OCD Action

Sea Jay
Member

Hello,

This is my first post. I'm a 42 year old man, happily married with three wonderful children. Currently, I'm seeing a C.B.T and to date I've had four therapy sessions. Whilst I've only had four sessions, this particular Cognitive Behaviour Therapist has seen me numerous times in the past, and he told me, 'If I was to diagnose you, I'd say you have slight O.C.D, you're suffering from intrusive thoughts, and you have General Anxiety Disorder'.

I have two types of intrusive thoughts, all based around my Christian belief, and in particular, hell and going to hell. To be specific, of going to the lake of fire as mentioned in the book of Revelation.

The first type is the type most O.C.D sufferers are familiar with: intrusive thoughts. I have these about the Holy Spirit. This is what sparked it all off. Blasphemy against the Spirit is the one sin 'that won't be forgiven'. At all. Ever. Because of my mental illness, I believe I have done this. But really did not want to - I felt compelled to do so.

The second type, I call arising thoughts. Because they 'literally' arise out of the blue. They seem to arise from nowhere, manifest in 3 different ways.

[1] Some are gibberish and meaningless like, for example; 'Red tea', or 'filing the English channel', or 'cake for the wary'. Just way out nonsense.

[2] Now and again I'll get more chilling thoughts pop into my mind, mainly when I'm tired. These seem to form coherent statements and sentences. For example, one arising thought said 'You are going to hell'. I need not add anymore because that basically is the strongest I've had.

[3] Finally, and this is what causes me the most worry and what seems to keep the cycle going; I'll get names of people, normally football players and football teams arise in my mind out of nowhere. Normally to do with football but not always. Probably football because the football channel is on most of the day. Then, throughout the day, I keep thinking I'm seeing connections to these random arising thoughts. Some are very tenous and vague and I have to hold my hands up and admit they are ridiculous. But every now and then I'll get some which really do seem to have a link/connection.

For example; the other day when I was driving at night, I got an arising thought which sounded like 'Toh-ah', or 'Toh-heh'. More gibberish, but then when I looked up at the car number plate in front of me, about 5 seconds later, it had 'TYA' on it. 'TYA' sounds like 'Toh-ah'? My problem is that I believe the arising thought that I experienced which said 'I'm going to hell' is the same arising thought that it trying to prove to me it is a real intelligent entity by making me see connections, almost like prophecies. If this is true, then it is right when it said I'm going to hell.

This may sound crazy but it's what I believe.

I've even had visions in my dreams of hell, fire, and even falling into flames. When I have these dreams, I can sort of rationalise them as my anxious mind obsessing over my fears. You worry about zombies, you'll dream about zombies. But, I also in my dreams I have experienced snatches of dialogue such as 'God will punish', and also 'Destined for hell'.

What seems to be the main problem/worry is these arising thoughts and the connections I seem to see. Some days are really bad.

Can anyone relate to this?

Thank you very much for reading my story.

Tue Dec 14 2010 12:59:13 #
rich2
Member

Hi Sea Jay

Some of my intrusive thoughts revolve around very similar worries and it is a horrible thing to have to cope with. My therapist also says I'm on the spectrum somewhere between full-on OCD and GAD. I've had fears about going to hell, not having a soul etc since I was in my early teens. This stemmed from my mother's religious beliefs (which I no longer share). Recently, after years of being pushed to the back of mind, these fears came back. They've been really difficult to handle and I feel like I'm just getting a grip on them now. There were a lot of painfull memories of feeling ashamed, alone and abandoned as a child and a teen that I had to relive.

I also have the thing of making connections between random thoughts and things I see and drawing upsetting conclusions from them. It sounds very similar to what you have, in that I almost believe some force is trying to tell me something and it scares me. It's funny you should mention zombies. I have a massive fear of zombies and I often have nightmares about them, unfortunately.

As well as the CBT, are you on any medication? I've been on Sertraline for a few months now and, along with the therapy and meditation, I've found it's made a big difference. I finally feel I'm arriving at a more positive place. It's good to know someone is experiencing something similar to me. My therapist said what I have is very idiosyncratic but I have more common OCD-related intrusive thoughts as well. I was initially misdiagnosed as having a psychotic episode, so I've been very lucky to get the help I've evetually had!

I hope you're ok and that your therapy helps you.
Take care
Rich

Tue Dec 14 2010 14:57:43 #
Sea Jay
Member

Hello Rich,

Well first up, let me say what an absolute relief it is to hear that someone else gets these random intrusive/arising thoughts. It means I am not all alone in the world. And if there are two of us there are probably a lot more.

The only meds I take are Dolsupin or something. But these are from a long time ago and my medication will very likely change when I see this other psychiatrist.

I can see my coping with the intrusive thoughts, believing them to be a product of my O.C.D, but the connections I think I can see, man that's going to take some therapy.

As for the zombie thing, I don't get them, but I do get dreams and visions about fire, and hell fire, and even falling into fire. All very scary.

Wed Dec 15 2010 0:16:59 #
rich2
Member

Hi Sea Jay

Yes, it's a big relief for me too. I've seen some other posts on here and other places from people who also have intrusive thoughts along religious lines and my therapist says she's encountered it also. I think if you've had a religious upbringing than it's probably quite common to have such thoughts. OCD attacks whatever is most important to you. It's like a bully constantly picking at your insecurities. For example, if you have OCD and you have children it's very likely you'll have intrusive thoughts around that. If you're a bus driver, you'll probably have intrusive thoughts about running someone over. It just happens that with us it's spiritual stuff, which I think can be very hard to come to terms with because it's not something you can actually see or touch but it obsesses you all the same.

I agree that having a mind that constantly makes these connections is very difficult to deal with. I find it very hard. I don't know about you but I do a 'scanning for evidence' thing when my OCD is bad where I'm constantly on the lookout for something (anything) that's going to prompt these awful thoughts into my head. Of course, I always find something. My therapist says this is more a feature of GAD - constantly perceiving threats.

I would recommend anti-depressents. They help with CBT which is the main thing. Good luck with the psychiatrist. I saw five psychiatrists - four we great and one was dreadful and caused me to have extra worries about my mental health. The problem with talking about these kind of fears is they can sound completely crazy, even if we know rationally it's not real. But as I say, the other psychiatrists I saw were fantastic and totally got to grips with what was going on in my head. I've also found meditation really helpful. I don't know if that's something you've tried. Mindfullness meditation doesn't have any religious connotations to it and it's really good for calming you down.

My dreams are often very scary at the moment too. I think it's just my mind trying to sort some stuff out. Hopefully they'll stop soon. At least I can sleep now!

Take care
Rich

Wed Dec 15 2010 11:19:48 #
Parvez Choudhry
Member

Hi Sea Jay,

You and Rich are certainly not alone. I used to have the same fears as you and I have come across many other people in the same boat. At one time I was unable to pray at all because every attempt caused horrible blasphemies to fill my mind even before I had finished the first sentence. Another problem I had was I felt my prayers were invalid unless I could pronounce every word fluently and articulately, causing me to repeat my prayers over and over again if I stumbled or hesitated in what I said. I have also worried about blaspheming against the Holy Spirit and consequently felt doomed irrevocably to hell.

OCD hits us where it hurts most. If you are particularly sensitive about the possibility of going to hell, your OCD will play on your fears and try to make you 'see' evidence that you really are going to hell. You unwittingly become increasingly vigilant and apprehensive of any signs indicating that you are destined for hell, and your OCD exploits that by interpreting normal sets of circumstances as though they had sinister implications. In other words, your OCD adds 2 and 2 together to make 5. The more you dread seeing these ominous 'prophecies', the more often you will notice them. Vicious circle. Your anxiety is real and terrifying even though you acknowledge rationally that the connections (for example, between your random thoughts and car number plates) are absurd.

I wish you well with your CBT and I hope you soon manage to get good control over your fears.

Sincerely,
Parvez

Wed Dec 15 2010 11:43:14 #
Sea Jay
Member

Strength in numbers.

I sometimes doubt I am having intrusive thoughts. Yes I get dreams which converse with me directly about going to hell. But these I tell myself are just dreams. And yes I get these weird arising thoughts that I do not consciously place in my mind as well. But today reached new dizzying heights.

You know world of warcraft? I was playing that today, because it takes my mind off stuff, it keeps it occupied, and I was at some location which had this huge chasm. At the chasm's bottom there was all flowing lava. I remember feeling slightly anxious just looking at it. Can you believe that?

But the scary thing, was that I had a thought enter my mind, one I did not place there (though it might have arisen unconsciously) and it said 'Where you are going'. So fire, chasm, and, where I am going. As far as I am aware, I never actually thought this thought.

Intrusive thoughts can do this? I must stress, I did not consciously place the thougt there. It really did feel like it came from, well, not me.

Wed Dec 15 2010 22:30:54 #
jo
Member

Hi,
I don't think you necessarily have to place a thought in your mind to have a thought, they just are thoughts same as the others. Some thoughts follow a pattern of other thoughts, some just appear. I get random thoughts regarding my OCD fears that I do not consciously make an effort to think, they just appear. I do not know if this is what people call an intrusive thought, but they can be distressing and seem separate from what I would normally think, which is what you seem to be experiencing. It doesn't necessarily mean that the thought is correct, although they can be fairly convincing or that the thought has some hidden meaning, nor that it is a premonition or that it is not your thought and came from someone else. A thought is just a thought. The thing that causes the problem is that the thought causes concern that then can cause us to add weight to it, and then can trigger other distressing thoughts, reinforcing our fears. I have real trouble with this, its very hard to see it when its your own thoughts and thats why OCD is such a pain. The thoughts are so convincing I assume they are real and its very hard to overcome them. I can understand that these thoughts must be very distressing for you but you are not alone. I am glad you are having CBT which will help.
Best wishes
Jo

Wed Dec 15 2010 23:48:42 #
Sea Jay
Member

The thing is, this is all new to me and I don't have the necessary information as yet to aid in my thinking. Thus it seems like I'm asking for reassurances all the time.

As my knowledgebase grows, I fully expect to stop asking for these reassurances as I'll be fully armed to cope on my own.

Thank you all very much for your help and kind words.

Thu Dec 16 2010 7:15:18 #
Tess
Member

Dear Sea Jay
The forum has been so quiet today so I thought I would try to start the ball rolling. I sympathise deeply over you fear about hell and I am angry that the Christian religion which is all about unconditional love and the peace of God has instilled this so deeply into your psyche that it is intruding into your everyday life and your dreams. I suspect it is especially bad for you at present because you are at what is termed the "male menopause", around the 40 mark which is a particularly difficult stage of life for all of us but apparently more so for the male gender.
I used to be absolutely terrified of going to hell, the mere thought of my own death would bring me out in an ice cold sweat but as I have got older I have rationalised it and have been able to put it more to the back of my mind. I can't think of any worse punishment than being destined to an eternity burning in hell - it just doesn't make sense that a loving God would do this to anyone, after all no human is perfect and yet we do not sentence our own kind, however despicable their deeds, to such a punishment. I have come to the view that the references to lakes of fire and sulphur just refer to the practices which took place in Biblical times whereby criminals were not buried but cast outside the city walls to be burned along with all the rubbish with sulpher being used to prevent spread of disease and that the images of a fiery hell are analogies which would be understood by the people of those times, that if they turned away from God's laws they would be cast out from the promised kingdom of heaven.
This explanation has helped to reduce my own fears and I hope it may help you too. And remember whatever you would say to reassure your children about not going to hell also applies to yourself - as my husband says, if hell exists we can all be sure we will have plenty of company.

Thu Dec 16 2010 17:50:59 #
Sea Jay
Member

Very good point Tess.

Thank you very much for sharing that. I'm seeing a psychologist right now, and he's helping me through this. I have hope for the future.

Thu Dec 16 2010 19:15:36 #
rich2
Member

Hi Sea Jay

If you think about it, you have hundreds, maybe thousands of thoughts every day which you don't consciously place in your mind. In fact, it's very rare anyone does consciously decide to think a certain thought. One thing I've learnt through meditation is that the mind is constantly full of random chatter. It's just that most of the time we don't really pay attention to our thoughts, we just let them go where they want to. The problem with OCD is that we attach huge importance to certain thoughts. Sometimes they upset us so much that we almost feel like they must have come from somewhere else. But once you start to pay attention to your thoughts - not trying to control or change them, because you can't, but just noticing them - you'll realise the volume of random, utterly odd and, often, completely meaningless thoughts you have. Remember, thoughts and feelings have no significance until we give them significance. That's the one thing we can start to control.

Hope things go well with the psychologist.
Take care
Rich

Thu Dec 16 2010 21:06:59 #
Sea Jay
Member

Thank you Rich

You are right about meditation. I used to meditate a lot before all this happened. And yes, they call it the monkey mind because it's basically out of control.

Thu Dec 16 2010 21:41:20 #