Tag: talking about mental health

OCD – Everything in a Rush

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This for me is one of the most annoying parts of my OCD.  As pretty much anyone suffering from OCD will know, your mind can easily link thoughts with actions.

So for example:  If you’re washing something up and all of a sudden you have the thought of someone you love dying, it is very difficult to not want to rewash that item.

I have found that certain tasks I have to do daily, such as the washing up, cooking or cleaning have – for me – a sort of anxiety associated with them which hangs above me. Almost like I’m holding my breath whilst I do them, I have to get through the tasks (because they have to be done) but I never have time to relax and do them properly, in my own time, as I constantly feel on edge until the tasks are completed.  There are just too many things that can occur which could send me spiralling.

There are things which help me through most days – which I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned in my previous posts – music is particularly good, if you’re singing away to a tune you’re less likely to be stressing about what you’re actually doing but I still find I feel anxious every time.

It would be amazing to be able to relax and enjoy tasks more.  I have noticed recently that I rush in so many parts of my life, nothing can be done in a relaxed way.  Decorating, sewing, gardening, piano playing, even going for a walk into town.  There aren’t many things that make me feel calm and relaxed and so anxiety has started to become a feeling I live with.  Some days it’s better than others, some days I feel like I have someone sitting on my chest it’s so bad.

I try to be mindful as much as I can, things that make me feel peaceful are: open spaces, forest walks, running, exercise in general, the rain – I love the rain- , hugs, reassurance, love.

Having a mental illness, any mental illness is a daily battle.  When you find something that helps, that makes you feel calm and happy, make a mental or if it helps a physical note of it.  Turn to it when you feel low.

So this post probably hasn’t offered much useful advice but maybe it has helped someone feel less alone.  I know that that in itself can sometimes help.  Over the next few weeks I plan to delve further into mindfulness, anything useful I discover I will of course share.

Just one last thought before I sign off this week to World Suicide Prevention Day which was yesterday.  I may be a little late but it’s never too late to be aware of such an important issue.  It is so sad to think that people feel they have no other option, suicide is preventable and we should raise awareness where we can.

Stay strong xxx

 

OCD – Never giving in

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This is probably one of the hardest parts about fighting OCD.  You can never give in, not even to one compulsion because if you do it will never go away.  OCD never gives in, so you mustn’t either.  It can be so tempting sometimes, particularly with a new intrusive thought which can catch you off guard.

When it is a new intrusive thought (as opposed to a recurring one, which over time can be dealt with and it’s power diminished) the associated anxiety can be more intense and sometimes before I know it I’m spiralling internally downwards, becoming outwardly more touchy and irritable, my heartbeat is starting to rise, I’m getting hotter, my brain is trying to work out what to do to return me to equilibrium and more often then not giving into the compulsion is the quickest fix at this point.

Here are some of the scenarios I have personally faced over the years:

Whilst making a sandwich I thought I saw a black mark on the bread and my mind starts catastrophizing about what the mark could be and before you know it, I’ve convinced myself its going to do the person who eats it irreparable damage.   At this point the thing I most want to do is throw the sandwich in the bin and start again.  Even though I know logically that the black mark I saw was actually just an air hole in the bread but can I convince my OCD mind of that?

or

Whilst buying items in a supermarket, I pick up some toothpaste which has a grubby mark on the packaging.  Once again my mind starts catastrophizing about what the mark could be and what I then want to do is just walk out of the supermarket and leave the basket behind.

or

Whilst leaving a store carpark I drive over a pot hole in the road.  Once again my mind gets riddled with doubt and all I want to do is drive back to the car park and check the pot hole I went over wasn’t a child or animal.

Because hey, wouldn’t that be easier??  Well actually no.  No, no, no, no, no, no NO!

This is where all your CBT training, mindfulness, distraction, the lot, all comes into play.

A couple of other tips that can sometimes helps me are:

  1. To take yourself out of the situation completely.  So if I’m in the kitchen washing something and all of a sudden I have the thought that it’s still dirty for whatever reason and I need to rewash it, I can very often start to find myself in a spiral (as described above) and the only thing I can do is step away.  Go and do something else for half an hour and then come back.
  2. Distraction:  sometimes I sing to myself, I realise this sounds a bit nutty but actually the process of singing or even humming out load is sometimes a big enough distraction in my head that I can get my task completed.  Even if I’m just singing “The washing is clean, it’s all fine” over and over to myself, lol.

Of course the price we sometimes pay for not giving into our compulsions is that they then hang around like a big heavy weight on our shoulders.  I have had intrusive thoughts which have stayed with me for days, years even and this does make the fight particularly hard at times.

I find sharing the thought with someone as early as you can (if you have someone you are able to share them with) helps to diminish the thoughts power significantly.  If you don’t have someone you can talk to easily about this stuff then try writing them down or say them out loud to yourself when you’re alone.  Almost by getting the thoughts outside of your mind in someway, you can help to detach yourself from them and diminish their power.  Sounds a bit crazy but this actually really works, give it a try.

and as always, Stay Strong xxx

 

OCD & Trust

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Over the years I’ve found that OCD has completely destroyed my trust.  So with the exception of a few close family members, I don’t fully trust anyone.  I think OCD gives you a very bleak outlook on life.  You become a negative person who sees danger everywhere, you think the worst of people and you don’t trust anyone, which is incredibly sad.

The outcome of this is that you never really let go and so real friendships are never formed and opportunities are lost.  Of course if you never fully let go, how are you ever going to know who you really are?  Or maybe that is who you really are – whoa deep!  I suppose the conclusion you have to come to is if you’re happy where you are or whether you want to change?

So how to build trust?  It’s a very good question, it feels like it’s something that takes years to build and seconds to be broken, something that’s super fragile and this in itself is terrifying to me.

So now I realise (after rambling for a couple of paragraphs) that I may have to work on this and come back to this topic at a later date.  Any advice or useful comments would be most welcome, I’m just sorry that this post itself hasn’t been more useful but I am still working through all this myself and actually just writing this post has made me realise I must face this issue.

Stay strong xxx

OCD – Skewed gut feelings

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So many people rely on their gut feelings for big life decisions.  I have never been able to trust mine.  Most of the major decisions in my life have been hampered by OCD and so I’m never sure whether I’m unsure about something for a ‘real’ reason or an ‘OCD’ reason.  This has led to most decisions being incredibly hard for me.

I remember driving to look at wedding dresses and on the way a little girl was standing by the lights waiting to cross the road.  She was on the pavement but quite near the edge and I can remember driving past her and my OCD saying: ‘She was a bit close to the road, what if you’d hit her?’

From that point on the trip was completely pointless, as any dress I picked on that day would mean I would run over a little girl in the future.  Writing it now it seems completely crazy, somehow my mind had catastrophized the event, then connected that to the dress shopping.

I quite often have to ask my husband whether a situation I am stressed about is something someone ‘normal’ would also be stressed about or whether it’s just my OCD.

For example:

Whilst cooking if something you’ve chopped lands on the floor, maybe a carrot which is going to be put into boiling water.

Would you:

  • A) Throw it away
  • B) Throw it into the pot

or

If you got a take away coffee and the lid had a little mark on it would you:

  • A) Not even notice it (my husband)
  • B) Notice it but wipe it away and think nothing more of it
  • C) Throw the coffee away because it’s probably something horrible that will kill you (sounds a bit extreme but this is what catastrophizing does.)

I wish I could share some easy advice on how to overcome these situations but unfortunately you have to face them head on.  You do however have a wealth of tools to use against it:

To name just a few.  If it helps, every time I have found the inner strength to fight one of these thoughts/compulsions I have felt better for it in the long run and every time I have let them win I have felt worse!

The thoughts don’t go away and actually your OCD mind learns and will use new intrusive thought against you in other situations.  OCD is a huge bully which will use any ammunition you give it.  Don’t let it!

Stay strong xx

Everyone has intrusive thoughts

Posted in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Getting Help, OCD GeneralTagged , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

For me CBT (Cognitive behavioural therapy) had it pros and cons.  Not all the methods worked for me but one piece of information which really stuck with me and which I believe to be vitally important for anyone battling OCD is that:

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

Distraction

Posted in OCD Coping Strategies, OCD GeneralTagged , , , , 3 Comments

This technique can be incredibly useful if you can remember to use it, I so often forget. Even though my OCD is a lot better nowadays I still have parts of the day which I find harder than others, for example: washing up and going to sleep at night are daily activities where I find my OCD can run away with itself if I’m not careful.  I have, over the years noticed that if I can focus my mind on something other then the OCD thoughts, then the OCD doesn’t tend to take hold in quite the same way.

let me try and explain with a couple of examples:

Whilst washing up, I can convince myself that the water isn’t clean, the tap is dirty, the draining board is making the clean washing up dirty again, I could go on.  I have in fact, on more then one occasion, had to change washing up water and rewash items numerous times.  This can, as you would imagine, become quite distressing and of course we all know the more you give into these thoughts and compulsions the more distressed you become. I have however found that if I am distracted by something such as singing to some music, watching something on my tablet or even just chatting to a friend or my other half then the thoughts either don’t come at all or I am able to dismiss them much more easily.

It’s also the same with going to bed, this is one of the toughest parts of the day for me and my OCD.  I do well during the day to keep it at bay but once I relax and close my eyes all the thoughts start rushing in.  I have, for a long time now, gone to bed with the TV on, only the sound not the picture and it has to be something I’ve already seen else I stand no chance but I do find it helps to distract my mind enough for me to relax.  (Music would also work here if you would prefer.)

I realise distraction probably isn’t a long term solution for people and I hope eventually I will be able to cope without having to use it as a crutch but for now if you’re struggling at certain parts of the day then give it a try, it may help whilst you’re building up the strength to face your thoughts head on.

Talking about mental health

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Until today I hadn’t really thought that much about speaking about mental health issues. Yes it took me a very long time to talk to anyone about my OCD but now that I have I don’t hide the fact I have it.  However when I meet someone for the first time it’s not the first thing I like to disclose about myself and thinking back now, people just don’t talk about mental health AT ALL!  So with the exception of just coming straight out with it, there is rarely a natural opportunity to talk about it.  In fact to this day some of my friends still don’t know, just because the opportunity has never arisen to tell them.  This makes me sad, as it’s a huge part of who I am and there is an element of freedom which comes with people knowing.

So if someone was struggling with a mental health issue, any mental health issue, would they feel like they could talk about it?  I’m guessing probably not, this is a huge failing in today’s society which must stop.  Why are mental health issues such a taboo subject when such a high percentage of the population is struggling with them (probably even more then we realise)?

So how do we get people talking about mental health?  It’s a very good question.

Events such as Mental health week help to bring mental health into the mainstream and get people talking but this is only one week a year.

Maybe if someone famous is suffering the way you are, you could use them to lead the conversation in that direction?

Perhaps a general stat could help, ‘One in four adults in the UK is suffering with a mental health issue of some kind’.

You may be surprised once you start chatting who else is feeling the same way as you. We owe it to each other to get these conversations going, don’t let people suffer in silence!