Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)Hey,
I had my first CBT appointment on Friday, and I'm trying really hard not to carry out some of my compulsions. The intrusive thoughts are impossible to ignore though!!!!!! Theyre so distressing I literally have to carry out my mental ritual. Will this get better? Will CBT stop these thoughts?
Any advice would be so appreciated.
Thanks xxx
Hello, firstly you've not got Pure O if you have compulsions you have to carry out make sure your therapist is aware. I've not done CBT yet but I gained far more from an MHA after I listed my compulsions to her. I falsely believed at first I had "pure O".
They do get better I promise you. Eventually you'll see clarity and wonder what all the fuss was about. CBT might not literally stop these thoughts at first but it'll teach you to re-evaluate their importance. Once they seem worthless (as they are) to you, the thoughts will disappear. At least, that's what I've been told.
There's loads of knowledgeable members that can tell you more than me, but there certainly is hope for you and I'm sure you'll fully recover.
Good luck & keep us posted,
Slog
Unregistered
Hi Florals, hi Slogsweep,
The term "Pure O" seems to come up regularly as something that confuses lots of people. (Even the experts, I think!)
Here's a link for an article called "Pure O - Fact or Fiction?", by Bradley C. Riemann, Ph.D:
http://www.ocdchicago.org/index.php/experts-perspectives/article/pure_o_fact_or_fiction/
Florals, my personal experience was that, yes, eventually my course of CBT (with ERP), and also with a course of anti-depressants, did start to work. But my course of CBT lasted about 6 months. (I was starting to feel the benefit in the middle of the course of CBT, but after 6 months, I was still learning, still improving, and still building up my knowledge about what OCD is, and how it seems to work.
So if you can see your recovery as a marathon, and not a sprint, then it might help you not to get too frustrated if you don't seem to be making much progress at the start of treatment. 
For me, recovery was a long, slow process, involving week after week, month after month, of weekly CBT sessions, and doing ERP homework in between the weekly sessions, reading all the materials that my CBT therapist gave me to read, and also reading several of the best known OCD books on the market at the moment. (I don't know if the course of CBT and ERP would have really made sense to me, without all the reading I did. I personally found that the reading really helped me.) 
So I would personally say, yes, there is every reason to be hopeful, even if you don't seem to feel much benefit in the first month or so of your CBT course. And try not to be too hard on yourself if you give in to your rituals and safety behaviours. We've all done it. You're only human -- just like the rest of us. And learning to stop doing the rituals is tough for all of us. We've all thought it's too hard. We've all doubted that we could ever achieve a better quality of life.
But you can. And whatever level of progress you make, and however quickly or slowly things seem to be improving, you can be proud of yourself for trying, and I for one think you're a winner just for giving it a go.
Take care.
Thanks to you both for your messages!
I thought (maybe mistakenly) that I had Pure O as I'm plagued by unwanted thoughts which are so distressing I have to complete mental rituals to ensure that everyones kept safe (as I type this I know how irrational it is but I just cant stop) I've been like this since I was 14 so half my life, more recently I've developed compulsions, an example being I cant just fold the washing away once, I end up doing it a million times while repeating my safe phrases to myself, getting harder to hide my behaviour. Not to mention stressing me out beyond belief, as I'm sure you can all identify with. Since I had my appointment, I've been forcing myself to stop counting the number of times I do things,and just to put things away once instead of over and over again, which is difficult but I'm making slight progress. I worry so much about whether the thoughts that pop into my head will ever go away though. I dont think I'll ever be able to ignore them, how can I ignore a feeling telling me that my family are in danger. As much as I hate it and hate myself for doing it I cant stop and worry I never will. Can CBT really help control your thoughts?
Hello, CBT doesn't treat thought control, it remaps importance. It exposes these fears for what they actually are: thoughts. Not real, not a threat, just thoughts. Thoughts that everyone has. Only the other day a friend said "do you ever get the urge to do stupid and random things", and the answer to that is yes, as everyone does. It's just with OCD we put amazing levels of significance onto these thoughts.
You've got normal OCD by the sounds of it, as you have compulsions. List everything you think might be a compulsion. One phrase that's often banded about on this forum is "if it feels like OCD then it is almost certainly OCD". Compulsions are less tricky to get rid of (though still hard!) and it's a place to start exposing yourself to anxiety. Perhaps you could only fold the clothes once for example.
OCD treatment is as much about learning as it is about medication and CBT. By coming onto these forums you've made an account with a bank of knowledge across the OCD spectrum. If you do exposure therapy by yourself and the anxiety is just too much, you can come on here and write for help and help always comes .
As I say though, it doesn't "stop" thoughts, it revalues them into how useless thoughts actually are. Once something is pointless it'll be forgotten about on its own.
I hope you sleep a little easier tonight having found us . Please keep in touch,
Slog
Hey, thanks so much for your messages, I cant envisage myself without OCD its ruled my life for half my life - I literally dont really remember what it was like to be free of it - but hearing from others who have had treatment and have come out free/more free than before treatment is so encouraging, so thanks again for taking the time to respond. I've got another CBT appointment on Friday so I'll be sure to keep you all informed/no doubt I'll have lots more questions to ask you guys!
Cheers xxx
Hi everyone... I obsess about things, then compulsively worry, just like the GAD mentioned in the article. It isn't easy is it?
Wannabe
Unregistered
Hi Florals!
(With a name like that, you should have a cool picture for your profile - something colourful...and floral!) 
In answer to one of your questions, CBT will not make you control your thoughts. What you will learn, however, is that it's absolutely okay to have those thoughts. It is absolutely okay to have them.
What a course of CBT will do (hopefully) is to teach you how to look at things differently.
Now, at the start of therapy, that doesn't sound like a good answer. (Trust me, I know. I started treatment thinking, (a) I want the thoughts to go away, and (b) I don't believe the thoughts will ever go away, so what's the point of doing the treatment?
By the end of my course of therapy, I had learned that one of the keys to getting better is to learn how to look at things differently. And that's easy to say, but hard to do!
What I can tell you is that my quality of life is a thousand times better now than it was before I got a course of treatment. You might not want to hear this right now, but I still have odd or unpleasant thoughts. But what I have learned (and believe 100% now) is that this is perfectly natural, perfectly normal, and nothing to be concerned about.
What I don't have any more is the distress that I used to feel every time I had the thoughts. I also don't have the frequency that I used to have. (i.e. thoughts that I used to have 500 times a day, I might have 5 times a day, or 10 times.) But even if I have those thoughts 500 times tomorrow, that's perfectly okay -- because I won't get distressed by them now.
And once the distress levels start to drop, the frequency of the thoughts starts to go down. And once the frequency starts to go down, and the distress level starts to go down, you're really in business. And you can start to go back to being you again.
(Like you, I suffered from OCD for a long time. In my case, from childhood. For as long as I can remember, in fact.) I choose to see myself as a "recovering OCD sufferer" -- in the same way that an alcohol who doesn't drink anymore sees himself as a "recovering alcoholic". Taking it one day at a time, and reminding myself that I will forgive myself for any future relapses that may happen, because I'm only human, and I have a history (and perhaps a genetic predisposition towards) having OCD.
So I hope your next CBT session goes really well. Ask the CBT therapist lots of questions. That's what I did. Get involved, and remember that it's supposed to be "guided self-discovery" -- with you as the discoverer, and the CBT therapist as the guide! 
All the best.
Hey guys thanks for taking the time to reply, so I had my second CBT appointment today - was told to stop responding to the thoughts and although this would initally increase my anxiety apparently it will then calm? Obviously going to do my best, its hard coz its not just the thought itself, its then the questions that it brings like what sort of a person am I to think this, if I ignore the thought does it mean I dont care, would the people who love me still love me if they knew what I'm really like.
Londoner - thanks for your message,I get what you mean about the distress that accompanies the thoughts, and I really do hope that CBT is as effective for me as it has been for you. Just to not feel that crushing anxiety every time I have an intrusive thought would be a massive accomplishment for me.
Hope youre all doing ok!
Hi Florals, well done on getting through your CBT session. Yes, they do say the anxiety dies down, and it does, but in its' own good time! But it will be worth the work...
Doin okay too...
Wannabe
Hi, glad youre doing ok - are you/have you had CBT as well? This will be a new thing for me, as previously whenever a thought has entered my head, I've found it so abhorrent that I immeidiately try to neutralise it, or if I do try to ignore it, the thought becomes so graphic I literally cant stand it and try to rid myself of it as quickly as I can - so hoping that going cold turkey wont be too scary. Apparently doing this just gives the thing that frightens me something to feed off so got to do my best to resist the urge to carry out my rituals. Thanks for replying!
Can I just ask as well, does anyone else start welling up in their CBT sessions? I tell myself hes seen it all before, but I feel like such a moron sitting there crying.
Hi Florals, I did do some CBT a couple of years ago, and am now waiting to go on it again. What I tend to do is try to work to the same techniques I sort of learnt, and I do them haphazardly, but I can't wait to get back into it in some ways, but I'm also apprehensive, and just a little bit scared.
To be honest, I don't remember whether I welled up during sessions... I probably did, cos it is very challenging stuff.
Wannabe
Unregistered
Hi Florals,
Thanks for posting about your progress. Well done for sticking with the therapy. It will get easier after a while.
Re: your question about crying, I'll tell you about how I felt during my course of CBT, and then I'll tell you about a big crying scene I had in the past.
By the time I started a course of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) with Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) Therapy, I had already (finally, after having it for maybe 30 years) realized that I had OCD. I had been tortured by the thoughts for at least 20 years, and to a lesser degree for 30 years. I lived with the guilt, and the shame, and the terrible burden of knowing that I was a "monster" for all those years, and my life felt like Hell. When I finally realized that I had OCD, it lifted a lot of the weight from my shoulders. I wasn't a monster -- I just had an illness called OCD.
Once I started to read about OCD (and I devoured several OCD books in quick succession) I found that OCD is well documented and well understood now, and I could see that I was a textbook OCD sufferer. That was an enormous relief for me. Finally, after 30 years of torture, I knew what the problem was.
So by the time I got to see a properly trained CBT therapist, at the start of a long course of CBT therapy for my OCD, I was incredibly relieved. I finally knew what the problem was, and from reading a number of OCD books (which all, by and large, agree with each other about what OCD is, and how it can be effectively treated), I knew that I was going to get better.
Because I understood (finally) what OCD is, and what the treatment consisted of, I didn't get upset during the course of CBT. In fact, it was the opposite. I built up a great relationship with my CBT therapist, and in fact my CBT sessions soon became the best part of my week. I looked forward to each session, because I knew that I wouldn't be made to do anything I didn't want to do, and that each week I would learn a little bit more about my illness, and how to get better.
So I never cried during my course of CBT. In fact, my therapist and I often laughed and joked through the sessions, and it was very very relaxed, like two old friends chatting. (I was usually more anxious in between the sessions, when I was trying to do my homework, my exposure tasks -- by myself.)
In contrast to this, I'll tell you about the first time that I went to see my GP about my depression. I was in my early twenties back then, and I finally worked up the nerve to go and see my GP. (I was feeling suicidal a lot of the time, and felt that I couldn't cope with life, and was really at the end of my rope.) My depression and OCD had never been diagnosed, and everyone around me thought that I was a content, average person, with no big problems. (I was hiding all of my mental torment.) I went to my GP, and calmly told him that I was depressed, and that I really wanted to be referred to a psychiatrist, to talk to someone about my thoughts, and thought I wanted to be given some anti-depressants quickly, as I was depressed.
Because I was so calm and considered in the way I described this to my GP, he told me that he didn't think I was very depressed, and that I didn't need any anti-depressants, and I didn't need to see anyone. I just needed to get some exercise, and I'd be okay in a couple of weeks. (Or something along those lines.) At this point, I broke down in tears and started howling like a wounded animal, sobbing and trying to talk, but basically jabbering on in a totally unintelligible way for the next 5 minutes, with floods of tears streaming down my face, trembling and shaking, and sounding like the craziest person in the world.
At which point, my GP quickly wrote out a prescription for Prozac (Fluoxetine), and hurriedly typed up a referral to a psychiatrist to see me ASAP.
That was years ago, and I saw a series of mental health professionals -- none of whom correctly diagnosed my OCD. (I didn't open up enough, and didn't know what OCD was, so I didn't help myself out, at the time.) So my torment continued for another ten years or more...
So don't be embarassed about crying in front of your therapist. They really have seen it all before. (And a lot worse.) Day in and day out, GPs and therapists see people who are tortured and tormented by their mental health problems, and are in a terrible state. (I certainly was, back then.)
My personal experience of CBT and ERP, once I had been diagnosed as suffering from OCD (I worked it out myself, by reading the right books, and then got a diagnosis from my CBT therapist) was that it took several months of weekly CBT sessions; with exposure tasks set as homework every week for me to do by myself, if I was able to; and further tasks done with the CBT therapist during some of the sessions. And after several months of this hard work, my OCD started to improve.
Two or three sessions of CBT only barely scratched the surface, for me. It was after about 10 or 12 sessions that I started to feel myself making big progress, and we did a total of 20 sessions, each lasting about 90 minutes. (And I did homework by myself in between each of the 20 sessions.)
So it wasn't a quick fix -- but it did work.
So I hope you stick with it, Florals. I'm sure you'll be glad if you do.
Take care.
Me too, I agree with Slog, here Londoner, I reread some of the lines of your post so it would sink in... I'm scared of CBT, probably scared of getting better, if that is possible. From where I stand right now, I cant imagine myself without OCD, and yet it has happened in the past, last time I was on CBT. I remember the final sessions as being great, but it is a long time ago now. I'm seeing it from the perspective of a frightened child commencing school, and as I remembr, I was very scared of school, but still went anyway...
It just has to be a good thing, cos those that have experienced it have good things to say about it. It's all good stuff as they say!
Wannabe
AlwaysWearingFlorals -
The CBT will definitely help reduce the obsessions, but only if you refuse to give in to compulsions. If you continue the compulsions the obsessions will keep coming. It might be worth creating a list with your therapist of the distressing thoughts you have, from least distressing to most distressing. That way you can figure out which compulsive urges would be easiest to resist, and you can start with those and work on the harder ones as your mind habituates.
Mike
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