Experiences Of Progress With Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (ocd)

[Hashi]

I'm looking for experiences of making progress with recovery from OCD, however small. I've been managing to challenge OCD behaviours, but it's so difficult and takes so much energy I would really appreciate any sharing, understanding or support.

I've been working on needing to check that doors and windows are locked, and that things are switched off and safe. I have to do this before going out and before going to bed. At its worst it was taking me as much as half an hour to check one window or door. (I have five windows and two doors. :cry:)

I've been working with mindfulness, relaxation, talking in therapy and following the four steps recommended by Jeffrey Schwartz. (Link Removed) This includes recognising both how anxious I feel and that the feeling of danger isn't real but is coming from the disorder. It involves stopping the compulsive action, relabelling the anxiety as OCD, walking away and distracting myself until the anxiety subsides.

The first time I did the relabelling/walking away/distraction I had to do the distraction activity for about an hour and during that time the anxiety was really terrible, but eventually it did calm down and I managed - just - not to go back and do any more checking. That was a breakthrough, and was the first time I felt it might be possible to get better from OCD.

I've continued to reduce the checking I do, but I have to make the reductions a tiny, tiny bit at a time. It takes huge mental effort to stay focussed, keep moving and not let myself fall into the OCD pit and get stuck checking something one more time, and then another and then another. I keep waking up through the night thinking that I haven't checked anything and panicking that I'm not safe, because I only checked things a little before I went to bed (actually I checked plenty by non-OCD standards, but much less than my OCD wants me to check).

I've made a lot of progress. At this point, I can check everything and leave the house or go to bed in half and hour. I think I should be relieved and happy because that's so much better than before, but I'm miserable. I still dread the checking, almost as much as I used to when it took two hours or longer. I have to summon up so much mental energy to keep it within half an hour I wonder if it's really progress at all.

I long to be able to check normally (meaning checking everything once and being able to register quickly and easily that it's all OK) instead of it being such hard work and having to force myself to leave things. I still feel angry with myself for not being able to check normally when I know on one level that everything's OK, and then I have to work on that too, to try to be accepting and have compassion for myself.

I'm trying to tell myself this is to be expected, that I'm continuing to make progress and I will get to the point of normal some day. I do believe that but I hate the thought of what it will take to get there, I hate the energy it takes to check at the moment, I hate the fact that I can't appreciate the progress I've already made. I hate hate hate having to deal with OCD.

Anyone relate to making progress but still struggling?

 

[Life_in_the_Mist]

:hug:Hi Hashi. I have struggled with OCD for much of my life. When I was 17 I did compulsions literally all day and was hospitalized for OCD. I managed to stop doing the vast majority of compulsions through Exposure and Response Prevention. Laziness is your friend here--a major factor for me was I just got sick of taking five showers a day, etc. Compulsions beget compulsions. The more you can manage to stop doing them by any means possible, the easier it will be to see they are BS. Nowadays I don't do many compulsions but I obsess very much. Even with all the progress I made an OCD therapist said I had one of the worst cases she had ever seen and she thought I should go out of state to an OCD treatment center. I did not do this and am slowly working on my obsessions through mindfulness. There is no cure for OCD. It is a lifelong illness that can go into remission. But I am free of it in many ways and I think you can be too.

 

[71nothing]

Hashi,
I understand so deeply what you're saying. I have weeks where I feel like I've made great progress but the mental energy it takes to sustain that progress is exhausting. Then suddenly my OCD will take over another part of my life.

Like most recently I've been managing my compulsion to check the stove knobs and the door locks more than once or twice. But then OCD took over my eating.

I have all these rules for what I can eat, how much, how many calories, how many carbs/protein/fat, when, where, and with whom i can eat. It's getting so restrictive that there is barely anything I can eat. Yesterday I only consumed 300 calories and I already feel this morning like I need to fix that today.

The energy it takes to challenge this every minute of every day is really wearing me down. I find myself wondering if there is ever an end or "cured" state or is OCD something that you just have to learn how to manage and work with the rest of your life.

Thanks for your post. It's great timing for me to know I am not the only one.

 

[Hashi]

Thank you both for understanding. I really needed to hear that I'm not the only one with these feelings, so I appreciate it very much that you've shared here.

Laziness is your friend here--a major factor for me was I just got sick of taking five showers a day, etc

This really resonates with me, although I think I would say frustration and anger rather than laziness. My greatest motivation is that I can't bear to spend another night checking windows for hours then curling up on the floor crying because I still can't believe they're locked. To the point where I start thinking I'd rather take the anxiety. That's what got me through the first hour of using the four steps, and it's what I need to use to make myself push past the anxiety and compulsions that I still have.

Compulsions beget compulsions. The more you can manage to stop doing them by any means possible, the easier it will be to see they are BS.

I'm finding this very true, too. The evil anxiety is so hard to face down, but it's absolutely like you say. The more I checked in order to feel safe, the less safe I felt and the more I needed to check. It's so twisted.

I am free of it in many ways and I think you can be too.

Thank you. I sincerely hope this, for all of us.

I have weeks where I feel like I've made great progress but the mental energy it takes to sustain that progress is exhausting.

Yes, this is it exactly. I can't believe what it takes to keep working on this.

I'm really sorry you're finding that other compulsions are coming up to take the place of the ones you're managing. I'm worried about this also, because I've recently started a new job and am having obsessive thoughts about making mistakes and wanting to check and check and check... I know I need to stop this before it also gets out of hand.

71nothing, are you still seeing a therapist? I'm concerned about what you said about eating compulsions, because this will affect your physical health as well as your mental well being. I hope you're getting support for this in real life, I think that needs to be a priority for you to deal with. Worried about you, please take care of yourself, OK?

 

[Life_in_the_Mist]

Hashi,

My old OCD therapist told me that severe anxiety cannot last more than 90 minutes. Do you try to resist compulsions for that long before you do them? Just a thought...

 

[71nothing]

Thanks Hashi.
I am seeing a therapist and I have an appointment with a nutritionist in a few weeks.

This eating obsession has been so hard because I've recently worked hard to lose weight and get into shape. (Lost 66 pounds). Now with this obsession interfering I am afraid of damaging my metabolism and gaining all the weight back. It seems to be a vicious cycle.

 

[Hashi]

71, I'm relieved you're getting help. I'm sending a lot of good wishes to you.

Life in the Mist, I wish a therapist had told me that long ago! I don't actually see an OCD therapist, and in fact dealing with OCD has been a blip with my therapist in an otherwise very good relationship, but to be fair she has never claimed to specialise in OCD and she has been wonderful in terms of trauma and in other respects. She listened to my concerns about the blip and has really taken them on board ever since.

I think it's really from Jeffrey Schwartz that I started to understand the idea of sitting with the anxiety and it would reduce. He rather optimistically says a minimum of 15 minutes (doesn't actually say a maximum), but I've found that an hour is more realistic for me. It's a very, very good thing to know, that if you let time pass without giving in to the compulsion, things will shift. It has helped me a lot.

 

[Life_in_the_Mist]

Jeffery Schwartz knows his stuff. I like when he said exposure therapy changes the OCD brain. (And it shows up on brain scans!) His book helped me a lot more than SSRIs.

 

[Powder]

Hashi,

I'm sorry you have to go through such anxiety in checking things before you can leave the house or go to sleep. This makes me sad. You have enough with just the PTSD. I am also very proud of you for what progresses you have already made.

My cousin suffers from OCD with the eating issues, such that she has trouble maintaining a healthy weight. She takes Xanex and maybe other meds, and has a good therapist, which has helped her. She also has grown her creative side, designing fashion accessories (a whole line of them! They are wonderful!) and writing. She also earned her Master's degree in counseling. I am also very proud of her, and admire her greatly, as you can likely see. I have always admired her and looked up to her.

Just because you have OCD doesn't mean you are any less admirable. Perhaps you are even more so for overcoming it. I encourage you to keep this positive mindset constant, and to never fail to celebrate your victories. They may appear small, but they accumulate over time to be great.

And you have already come so far. I am in awe of you and will continue to be an admirer, for all your talents, expressiveness, dedication, and courage!

Muse

 

[Hashi]

Muse, thank you for such kind words. I've been feeling completely unable to live up to them but you have encouraged me to keep trying with this.

I can't say how much I'm hating it. It's peverse because I'm still making progress, but the more improvement there is, the more frustrated and angry I get at what remains.

My therapist and I had a falling out when I first talked to her about this issue because she responded in a really unhelpful way. To be fair, she doesn't list OCD as one of the things she covers, and she later told me she took advice from a highly qualified clinical psychologist - which was reasonable but not appropriate for me because I have almost the opposite of a clinical psychology approach to healing. I got very upset with what she said as a result, but we've talked it through and we're now working on this together in a way that's helpful.

One of the things she said during the misguided phase was the suggestion that I simply don't check at all. This was - and still is - so far from possible that it has taunted me ever since. Even though she's retracted it, it's still in my head, like a little woodpecker drilling into my skull. When I summon up the energy to keep the checking to a calm minimum that I know will still take half an hour, a mocking voice on repeat is saying, "Just don't check! Just don't check!"

I have to do something to get this out of my head. Some sort of ritual or something symbolic. I feel like maybe it would be good to do something with her, since that's where it originated - she'd be open to that. I can't think what though. I'll have to talk to her about it.

 

[Hashi]

I wanted to come back to this thread because things are getting better and I'd like there to be more on the internet about it being possible. Whenever I've googled OCD what I've found has been either dispiriting (you can't get better, there's only so much you can do etc) or unconvincing (the positive stuff usually being said by therapists rather than sufferers).

I don't swear, but the one thing that can make me want to is OCD. It's a string of asterisks, dealing with this.

What's working for me is finding the right balance between pushing myself enough, and not pushing myself so much that I'm tipped into too much anxiety. This is where I fall out with the standard cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) approach which I think is too brutal. I've tried CBT and it makes sense to me that the way you have to confront the anxiety - if you can bring yourself to do it, which some people can't - can only lead to limited improvement. To me, it's like dealing with a broken leg by bashing it back into place with a frying pan.

There's a certain amount of anxiety I have to find a way to accept. I'm trying to avoid seeing that as something to battle with and instead I'm focussing on connecting to feelings of safety and relief instead. Because my OCD is about needing to check things, I concentrate on noticing and remembering all the times everything has been OK even though I was anxious about it. I remind myself that I'm capable and can trust myself to have checked adequately - not by telling myself it in a frustrated way, or parrot fashion, but by trying to really think about that and feel how true it is.

It's been hard to accept how tiny and gradual the changes are. I'd much rather have a big leap, and from what I'd read I used to think that was the only way that worked - like, if you usually do a compulsion for 30 minutes, you go straight to doing it for 30 seconds and then walking away. In my case, that's a hopeless approach. I make a huge effort and get it down to 29 minutes. But then even if I hit a plateau, it stays at 29 minutes until I manage another huge effort and it moves down to 27, where it stays for a while. I might make a huge effort and it's still 27 minutes. grrrrrr. But it doesn't go back up to 30. There'll be another huge effort at some point that will get it down to 26, and then I know it will never go back up to 27 again. Not so much because I won't let it, but because something has actually changed.

There have been some huge efforts that have been landmarks. One of the hardest things I've had to do was the first night I slept without barricading my bedroom door. (There's no real danger, "only" unfounded anxiety.) I honestly felt the worst was going to happen before morning. But I also couldn't bear OCD ruling my life. Now I'm used to sleeping that way. It means so much to me to gently close the door and leave it.

Another landmark is something that seems to have just happened, I suppose as an overall result of everything I'm doing. It's at times when I feel myself getting stuck checking something and the anxiety starts to rise. Before, my automatic response was always that I had to check more and more. Now, I immediately realise that the best thing to do is walk away. It's still hard to do that, but the fact that it's my first thought is a big change.

I still have some way to go. I'm still at the 27 minute mark. I still struggle and long to be free of OCD. But that 27 minutes used to be two and a half hours, I have a lot more peace of mind over it, and I know I can keep working and improving.

Got to say, though, OCD is such a &^%$ to deal with.

 

[71nothing]

Hashi! Congratulations on your progress!

I too have experienced progress over the last several weeks. I have been changing up my weighing routine. I try to make it different each day and make sure it is taking up less of my precious time. Each time leaves me with such heightened anxiety but each time that anxiety lasts just a little bit shorter. As you said, I can remind myself that I was anxious last time and I was ok. This time will be ok too.

I haven't been able to shake my morning scrambled egg routine. Each time I start I try to tell myself that today I'm going to best the egg one less time than yesterday but I haven't take. That's so yet. Everyday day it's 21 beats followed by 100 beats followed by 21 more. I have no idea where it came from but it is what it is. I've even asked myself why I don't just count to 142!

I'm pleased with my progress right now and for the first time in a long time I can visualize a much improved life!