silently for so many years on their own.  Which is so sad as once you start talking about your thoughts they start to loose their ‘power’ over you.

It took me 20 years to go to the doctors and ask for help, 20 YEARS!!!!!!  Even then I wasn’t sure I could.  The thing that finally pushed me to go was my partner.  They were having some anxiety problems of their own and instead of suffering they just made an appointment with the doctors and went, as if ‘why wouldn’t you?’  I sat there and thought, you’ve suffered for a few weeks and you’re getting help, I’ve suffered for 20 years, I need help, I want help and so I went.  But to this day if they hadn’t gone, I don’t think I would have.

I can remember sitting in the waiting room at the doctors (they were running late of course)  getting more and more wound up.  When I finally got to see the doctor I’m not even sure what I said, I had after all 20 years worth of thoughts to throw their way, but they understood straight away and they were very understanding.

I had some CBT therapy, (there is normally a wait for this, all the more reason to go sooner rather than later).  Did CBT therapy work for me?  Yes it was good (and I will go into more detail in a later post), but what helped me more then anything was sharing my thoughts, every time I talked to someone about one of my thoughts, it lost it’s ‘power’.  I know my OCD thoughts are irrational and by sharing them with someone who understands OCD, that was confirmed and therefore the thought diminished.  For me the saying ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’ couldn’t of been more true.

OCD is quite a personal thing, what works for one person may not work for another but what will help everyone, I would guess, is talking openly about it.  If you can’t talk to a professional talk to a close friend who you trust, a family member who knows you well.  Just don’t continue to suffer in silence.