OCD Action

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Hi, I am new and I was not sure if there was somewhere I had to introduce myself or not, I hope to meet like minded people here who have similar problems with anxiety and maybe be able to offer advice. I am kinda finding life really hard to live at the moment, ever since being at school I have had a real bad fear of dying or having a real problem with health. I did lose many places of work because of giving up on life with the fear of dying feeling so strong sometimes. My thoughts have changed to obssesive negative thoughts at various times in my life, I then felt really evil and wrong, now I have had therapy to help with the thoughts but I now cannot stop thinking and checking my body for reassurance. I do have a lot of physical anxiety symptoms which also make me wonder if Doctors where wrong and there is really a physical problem, I am always thinking what if they missed something and any pain is not because of anxiety even though Doctors seem convinced it is.

Sorry for going on and on, I guess I will do anything to get back to work and be cool before it is too late, lol. Thank you for taking the time to read this, I hope to make some friends here who understand, if anybody would like to talk about anything I would love that.

Thanks again, Rod.

Tue Dec 8 2009 18:11:29 #
Unregistered

Hi Rod
Welcome to the forum

I do not have the same symptons as you - my OCD centres on contamination. But I can say that being anxious all the time does give you physical symptoms. For instance I have panic attacks which feel like heart attacks, pains in my stomach and pains in my legs and hips. I have learned to ignore these over the years as I feel that I have enough to contend with just dealing with the fear and anxiety which OCD causes.

What you really need is a good CBT practioner to help you get a bit more control over your thoughts. If you have not already got one your doctor should be able to help. Medication might also help. I am on a low does of citalopram which helps tackle the thoughts, panic attacks and depression. Finally, getting back to work will help because using your brain for other purposes will give it a break from the thoughts. Parvez will be able to give good advice on this. I am an OAP now and therefore do not have to work, but would like to do some research work again.

All the very best
Glad

Tue Dec 8 2009 20:13:53 #
Unregistered

Hello Rod
Welcome to the forum from me as well. I can't really help with specific advice because like Glad I also have contamination OCD but I agree with everything she has said. I remember a saying of a friend who doesn't have OCD (to my knowledge) "If you live life afraid of dying you live life dead".
From what you have written it sounds as though you may have OCD so medication could help relieve your anxiety and make the thoughts less disabling. I have been taking Seroxat for 17 years, just a low maintenance dose and it has really transformed my life.
When I was younger I was absolutely petrified of dying, the mere thought sent a suffocating ice cold feeling of terror right through me. I think this was partly because my mother had been forced as a tiny child to view her dead uncle in his coffin (a common practice in Victorian days) and had developed an abhorrence of dead bodies which was projected subconsciously through her body language. Also as a small child I sat through a lot of hellfire and damnation sermons. Over the years I have developed a more comfortable attitude to death which I think this has come about in a number of ways. As one gets older family deaths happen and in the majority of cases these are a natural culmination of life. I have been privileged to sit with someone who was dying and it was an immense privilege to share such an intimate time. I have not been haunted by the experience but enriched and found it immensely spiritual. I have also done voluntary work with the Red Cross taking the refreshments trolley round hospital wards, somehow when you see young people with terminal illness laughing and joking it puts a different perspective on life. Maybe this was a form of personal CBT but it has really changed my attitude to death.
OCD is a wretched disorder that focusses on a person's worst possible fears until it makes the feared thing less frightening than the fear itself - so if it focusses on the fear of dying it will persecute you until you feel life is not worth living, so rationally it is nonsense. We are all trying to beat this hated monster, get all the help you can because "you're worth it". Joyce

Wed Dec 9 2009 11:36:41 #
Parvez Choudhry
Member

Hi Rod

Welcome! It's good to meet you.

I have had a longstanding problem with the inside of my mouth which may have something in common with your experience. About 20 years I became infatuated with enjoying my food and consequently I became wary of anything that might damage my tongue. It became uncomfortable for me to eat filo pastry, crisps, or hard nuts because they felt abrasive on the lining of my mouth. So I quit eating them. But as time went on the inside of my mouth became increasingly sensitive to the feel of softer food too and eventually even red kidney beans became too painful to eat. I also became increasingly uncomfortable eating very hot or cold foods because I was nervous of scalding my mouth. Eventually I only ate food that was at room temperature. And I also became increasingly nervous of spicy food and eventually I was not able to eat baked beans in tomato sauce because the sauce seemed to me as strong as a triple strength Vindaloo curry with extra chili powder would seem to you!

I'm sure Cuthbert who is a neurologist could explain this better but I reckon this happened to me because my attention was too focused on guarding the inside of my mouth from harm. If I felt a slight twinge or just a gentle sensation, my OCD exaggerated the significance of it in my mind and I interpreted it as something harmful, even though it was a normal everyday occurrence. The more wary I became of these sensations, the more sensitive the nerve endings in the lining of my mouth became. A physical change took place which made the nerves from my mouth to my brain more sensitive (the thresholds of my neural synapses decreased), which meant baked beans in tomato sauce really did feel painful. I wasn't just imagining the pain. I think this phenomenon is similar to when a sighted person loses their eyesight - in time their sense of hearing becomes much sharper because their brain starts to pay more attention to sound and their aural nerves become more receptive, to compensate for the lack of electrical impulses reaching the brain via their visual nerves.

The inside of my mouth became so sensitive that when I was in my early 30's I spent a whole year unable to speak a word because moving my tongue around my mouth was jolly painful.

The reason I'm telling you this rigmarole (sorry for rabbiting on) is that if you are nervous of physical disease then your brain will be on the lookout for the slightest twinge anywhere in your body, and when you notice something (even the faintest sensation), your attention will subconsciously zoom in on it and you will strain every fibre in your body to keep monitoring it. The result is that the ordinary everyday sensations that we all feel but which most of us don't consciously notice will become painful for you. I don't think you are imagining your physical aches & pains - I think the pain is real. But I don't think they are caused by a physically diseased organ in your body but by your nervous system being highly tuned to detect faint sensations.

A speech therapist helped me to start talking again after being dumb for 12 months. I think Glad is right that a good CBT therapist could help you. Anyway, I do wish you all the best in finding a way out of your prison. Hope to hear from you again.
Parvez

...

Glad wrote:

Parvez will be able to give good advice on this.
Dear Glad ... You are putting me on a pedestal. If I could give good advice, why am I still struggling with OCD myself after 20 years? As the proverb says, Physcian, heal thyself. Unfortunately I go round in circles and get knocked down and flounder like a beached whale. The last few days have been relatively good but I'm always clinging on by the skin of my teeth and my lifestyle is still far from normal. But thanks anyway for your vote of confidence in me!

Wed Dec 9 2009 14:54:24 #
Unregistered

Hi Parvez

But you see, it is us that heal ourselves isn't it? So I guess we are the Physicians. I flounder like you as some days are better than others. But it's good to talk to someone who is always looking for solutions to help cope with the multifarious problems of OCD.

Just whistle a happy tune and keep on fighting!
Thanks, you are an inspiration
Glad
xxx

Wed Dec 9 2009 15:18:03 #
Unregistered

Thank you everyone, Glad, Joyce and Parvez. U have all made me feel so welcome and it is great to meet u all. Thank you for sharing your experiences with me, after reading them I sometimes think there is hope to living life to the full with help. I only wish I knew more about OCD at high school, I might of studied harder then and not been so caught up with obsessive thoughts. I just gave up back then, everything seemed so scary back then.

Thank you all, I was really worried nobody would reply, lol. I thought I sounded a little bit selfish with my difficulties, I will just do anything to get better and not be so afraid all the time.

Wed Dec 9 2009 21:36:14 #
Moocher
Member

I'm glad there are other people on here who, like me, have physical OCD. My obsessions and compulsions are completely to do with my body. David Veale scared me by saying that he would have to check I don't have dystonia because now I always think,"suppose it is dystonia and not OCD".
Physical OCD doesn't get spoken about much. Not even in books.

Thu Dec 10 2009 8:46:18 #
Moocher
Member

Talking of pain, my OCD is physically painful. So assuming that I don't have dystonia, then that would be normal. Or OCD normal at any rate.

Thu Dec 10 2009 8:49:27 #
Unregistered

Hi folks
Reading your posts has reminded me of one of the staff at our local Morrisons. He was in a very bad accident and lost an arm. He is very adept at operating the checkouts with one arm but lives in constant pain. The pain he suffers so badly is in his missing arm and he has a medical implant for pain relief. He has just had to go back into hospital for a new implant. So if a non-existant arm can be agonising I have no doubt that OCD can be physically painfultoo.
Rod, all of us with OCD have to deal with criticism from self or others that we are selfish but it is only the OCD which is selfish. Nurture yourself, your self-confidence and self-esteem, accept criticism as just being the views of those who lack understanding and you will be better able to fight this bully in your life. Best wishes, Joyce

Thu Dec 10 2009 9:50:09 #