Here we can all be heard for a little while

Waves_and_Smiles

Ooooh, what a pretty shed! I could live in that! I promise to wear a little gnome hat and walk around with a fishing pole!

Of course, you are gorgeous Calley. We are all stunning here, it happens as soon as someone joins the thread!

Hoping for a peaceful day for you Melly, I love the sound of your pedal pushers!

It is ironic because mentally I feel quite well. The voices are still there, but they are always there and they aren't being too horrid. Oddly enough, it is probably because of the amount of sleep I have been getting. It does seem as if one imbalance sorts itself out and another breaks. I could be miserable about it but I choose not to be, things could be worse and I am going to grab the chance of not feeling paranoid and fog brained while I have the chance!

Waves_and_Smiles

I am going to add a little example of chronic OCD for anyone here who is interested in though. As I said I feel quite well today and there is little psychosis. I just attempted to make a flask of tea and as I started to pour the water I got an overwhelming urge to pour hot water all over my body. I put the kettle down and immediately wanted to pick up the flask and pour the contents over myself. So I sat down and WaSp finished it off.

That is not psychosis, it is the compulsive side of OCD. I will often have sudden overwhelming urges to do something that terrifies me. Sometimes it can be funny things, like yesterday I wanted to clap like a seal so I did so for a few seconds. When I complete the compulsion it gives me a huge feeling of relief, if I resist it my anxiety goes through the roof.

The compulsive side is very common with Chronic OCD but seldom talked about because the compulsions can be so ridiculous or very harmful and people are very ashamed of them. I tend to carry out the silly ones and then stop doing whatever task causes the more harmful ones. There are ways to control it by forcing oneself to complete tasks and sticking with the anxiety but it tends to trigger my psychosis to become that anxious so unless I have a therapist taking me through it I mostly run away from the urges. I have had treatment for the most life limiting compulsions so now I am left with the sudden ones like pouring boiling water, it is for the most part manageable as long as I have someone with me.

Another very common one I have is to suddenly say a word out loud and I cannot stop myself doing so. OCD and Tourettes are along the same spectrum and often overlap. It can be any word, like "with" or "the". If I don't say it the thoughts rush through my head that I could die any second and if I don't say this word I will miss the chance to ever say it and time is running out so I have to say it NOW because I am dying! Accompanied with the same feeling of anxiety you get when your chair tips backwards and you are falling. The second I say the word all of the thoughts and anxiety stop. It is harmless but again, quite embarrassing for someone to admit to.

As another example, my favourite psychiatrist also had OCD. When his baby was born he had to turn around in a circle at the top of the stairs everytime he carried her up or everything in his mind told him that he would drop her. The ritual made no sense but OCD rituals and compulsions rarely do. The problem is the overwhelming anxiety if you don't carry them out.

calleyw

Waves_and_Smiles wrote: »

I am going to add a little example of chronic OCD for anyone here who is interested in though. As I said I feel quite well today and there is little psychosis. I just attempted to make a flask of tea and as I started to pour the water I got an overwhelming urge to pour hot water all over my body. I put the kettle down and immediately wanted to pick up the flask and pour the contents over myself. So I sat down and WaSp finished it off.........

Thank you for that WaS very interesting.

I don't have OCD but do have checking tendencies that even a neighbor noticed asked me if the front door was ok . As I waggle the handle very vigorously a number of times. I just laugh now.

Mind you am not sure why. But I get certain things that run through my mind that I would never do. like at the dr's while waiting. Walking in when they have patient in the room. And at wedding waiting for the bride to go no walk down the aisle while taking off her wedding dress LOL!!!!

Yours

Calley

Waves_and_Smiles

Hahahaha! Everyone has OCD to an extent. Even superstitions are OCD. We are all on the spectrum, it is only really a problem if it stops you functioning as you would like to.

When I was first diagnosed I had 35 time consuming rituals daily and therefore hardly got anything done, it could take me 2 hours to get to bed because each ritual had to be carried out perfectly or I would have to start again. When it gets to that stage it is a very good idea to get treatment because you simply cannot function.

A funny one was one that I had since childhood. I started off always thanking the little green man at traffic lights. This then went onto thanking the little red man in case he felt left out. But then what about the round traffic lights, didn't they deserve thanks too? Or the road markings? Or the cars that stopped? What about the lights on the island in the middle of the road?

By the time I was 16 I could no longer use a crossing because by the time I had thanked everything I needed to the traffic was moving again! I used to dart in out of cars in the general road instead. It sounds really funny looking back now but at the time it was a huge pain, I couldn't walk down the road with people in case we had to use a crossing and I am lucky I never got run over dashing between cars. I had treatment with a therapist who stood with me in the street while I learnt to use crossings without the anxiety again. We didn't stop the ritual, we worked with it and I learnt to quickly say "Thank you everything!" before dashing across the road. I still do that.

mellymoo74

thanks for that WaS

OHs are centered around me, the dogs and now Tomcat so
I need to take a walkie talkie out with me when I walk the dogs and they need to be walked separately.
There are rituals around showering, cleaning etc. If something breaks the order that stuff needed to be done in he panics and starts again.

Waves_and_Smiles

If things go out of order that can cause such anxiety, Melly. Sometimes if I am forced to do things in a different order I simply can't, it feels as if my brain locks up and nothing makes sense which makes me panic. I still have a lot of routines but they are tiny and don't affect anyone else and I can change them if I really have to (but I hate it).

I used to be the same as your OH with WaSp. He could be no more than 10 minutes late from work and I would scream and yell at him. What he didn't realise was in those 10 minutes I had pictured him in a terrible accident, had imagined identifying his body and what I would wear to his funeral! There was no excuse for it on my behalf, if one's OCD starts to affect other people negatively then it is time to get treatment because no one has a right to cause another person to suffer. It is a lot better now but I still have fleeting thoughts of WaSp dying when he goes out. I just dismiss them, think bloddy OCD! and don't burden him with them.

mellymoo74

hes getting betterish and should start cbt soon.

Waves_and_Smiles

CBT is wonderful for OCD, Melly. It honestly changed my whole outlook. It took a while but once I got the hang of it, it was like a tiny miracle, it will likely give your OH so much relief. It is horrid for people who live with someone with OCD and also horrid for the person who has it, it is soul destroying to suffer with so much anxiety all of the time. It will mean he has to stick with his anxiety but it is only for short, manageable periods and then he will build on that. Please tell him he won't believe the difference it can make.

mellymoo74

I will WaS, it was great to get somewhere who finally realised the OCD needs to be dealt with first. Everything else stems from that trying to get him to do the pain management techniques when his OCD is telling him he needs to do other stuff first.

Waves_and_Smiles

Totally, Melly. Chronic OCD can take over your entire life. You become so focused on the rituals and compulsions because it is the only way to control the terrible anxiety, that general life comes to a standstill. Then you get stuck in a loop because the more you carry out OCD rituals the more you will find you have.

The brain gets into a pattern of - I feel anxious, if I do this ritual the anxiety stops. Therefore everytime I am anxious over anything if I complete a ritual it will control it. I am now anxious because I can't do things I have to do because of the rituals getting in the way. Oh no, I feel bad again. I have to carry out a new ritual to stop feeling like this. And so it continues.

In the end you are carrying out compulsions and rituals practically every minute of every day, all to try to stop yourself feeling so awful and it prevents you functioning because there is no time for anything else. Added to that rituals have to be carried out perfectly in order or you have to begin again. It used to take me 2 hours to leave the house sometimes because I had so many things I needed to do in exact order before I could open the front door. It becomes miserable for you and miserable for anyone around you.

I was told that it was impossible to treat anything else apart from psychosis until I got my OCD under control, it was underpinning every other problem that I had. The good point is that it is the same CBT routine for almost every ritual no matter what it is, so once you get the hang of it you can apply it to everything. The more stubborn ones need thinking outside of the box, like compressing all of my thank you's when crossing the road into one huge thank you that was over in 2 seconds. It is surprisingly easy to get a handle on it though once you start having treatment and the techniques never leave you.

Ha. Now if I ever meet anyone from here they will know that if I cross a road with them that I am saying thank you in my mind to everything connected with doing so. How hilariously embarrassing. This is why people don't speak about their compulsions!