OCD Action

Unregistered

I find it extremely ironic that we offer advice to people on here and we don't take our own advice in real life. It goes to show that we know the solution, we're just perhaps slightly afraid of putting it into action, or maybe we fail to see the point if it's for ourselves.

I for one often suprise myself on here when I offer solutions to peoples OCD-Related Problems, which may even be a slight solution to mine sometimes. It's just.... ironic. Ironic and hard to explain, but we do it. We give advice to help others when by following our own advice our quality of lives may improve. Like when you tell somebody to look on the bright side, do you yourself EVER do that?

Another ironc thing, or maybe this is just a random odd thing, with OCD we all have different ideas of whats okay and what isn't. For example, if I see a picture of a bloke on the internet, that's it, compulsion time and if I acidently touch a picture!! Well, all h**l breaks loose then! But when something like, for example, McKenzie wipes her snot on me or hands me one of her mankiest toys, I don't mind. I'm perfectly fine with it. For example, a few miutes ago she dripped on my hand. I'm not bothered at all. Not to be gross, but I haven't even washed my hands becase it's puppy. It's fine if it's puppy! It's just sorta funny (not in a ha ha way) to think about all these odd little things to do with our OCD. I mean I don't mind if I get puppy snot on me, but if it's like, my own snot then I have to throughly wash my hands.

It's just.... strange. Very strange.

We give people all this advice, yet we don't follow it ourselves.
We don't mind things that others (without OCD) DO mind, yet we mind things that they don't.

Funny old world!

Sat Aug 28 2010 15:50:30 #
Truddles
Member

Hi Jess,

Such words of wisdom

My Consultant was talking about this the other week. He said that it was human nature, that it was so easy to give advice to others yet not so easy to act on your own advice. That we could often see clearly how to solve other people's problems and yet not be able to solve your own even if the problems are identical.

OCD is full of contradictions, for instance when packing the shopping at the till all the hand wash, loo rolls, tissues, shampoo etc has to be put in carrier bags and the handles tied and yet the food just gets slung into the shopping bag. You'd think it would be the other way round wouldn't you?

Know what you mean about Mckenzie I have the same with the cat and yet if it were my own . . . .urrrrgh

We give people all this advice, yet we don't follow it ourselves.
We don't mind things that others (without OCD) DO mind, yet we mind things that they don't.

It is a funny old world!

Sat Aug 28 2010 22:01:24 #
stevieb
Member

I think this may be because we find it easier to be on the outside, and looking in at someone else's problem. Maybe this gives us a clearer perspective of that person's situation.

But when we're the ones who are suffering with the same problem, we panic and become stuck, or we lose sight of the reality of our situation, believing that we don't need to follow the same advice we may have given to someone else before; because our situation is different, when in fact it isn't.

We've all heard of the saying; 'can't see the woods for the trees.' There's truth in that, because we often can't.

But it can also work the other way around, where it isn't the woods we're supposed to be looking at, only what's staring us in the face. Yet we don't see that.Or we simply deny it if we do.

Jess's point is a good one; its easy to hand out advice to someone else, on how to deal with a matter, because its not us who has that problem, therefore we don't need to take the action. But if that same situation occurs to us, then we dohave to take that action. But we don't, because we're too afraid.

This can then come back to what I said earlier about the denial.

And yet none of the above necessarily relate to OCD fears. Non-sufferers do the same, but for us lot there are so many more, and its much harder for us to deal with.

But have any of you ever given advice to someone, then had OCD kick in and find a serious, but irrational danger with that advice, so we've gone back to the same person, and 'undone' our earlier advice?

So here's another strange OCD contradiction which I've experienced myself. Why do I wash my hands before handling food to cook in my kitchen, when I've just been eating a packet of crisps without any fear of my hands being dirty in the first place?

And is it really the world which is funny, or just those who inhabit it?

Stevie

Sat Aug 28 2010 23:39:02 #
Cuthbert ffoliott
Moderator

I think we simply must accept those contradictions; they're proof that we know the irrationality of our OCD thoughts and behaviour. When you give advice to others, you are also saying to yourself: sad that I myself can't apply this... which to this writer is a strong confirmation that OCD for most of us is not the same as our personality, it's an unwanted force that plagues us.

I, as a checker, used to control faucets endlessly to make sure that they weren't running when I left the house. It took so much time...

...and then I unlocked my bike outside and rode to town, to do some shopping.

Now, a dripping faucet is surely not dangerous or life-threatening. But I could spend half an hour to make sure about only these things (there were so many others to control).

Cycling to town, I encountered literally a dozen traffic lights and dangerous spots on the way there. And what do you think? I barely checked the lights (well, I did not do anything dangerous, but just glimpsed at them). I trusted my ears when I passed a crossroads where cars might suddenly turn around the corner. So my going to town lasted about 5 minutes.

Lesson: these two different checking routines (faucets, traffic signs) were so utterly, utterly disproportional to each other, that even now, writing this down, my jaw threatens to drop...

Sun Aug 29 2010 8:57:15 #
sarah81
Member

I think that the advice from other people with OCD is really helpful, more helpful perhaps than advice from people that do not have OCD. Then I at least feel that the advice is coming from someone who fully understands my perspective.

It's odd how the fears focus on certain things more than others. There are so many people who refuse to fly on airplanes, yet very few who cannot ride in a regular car. Yet how many people die in traffic accidents yearly? Certainly more than in plane crashes...

Sun Aug 29 2010 18:20:50 #
LAH71
Member

It's so true Jess. I often wonder why we all have different ideas of what's ok. I have many OCD contradictions which I find strange but I just do them. When my husband asks me why I do certain things and not others I can't answer him. The one time I don't answer him back!!!

I sometimes think that by comforting someone else it makes me feel I've done a good thing and counteracts all the bad things OCD makes me feel. Does that make sense?!

Sun Aug 29 2010 18:51:42 #