On November 25 2009 06:56 yhnmk wrote: not a lot of people here seem to know what this disorder is... its not acting in an obessive manner. Its having intense anxiety unless you perform some predetermined task again and again, with the irrational [and heres the kicker, you know its irrational] fear that not doing so will bring harm to yourself or a loved one. Its not, oh man i gotta peel this banana right. Its I HAVE to peel this banana 450 times or im going to die!
anyways, no way to recover, at best you can lesson its growth and stall having more elaborate rituals, though its possibly it manifest into another OCD varient. Cant recall the name at the moment but its less ritualistic behaviour and more ritualistic thought, germaphobia, etc.
I'm afraid you're one of the people who doesn't quite know what this disorder is. OCD can present with obsessions, compulsions, or both. A subset of those with OCD have the problem you described, the need to perform a task repeatedly. Also, there are many ways to recover from this disorder. Medication and therapy can be very effective, and sometimes the disorder simply lessens on its own.
this is sort of a mix between anxiety disorder and OCD, but in 8th grade, i was a germophobe. Like literally, id wash my hands 50+ times a day with soap, clean everything with house cleaner, keep my hands away from my face, especially from my mouth or nose in fear of accidentally getting spit or snot on my finger (no matter how little!)... I even had days where id change my pants like 5 times cuz im afraid each one got "dirty". and id go to the point where if i put something dirty in the laundry, id hate it when my mom washed it cuz she doesnt always wash her hands after doing the laundry, which means she has possible contamination from her dirty clothes on her hands, and whatever she touches from that point on will also be contaminated (ie she touches a chair, my dad sits on it, and then he sits on the couch, now the couch is contaminated, my brother sits on the couch, then on his bed.... YOU GET TEH FUCKING IDEA). I got into this shit cuz other people would always trip out about being clean (girls, not even ones that I liked), and so in consideration of them, i started this habit... which went WAY further than it was supposed to. Id have days where my hands were so dry from the continuous washing that small spots on my knuckle where the skin stretched from opening/closing would sometimes bleed a bit. And not to mention, I had to try and hide these tendencies from people for fear of embarassment... and my family wasn;t much help. dont get me wrong, i totally love my family, but they didnt understand what iw as going through. my dad would just say "dude its not normal to be that clean, just use ur reason and stop"... and i would think "WELL I WISH IT WAS THAT FUCKING EASY", and hed always give me a hard time and get mad/reproachful when he "caught" me being overly clean. I'd have to make excuses/cover ups as to why i was showering again, or why my sheets were in the laundry again... it was SOOO stressful, and I would constantly be asking myself if this was ever going to end. i was so scared that by me touching dirty (say i accidentally touched a piece of gum under the table) and thus inadverdently "infecting" whatever i touched after, I would be "infecting" others because they would touch whatever I accidentally touched with my fingers that made contact with the gum... I had times when id memorize which teachers had hand sanitizer in the classroom and try to de-contaminate these things i touched after touching something "dirty"using that hand sanitizer... again i had to try and do this away from the eyes of others.... it was soooo stressful
id always try to make myself not care (which is the goal of behavioral exposing therapy), and id look on google for cures. I never saw any professional for this, i just dealt with it on my own. I KNEW that behav-exposing would NOT work for me... in fact, it would just make me freak out more and force me to clean myself after exposure.... funny though... i had no qualms about eating with someone else's fork or something like that, because that wouldnt lead to "contamination" of objects that i touched. but anyways... i prayed, i hoped, i despaired, and it seemed not to be getting better.. at some points it was getting worse, as id suddenly hit realizations like "OH SHIT i remember i accidentally got pee on the floor in 5th grade, and i only cleaned it with tissues and water, its probably contaminated and spread by unsuspecting feet ALL OVER THE HOUSE" and id just freak out some more like that.
but i have a bit of bad news for you in terms of my resolution...im still puzzled as to why i got better.... but i went to Korea in 8th grade to visit my relatives during winter break. I still had it bad during the first week or so there... but bit by bit i was able to let it go... i still was more clean-freak that should be healthy, but it was surely going down! I'm not sure what to attribute this to.... it sounds a bit corny to say it was the "magic healing power of family presence", but its a possibility. Maybe it was just the change of scene/setting from what im routinely used to that let me start relinquishing my destructive/stressful habit. I think perhaps it is the latter, which happened on a subconscious scale, because I was not aware of the change... i just all of a sudden stopped caring a bit, and started letting go of my habit.... i was soooo happy that I was free from the prison of this harrowing ritual... i was free again!
right now, im pretty normal... i probably wash my hands more than the average guy, but its nothing crazy like it used to be... i would trip if there was no soap to wash my hands with after peeing in 8th grade, but now im fine with not washing my hands (though I would prefer to use soap if it was there !).
Are we allowed to know what exactly ur OCD situation is?
I hope this helped you in some way, even if my resolution was.... unexplainable
edit - oh sorry, i forgot to say how long it lasted... id say for me around (or a little less than) 6 months.
I'm so sorry T_T I'm glad you've recovered, and thanks for sharing this. It's a perfect description of what OCD is like.
Read the wikipedia article if you like. A subset of people with OCD have what is known as OCD without overt compulsions. What he's just described about himself sounds exactly like OCD.
For the OP:
Behavior exposing therapy may or may not be used to treat OCD. It depends on the situation. If you're afraid of dogs (nothing to do with OCD here), then it would work like this. You are forced to spend time with a dog in a closed off room. You become incredibly afraid. At some rapidly reached point, you hit a maximum level of fear, past which it just isn't physiologically possible to be more afraid. Gradually after a period of time, you become less afraid - I'll leave it to you to determine why this happens, there are several good explanations.
The questions you directed to another poster sound very considered, but generally studies show that conventional therapy has no effect when used to treat OCD. Therefore, regardless of whether or not your relationship with your parents may have caused you some difficulties, and everything else you mentioned, chances are, if you're having difficulties, you won't be able to solve them by figuring out the source. It might be important at some point to figure out which parts of your life you can change to reduce personal stressors, but if you find you constantly wash your hands or some such, there are direct methods which have been shown to help out.
As to the no-way to recover comment, and the comment about having succesfully recovered from OCD, there is no medicinal cure for OCD, and it's a disorder, so it's not like a bacterial infection which you contract and then fight off and never catch again. If you have some OCD symptoms, and you do absolutely nothing (I can't think of a good reason for doing this) your symptoms won't remain consistent: at some point they'll go away but will potentially return later on. The point of therapies which target OCD is to learn how to deal with the disorder, and prevent a relapse of symptoms. Also, you can take SSRIs (though at significantly larger doses than are used to treat anxiety or depression) in order to treat OCD. SSRIs and CBT are the only treatments for OCD that have been empirically shown to be effective that I know of. I don't doubt there are other things you can do to help, however.
i used to think to myself: 'k im going to die if i don't snap my fingers an equal number of times for each hand' but then in like my junior year of high school i realized that it was a just a bad habit. I saw that 'normal' people usually didn't do everything and equal number, and they are still alive, thus my philosophy is stupid and wrong. Once i forced that in my brain i kinda just stopped.
I really wanna know why you're so curious about this that you posted it on GG.net and here. All questions but no opinions. Its like you're trying to find answers for something....
If your OCD doesn't take up at least two hours of your day time (IE 2 hours spent out of the day is used for ONLY your compulsion) you don't really have OCD...or at least not OCD that's bad enough to even matter.
I had this when I was a child. I'd force myself to do all sorts of crazy rituals, common ones being doing everything 4 times, making sure anything pointy like a pencil is never faced in my direction and other stuff.
I still have bits of OCD left in me, but I recognize it and I can laugh at it. I honestly give in just for fun some times.
On November 25 2009 06:56 yhnmk wrote: not a lot of people here seem to know what this disorder is... its not acting in an obessive manner. Its having intense anxiety unless you perform some predetermined task again and again, with the irrational [and heres the kicker, you know its irrational] fear that not doing so will bring harm to yourself or a loved one. Its not, oh man i gotta peel this banana right. Its I HAVE to peel this banana 450 times or im going to die!
anyways, no way to recover, at best you can lesson its growth and stall having more elaborate rituals, though its possibly it manifest into another OCD varient. Cant recall the name at the moment but its less ritualistic behaviour and more ritualistic thought, germaphobia, etc.
I'm afraid you're one of the people who doesn't quite know what this disorder is. OCD can present with obsessions, compulsions, or both. A subset of those with OCD have the problem you described, the need to perform a task repeatedly. Also, there are many ways to recover from this disorder. Medication and therapy can be very effective, and sometimes the disorder simply lessens on its own.
this is sort of a mix between anxiety disorder and OCD, but in 8th grade, i was a germophobe. Like literally, id wash my hands 50+ times a day with soap, clean everything with house cleaner, keep my hands away from my face, especially from my mouth or nose in fear of accidentally getting spit or snot on my finger (no matter how little!)... I even had days where id change my pants like 5 times cuz im afraid each one got "dirty". and id go to the point where if i put something dirty in the laundry, id hate it when my mom washed it cuz she doesnt always wash her hands after doing the laundry, which means she has possible contamination from her dirty clothes on her hands, and whatever she touches from that point on will also be contaminated (ie she touches a chair, my dad sits on it, and then he sits on the couch, now the couch is contaminated, my brother sits on the couch, then on his bed.... YOU GET TEH FUCKING IDEA). I got into this shit cuz other people would always trip out about being clean (girls, not even ones that I liked), and so in consideration of them, i started this habit... which went WAY further than it was supposed to. Id have days where my hands were so dry from the continuous washing that small spots on my knuckle where the skin stretched from opening/closing would sometimes bleed a bit. And not to mention, I had to try and hide these tendencies from people for fear of embarassment... and my family wasn;t much help. dont get me wrong, i totally love my family, but they didnt understand what iw as going through. my dad would just say "dude its not normal to be that clean, just use ur reason and stop"... and i would think "WELL I WISH IT WAS THAT FUCKING EASY", and hed always give me a hard time and get mad/reproachful when he "caught" me being overly clean. I'd have to make excuses/cover ups as to why i was showering again, or why my sheets were in the laundry again... it was SOOO stressful, and I would constantly be asking myself if this was ever going to end. i was so scared that by me touching dirty (say i accidentally touched a piece of gum under the table) and thus inadverdently "infecting" whatever i touched after, I would be "infecting" others because they would touch whatever I accidentally touched with my fingers that made contact with the gum... I had times when id memorize which teachers had hand sanitizer in the classroom and try to de-contaminate these things i touched after touching something "dirty"using that hand sanitizer... again i had to try and do this away from the eyes of others.... it was soooo stressful
id always try to make myself not care (which is the goal of behavioral exposing therapy), and id look on google for cures. I never saw any professional for this, i just dealt with it on my own. I KNEW that behav-exposing would NOT work for me... in fact, it would just make me freak out more and force me to clean myself after exposure.... funny though... i had no qualms about eating with someone else's fork or something like that, because that wouldnt lead to "contamination" of objects that i touched. but anyways... i prayed, i hoped, i despaired, and it seemed not to be getting better.. at some points it was getting worse, as id suddenly hit realizations like "OH SHIT i remember i accidentally got pee on the floor in 5th grade, and i only cleaned it with tissues and water, its probably contaminated and spread by unsuspecting feet ALL OVER THE HOUSE" and id just freak out some more like that.
but i have a bit of bad news for you in terms of my resolution...im still puzzled as to why i got better.... but i went to Korea in 8th grade to visit my relatives during winter break. I still had it bad during the first week or so there... but bit by bit i was able to let it go... i still was more clean-freak that should be healthy, but it was surely going down! I'm not sure what to attribute this to.... it sounds a bit corny to say it was the "magic healing power of family presence", but its a possibility. Maybe it was just the change of scene/setting from what im routinely used to that let me start relinquishing my destructive/stressful habit. I think perhaps it is the latter, which happened on a subconscious scale, because I was not aware of the change... i just all of a sudden stopped caring a bit, and started letting go of my habit.... i was soooo happy that I was free from the prison of this harrowing ritual... i was free again!
right now, im pretty normal... i probably wash my hands more than the average guy, but its nothing crazy like it used to be... i would trip if there was no soap to wash my hands with after peeing in 8th grade, but now im fine with not washing my hands (though I would prefer to use soap if it was there !).
Are we allowed to know what exactly ur OCD situation is?
I hope this helped you in some way, even if my resolution was.... unexplainable
edit - oh sorry, i forgot to say how long it lasted... id say for me around (or a little less than) 6 months.
I'm so sorry T_T I'm glad you've recovered, and thanks for sharing this. It's a perfect description of what OCD is like.
Read the wikipedia article if you like. A subset of people with OCD have what is known as OCD without overt compulsions. What he's just described about himself sounds exactly like OCD.
Thanks...?? I don't understand how this is any different from what I said.
As to the no-way to recover comment, and the comment about having succesfully recovered from OCD, there is no medicinal cure for OCD, and it's a disorder, so it's not like a bacterial infection which you contract and then fight off and never catch again. If you have some OCD symptoms, and you do absolutely nothing (I can't think of a good reason for doing this) your symptoms won't remain consistent: at some point they'll go away but will potentially return later on. The point of therapies which target OCD is to learn how to deal with the disorder, and prevent a relapse of symptoms. Also, you can take SSRIs (though at significantly larger doses than are used to treat anxiety or depression) in order to treat OCD. SSRIs and CBT are the only treatments for OCD that have been empirically shown to be effective that I know of. I don't doubt there are other things you can do to help, however.
Medication and therapy can bring the disorder under such complete control that you can live a normal life, and rarely if ever have obsessive thoughts or rituals bother you. So I wouldn't say there is "no cure". And, in some cases, it does in fact just disappear. It's not unheard of for children to simply "grow out of" the disorder due to hormonal changes. And, check this link for some info on infection linked OCD.
this is sort of a mix between anxiety disorder and OCD, but in 8th grade, i was a germophobe. Like literally, id wash my hands 50+ times a day with soap, clean everything with house cleaner, keep my hands away from my face, especially from my mouth or nose in fear of accidentally getting spit or snot on my finger (no matter how little!)... I even had days where id change my pants like 5 times cuz im afraid each one got "dirty". and id go to the point where if i put something dirty in the laundry, id hate it when my mom washed it cuz she doesnt always wash her hands after doing the laundry, which means she has possible contamination from her dirty clothes on her hands, and whatever she touches from that point on will also be contaminated (ie she touches a chair, my dad sits on it, and then he sits on the couch, now the couch is contaminated, my brother sits on the couch, then on his bed.... YOU GET TEH FUCKING IDEA). I got into this shit cuz other people would always trip out about being clean (girls, not even ones that I liked), and so in consideration of them, i started this habit... which went WAY further than it was supposed to. Id have days where my hands were so dry from the continuous washing that small spots on my knuckle where the skin stretched from opening/closing would sometimes bleed a bit. And not to mention, I had to try and hide these tendencies from people for fear of embarassment... and my family wasn;t much help. dont get me wrong, i totally love my family, but they didnt understand what iw as going through. my dad would just say "dude its not normal to be that clean, just use ur reason and stop"... and i would think "WELL I WISH IT WAS THAT FUCKING EASY", and hed always give me a hard time and get mad/reproachful when he "caught" me being overly clean. I'd have to make excuses/cover ups as to why i was showering again, or why my sheets were in the laundry again... it was SOOO stressful, and I would constantly be asking myself if this was ever going to end. i was so scared that by me touching dirty (say i accidentally touched a piece of gum under the table) and thus inadverdently "infecting" whatever i touched after, I would be "infecting" others because they would touch whatever I accidentally touched with my fingers that made contact with the gum... I had times when id memorize which teachers had hand sanitizer in the classroom and try to de-contaminate these things i touched after touching something "dirty"using that hand sanitizer... again i had to try and do this away from the eyes of others.... it was soooo stressful
id always try to make myself not care (which is the goal of behavioral exposing therapy), and id look on google for cures. I never saw any professional for this, i just dealt with it on my own. I KNEW that behav-exposing would NOT work for me... in fact, it would just make me freak out more and force me to clean myself after exposure.... funny though... i had no qualms about eating with someone else's fork or something like that, because that wouldnt lead to "contamination" of objects that i touched. but anyways... i prayed, i hoped, i despaired, and it seemed not to be getting better.. at some points it was getting worse, as id suddenly hit realizations like "OH SHIT i remember i accidentally got pee on the floor in 5th grade, and i only cleaned it with tissues and water, its probably contaminated and spread by unsuspecting feet ALL OVER THE HOUSE" and id just freak out some more like that.
but i have a bit of bad news for you in terms of my resolution...im still puzzled as to why i got better.... but i went to Korea in 8th grade to visit my relatives during winter break. I still had it bad during the first week or so there... but bit by bit i was able to let it go... i still was more clean-freak that should be healthy, but it was surely going down! I'm not sure what to attribute this to.... it sounds a bit corny to say it was the "magic healing power of family presence", but its a possibility. Maybe it was just the change of scene/setting from what im routinely used to that let me start relinquishing my destructive/stressful habit. I think perhaps it is the latter, which happened on a subconscious scale, because I was not aware of the change... i just all of a sudden stopped caring a bit, and started letting go of my habit.... i was soooo happy that I was free from the prison of this harrowing ritual... i was free again!
right now, im pretty normal... i probably wash my hands more than the average guy, but its nothing crazy like it used to be... i would trip if there was no soap to wash my hands with after peeing in 8th grade, but now im fine with not washing my hands (though I would prefer to use soap if it was there !).
Are we allowed to know what exactly ur OCD situation is?
I hope this helped you in some way, even if my resolution was.... unexplainable
edit - oh sorry, i forgot to say how long it lasted... id say for me around (or a little less than) 6 months.
I had a nearly identical experience for several years. Compulsive hand-washing, and cleaning. Except, I wasn't afraid that I would contaminate other people, it was the opposite. I was afraid that everything that other people touched became contaminated, so anything that people touched that I also used had to be cleaned. I'd sometimes get very angry at people for touching things. If someone walked into my bedroom with shoes on I had to vacuum the whole floor. If someone touched the mouse/keyboard/console controller, I had to wipe it down with alcohol (which I still do, because I still think other people are disgusting and dirty). If a friend even picked up my controller I would get incredibly anxious about it. If I had nothing to clean it with I wouldn't use it until I cleaned it. The thought of it being so contaminated would make me almost want to break down and cry.
If someone sat on my bed with their street clothes on, I'd change my sheets, or spray my bed with Lysol or something.
I would wash my hands and dry them, but if I didn't do it in a specific manner, I would have to wash them again or I'd have this irritated feeling that wouldn't go away. When showering, if any part of my body touched the wall or the shower curtain, I'd have to rewash myself. I always washed my body in the same order (hair, face, upper body, left leg/foot with right hand, right leg/foot with left hand). If I stepped out of the shower onto the floor (and this isn't gone), I'd get that same irritated feeling on my foot (like the one on my hand). I've gotten around this by putting socks on immediately after showering. There is almost no point in the day that I don't have socks on, except when I sleep, and the rare occasion I get out of bed to get a drink from the refrigerator downstairs.
If someone put on my shoes or gloves, I would not wear them anymore (in fact, no one has done that for quite a while, but I'd probably still throw them away. I flipped out on my mom for wearing some slippers I had. It still pisses me off that she wore them, because she knew goddamn well that I hated when people wore my stuff).
Certain things I would have to have in an exact position, and I'd measure the distance between them. I didn't do that all that often, and there were only a couple of items. I couldn't care less about this anymore. My room is a total mess.
I also compulsively bit/bite skin off of my fingers (around the nails, and on my thumbs the part where it bends). I have no idea why, and I stopped doing it for a long time, then started again. I can't describe the feeling when I don't do it, but I continue to do it because there is rough skin that drives me crazy. The thing is, I know if I left it alone again, the rough skin would just go away.
It all started because I caught someone jerking off in the shower once (I actually just saw a shadow through the curtain). We only had one bathroom, so the person showering didn't get much privacy.
Most of the anxiety is gone now. I can touch things without disinfecting them, but I still prefer to. When I don't, though, I don't flip out about it not being cleaned. It's significantly lessened from nearly breaking down, to just liking things to be disinfected. I stopped caring about my bed when I started dating my ex-gf. Although I always preferred her to have no clothes on in my bed (for obvious reasons), it didn't bother me that she had her clothes on (but, at the same time, no one else has really been in my bed but her, so I don't know how I would react to them, because she was a "clean" person in my head). She also had a baby, and babies are very messy. I wouldn't have been able to date her for as long as I did if I hadn't gotten over a lot of the things that bothered me.
I also started smoking and drinking, which significantly lessened how much I care about anything in life. So, I guess that probably had the largest influence on everything. All in all, most of the things I've listed, while I still maintain some of the habits I had, I don't care about them anywhere near as much as I used to, so I figure the OCD is pretty much gone. I didn't have therapy or anything, I just stopped caring.
On November 25 2009 12:08 [ZiNC]Ling wrote: Thanks...?? I don't understand how this is any different from what I said.
I'm pretty sure he was responding to the guy you were responding to, and quoted the wrong person.
I had this when I was a child... had to do some things 5 times in a row, etc. When I was about 12-13 I forced myself to stop those "rituals". And I did.
On November 25 2009 06:56 yhnmk wrote: not a lot of people here seem to know what this disorder is... its not acting in an obessive manner. Its having intense anxiety unless you perform some predetermined task again and again, with the irrational [and heres the kicker, you know its irrational] fear that not doing so will bring harm to yourself or a loved one. Its not, oh man i gotta peel this banana right. Its I HAVE to peel this banana 450 times or im going to die!
anyways, no way to recover, at best you can lesson its growth and stall having more elaborate rituals, though its possibly it manifest into another OCD varient. Cant recall the name at the moment but its less ritualistic behaviour and more ritualistic thought, germaphobia, etc.
I'm afraid you're one of the people who doesn't quite know what this disorder is. OCD can present with obsessions, compulsions, or both. A subset of those with OCD have the problem you described, the need to perform a task repeatedly. Also, there are many ways to recover from this disorder. Medication and therapy can be very effective, and sometimes the disorder simply lessens on its own.
this is sort of a mix between anxiety disorder and OCD, but in 8th grade, i was a germophobe. Like literally, id wash my hands 50+ times a day with soap, clean everything with house cleaner, keep my hands away from my face, especially from my mouth or nose in fear of accidentally getting spit or snot on my finger (no matter how little!)... I even had days where id change my pants like 5 times cuz im afraid each one got "dirty". and id go to the point where if i put something dirty in the laundry, id hate it when my mom washed it cuz she doesnt always wash her hands after doing the laundry, which means she has possible contamination from her dirty clothes on her hands, and whatever she touches from that point on will also be contaminated (ie she touches a chair, my dad sits on it, and then he sits on the couch, now the couch is contaminated, my brother sits on the couch, then on his bed.... YOU GET TEH FUCKING IDEA). I got into this shit cuz other people would always trip out about being clean (girls, not even ones that I liked), and so in consideration of them, i started this habit... which went WAY further than it was supposed to. Id have days where my hands were so dry from the continuous washing that small spots on my knuckle where the skin stretched from opening/closing would sometimes bleed a bit. And not to mention, I had to try and hide these tendencies from people for fear of embarassment... and my family wasn;t much help. dont get me wrong, i totally love my family, but they didnt understand what iw as going through. my dad would just say "dude its not normal to be that clean, just use ur reason and stop"... and i would think "WELL I WISH IT WAS THAT FUCKING EASY", and hed always give me a hard time and get mad/reproachful when he "caught" me being overly clean. I'd have to make excuses/cover ups as to why i was showering again, or why my sheets were in the laundry again... it was SOOO stressful, and I would constantly be asking myself if this was ever going to end. i was so scared that by me touching dirty (say i accidentally touched a piece of gum under the table) and thus inadverdently "infecting" whatever i touched after, I would be "infecting" others because they would touch whatever I accidentally touched with my fingers that made contact with the gum... I had times when id memorize which teachers had hand sanitizer in the classroom and try to de-contaminate these things i touched after touching something "dirty"using that hand sanitizer... again i had to try and do this away from the eyes of others.... it was soooo stressful
id always try to make myself not care (which is the goal of behavioral exposing therapy), and id look on google for cures. I never saw any professional for this, i just dealt with it on my own. I KNEW that behav-exposing would NOT work for me... in fact, it would just make me freak out more and force me to clean myself after exposure.... funny though... i had no qualms about eating with someone else's fork or something like that, because that wouldnt lead to "contamination" of objects that i touched. but anyways... i prayed, i hoped, i despaired, and it seemed not to be getting better.. at some points it was getting worse, as id suddenly hit realizations like "OH SHIT i remember i accidentally got pee on the floor in 5th grade, and i only cleaned it with tissues and water, its probably contaminated and spread by unsuspecting feet ALL OVER THE HOUSE" and id just freak out some more like that.
but i have a bit of bad news for you in terms of my resolution...im still puzzled as to why i got better.... but i went to Korea in 8th grade to visit my relatives during winter break. I still had it bad during the first week or so there... but bit by bit i was able to let it go... i still was more clean-freak that should be healthy, but it was surely going down! I'm not sure what to attribute this to.... it sounds a bit corny to say it was the "magic healing power of family presence", but its a possibility. Maybe it was just the change of scene/setting from what im routinely used to that let me start relinquishing my destructive/stressful habit. I think perhaps it is the latter, which happened on a subconscious scale, because I was not aware of the change... i just all of a sudden stopped caring a bit, and started letting go of my habit.... i was soooo happy that I was free from the prison of this harrowing ritual... i was free again!
right now, im pretty normal... i probably wash my hands more than the average guy, but its nothing crazy like it used to be... i would trip if there was no soap to wash my hands with after peeing in 8th grade, but now im fine with not washing my hands (though I would prefer to use soap if it was there !).
Are we allowed to know what exactly ur OCD situation is?
I hope this helped you in some way, even if my resolution was.... unexplainable
edit - oh sorry, i forgot to say how long it lasted... id say for me around (or a little less than) 6 months.
I'm so sorry T_T I'm glad you've recovered, and thanks for sharing this. It's a perfect description of what OCD is like.
Read the wikipedia article if you like. A subset of people with OCD have what is known as OCD without overt compulsions. What he's just described about himself sounds exactly like OCD.
Thanks...?? I don't understand how this is any different from what I said.
As to the no-way to recover comment, and the comment about having succesfully recovered from OCD, there is no medicinal cure for OCD, and it's a disorder, so it's not like a bacterial infection which you contract and then fight off and never catch again. If you have some OCD symptoms, and you do absolutely nothing (I can't think of a good reason for doing this) your symptoms won't remain consistent: at some point they'll go away but will potentially return later on. The point of therapies which target OCD is to learn how to deal with the disorder, and prevent a relapse of symptoms. Also, you can take SSRIs (though at significantly larger doses than are used to treat anxiety or depression) in order to treat OCD. SSRIs and CBT are the only treatments for OCD that have been empirically shown to be effective that I know of. I don't doubt there are other things you can do to help, however.
Medication and therapy can bring the disorder under such complete control that you can live a normal life, and rarely if ever have obsessive thoughts or rituals bother you. So I wouldn't say there is "no cure". And, in some cases, it does in fact just disappear. It's not unheard of for children to simply "grow out of" the disorder due to hormonal changes. And, check this link for some info on infection linked OCD.
Oh sorry, I think that I either misread the quote you quoted, or you changed it or something; I thought you were telling another poster they didn't have OCD.
Also, a lot of people seem to be saying they exhibited symptoms of OCD when they were kids, but forced themselves to stop such rituals. Lots of kids, to some degree, exhibit symptoms of OCD. People change between young ages and old ages, but generally, if you're an adult who needs to carry out some ritualistic behavior or thought process, attempting to force yourself to stop only exacerbates the problem.
washing hands and making sure things are locked and such aren't OCD or even close The DSM IV Requirements are:
A. The Person Exhibits Either Obsessions or Compulsions Obsessions are indicated by the following:
The person has recurrent and persistent thoughts, impulses, or images that are experienced, at some time during the disturbance, as intrusive and inappropriate and that cause marked anxiety or distress The thoughts, impulses, or images are not simply excessive worries about real-life problems The person attempts to ignore or suppress such thoughts, impulses, or images or to neutralize them with some other thought or action The person recognizes that the obsessional thoughts, impulses, or images are a product of his or her own mind (not imposed from without as in thought insertion) Compulsions are indicated by the following: The person has repetitive behaviors (eg, hand washing, ordering, checking) or mental acts (eg, praying, counting, repeating words silently) that the person feels driven to perform in response to an obsession or according to rules that must be applied rigidly The behaviors or mental acts are aimed at preventing some dreaded event or situation; however, these behaviors or mental acts either are not connected in a realistic way with what they are designed to neutralize or prevent or are clearly excessive. B. At some point during the course of the disorder, the person has recognized that the obsessions or compulsions are excessive or unreasonable. (Note: this does not apply to children.) C. The obsessions or compulsions cause marked distress, are time consuming (take more than 1 hour a day), or significantly interfere with the person's normal routine, occupational/academic functioning, or usual social activities or relationships. D. If another axis I disorder is present, the content of the obsessions or compulsions is not restricted to it (e.g., preoccupation with drugs in the presence of a substance abuse disorder). E. The disturbance is not due to the direct physiologic effects of a substance (e.g., drug abuse, a medication) or a general medical condition.
TL:DR = an obsession or compulsion that you recognize as unreasonable and causes you at least an hour a day/interferes with your daily routine.
On November 25 2009 11:15 Kurosaki wrote: I really wanna know why you're so curious about this that you posted it on GG.net and here. All questions but no opinions. Its like you're trying to find answers for something....
On November 25 2009 11:15 Kurosaki wrote: I really wanna know why you're so curious about this that you posted it on GG.net and here. All questions but no opinions. Its like you're trying to find answers for something....
GAH!
HE'S ON TO YOU!
U might wanna check other forums if he posts this thread starter everyday at 12.34 or something? + Show Spoiler +
When I was a kid I "had" to caress and touch doors in a certain way in order to feel right. I also was afraid I'd stop breathing and I'd sit around and be terrified. I've had the OCD thoughts about harming people too, it's the thought not the actions that are anxiety-provoking-
All these "what if" thoughts are typical of OCD. What if I unintentionally drove into one of the meeting cars, what if I grab a knife and kill 10 people. Funny thing is that people with these thoughts are often times the most conscentious and nice people and torment themselves with all this "what if" worry. The thoughts change but the feeling is the same.
I have tourettes syndrome as well which goes pretty much hand in hand with OCD, although my OCD is veeery mild (checking oven), and tourettes is pretty mild too.
i think i'm a bit hypochondriac and has mild ocd also.
i can relate to most of the posts.
i also wash my hands often, but not every 15 minutes. i wash my hands whenever i feel my hands are dirty and afraid to get contaminated. i think my laziness overcomes my ocd symptoms because the washroom is often far from where i am staying (laziness >>> ocd lol).
i also have visions of death, or these "what ifs" like what foucault has said, and sometimes these visions distract my everyday life - e.g. having a hard time to focus on work, avoiding sleep because i'm afraid of my dreams that could be associated to these visions. to overcome these, i force myself to think of happy thoughts and again laziness helps since i need to get enough sleep. and again, always think of happy thoughts before sleeping.
i haven't talked to any professionals about these cause i'm afraid that my ocd would not be treated but would get worse. anyways, i think my ocd is still manageable. if you don't want to seek professional help or if you think you can still handle yourself, then in my opinion, all you need is courage to take full control of your obsessions and compulsions.
I'm not sure how severe a case mine is, or even if it counts, but just to post it.
When I hang my laundry up on the hangers, I always hang my shirts in order of the day I am going to wear them, and if a few days later I decide to wear a different shirt, I rearrange them for the next few days to fix it.
All my remotes for my various electronics are at a 90 degree angle from the edge of my coffee table, followed by a coaster.
And the last one i've noticed, all the light switches in the house have to be in the "up" position when the light is on and "down" when they are off. If they aren't, I will go through and flip them all to fix them. There are two light switches in my house that have to go against the trend in order for everything else to line up, so I just make sure that the two that are backwards are the hidden light switches that I don't ever have to look at.
Not bad compared to most of the posters here, just my lil corner of the world!
On November 25 2009 21:32 mahnini wrote: im pretty sure you cant be only a little OCD. youre either really OCD or just being a little whiner.
Not really, especially considering how arbitrary the DSM requirements are.
This.
And mahnini is a dumbass for saying that. Trying to make a bad ass comment in a thread where people are having more or less issues with OCD, yeah you're really hilarious.
EPT
!).
