Just needed to be heard for a little while

Pyxis

WaS, regarding the OCD, what do you perceive to be the outcome if you do not do the ritual?

Waves_and_Smiles

With the desire to complete the ritual comes huge anxiety. The longer I wait the higher the anxiety gets until I can't breath and almost faint. Completing the ritual gives immediate relief and a slight feeling of excitement. One of the problems with OCD is the extreme anxiety and then the pleasure of the anxiety leaving when the ritual is complete. In a way it becomes addictive to reach that feeling that everything is fine again. Wanting to do them is terrifying, completing them is a huge comfort so it is like being on a constant rollercoaster. Biologically, when a ritual occurs the body sends out stress hormones, when it is completed it sends out endorphins (happy hormones). So you are constantly careering between the two responses of severe anxiety and immediate relief.

I was taught CBT techniques to face the anxiety if I don't repeat the ritual which I have used successfully with the more damaging compulsions but we still counted 35 small ones which I continue to carry out throughout the day. To combat each of those would mean spending every waking hour using techniques with little room for anything else. I leave the smaller ones also because if I challenge too many my brain pulls out the big guns and brings up those that really ruin my life.

Most people with severe OCD will always have some rituals. It never stops entirely. The aim is usually to leave a person with the most harmless ones like mine are so that they can still get the huge comfort and control feeling from completing them, but also so that they don't interfere with day to day life.

The origins of OCD are partly biochemical and partly social/environmental. It is common after a situation where someone feels as if they have no control. In my case that would be sexual abuse and an erratic mother. She also had severe OCD so there is likely a component that was inherited, too. The less things feel in their control, the more someone with OCD will repeat rituals, it gives them sense that they can stop their anxiety (as happens when the ritual is completed) and doing things in specific numbers and orders gives a regular pattern of events that might not have been there in other aspects of their lives.

Pyxis

Is the anxiety you feel related to something definite such as a terrible thing happening to a person if you don't do the ritual?

Waves_and_Smiles

It can be! It begins as a feeling of dread and quickly escalates into the thought that I might die or someone I care for might die. In other cases if my partner is driving at the time I might feel the need to complete a ritual and the thought will be that he will crash his car if I don't. It is all about trying to maintain control over my environment and stop bad things happening, something that I was incapable of doing as a child. Other times it stays as a nameless dread that something horrendous will happen.

The more stressed I am the worse it gets. In other words the less control I feel I have over what might happen to me and those that I care for the more I try to get that control back through rituals. It can often join in with the things the voices say and my intrusive thoughts. For example if the voices tell me someone that I care about will die I will then suddenly become unable to stop repeating rituals to make sure that they will live. If I don't complete them my anxiety is almost unmanageable and I feel as if I sending someone to their death.

jobbingmusician

*pops in and waves*

*is convinced that OCD is biochemical and thus that WaS deserves praise for what she is able to control rather than guilt for what she can't*

*dashes out again*

*sticks head round door to send everyone love/hugs/warm handshakes*

Waves_and_Smiles

Aw, hi JM and thank you!

I honestly don't think I could control every ritual and as I said if I start on the small ones suddenly a life crippling one will appear which is a complete disaster. One resulted in me ending up in hospital but I can't talk about that while the disorder is active or it might come back. Someone remind me when this flare/relapse fades again.

I agree that again my chemicals are out of whack with this one, too. For a start there are medications that give me greater control over it. In fact most of my conditions seem to be chemical in nature. The fact a lot of my disorders started before I was even 5 implies that the imbalances were there from birth. I certainly had the inner world, OCD and self-harming instincts before I even started school.

elsien

Thank you for the birthday wishes.
I have had a text from a brother saying "happy birthday crinkly." Gitdog has given me a present of peace and quiet and gone to mother's for the day. And I have treated myself to a manicure which I managed to ruin before leaving the spa. I'm clearly not cut out for this pampering lark. It's when they say "what is your usual beauty routine? " and I say "my what? "
Half an hour recuperate from the strain of doing nothing, then off out again.

Pyxis

Would it be of any help at all for us to reassure you that nothing, absolutely nothing will happen to anybody if you don't complete a ritual?
And if talking about it is adding to the problem, just tell me to postpone this conversation! I won't mind at all!

Waves_and_Smiles

Hahahahaha there are beauty routines, elsien? What's that then? Do have a wonderful day, you need to sneak cake in there!

I am fine talking about OCD, Pyxis! There are certain rituals I won't speak about while it is active because it means that I start doing them and some are truly horrendous but talking in general about it is fine.

Reassurance can help when there is specific thoughts accompanying the rituals so I would love to share the concerns. The ones that focus on my partner driving would be very helpful to discuss as would the ones where I think he might be hurt by some random stranger. In a split second I can run through the accident, him dying and his funeral in my mind, the panic escalates very fast.

There isn't much that can be done about the feeling of something terrible happening that has no accompanying thoughts, that is what I have today. If I don't do the ritual then a very bad thing will happen but I don't know what. The rituals are tiny though, as I said so it's manageable. I just touched my fingers against my palm on my right hand, I immediately had to do it on the left hand with the same fingers.

My need for symmetry also relates to difficulties of feeling like I am abandoning things. It is very hard for me to discard one of something because there is just that one. It is far easier to get rid of groups of things in even numbers. The only odd numbers which are acceptable to me are 5 and 7, these feel safe. Otherwise everything needs to be even.

Pyxis

Waves_and_Smiles wrote: »

Reassurance can help when there is specific thoughts accompanying the rituals so I would love to share the concerns. The ones that focus on my partner driving would be very helpful to discuss as would the ones where I think he might be hurt by some random stranger. In a split second I can run through the accident, him dying and his funeral in my mind, the panic escalates very fast.

WaS, we are allowing you to be free of those rituals. Moreover, you may allow YOURSELF to be FREE. Absolutely nothing will happen to him as a result of you not doing the rituals. Remember, coincidences are not causes.


My need for symmetry also relates to difficulties of feeling like I am abandoning things. It is very hard for me to discard one of something because there is just that one. It is far easy to get rid of groups of things in even numbers. The only odd numbers which are acceptable to me are 5 and 7, these feel safe. Otherwise everything needs to be even.

Do you have any inkling as to why 5 and 7are safe?