I'm New To This...

[TheDailyGrind]

Hello all I am new to this forum and would like some opinions as to what is actually wrong with me.

I was diagnosed with OCD about 6 years ago but I have always felt that there was more to it than that, like there was something else amiss.

It all started when I was 9 years old and my mother died from cancer. I remember I was told she was going to die approximately 24 hours before she did. I remember telling my dad that I wish a black cloud would come and swallow me whole after she died. Devastated would be an understatement. After that my life was never the same, I always felt like a weird kid, like I never fit in, always scared of germs/dying/a relative dying etc etc.

Fast forward seven years to 16 y/o me and I'm sat there minding my own business revising for an exam when a story comes on the news of man who raped a six month old baby, for some reason I just couldn't shake that thought out of my head no matter how hard I tried, I felt different after hearing it, almost tainted. My OCD spiraled out of control, I got chronic intrusive thoughts that were harrowing to me, I developed a Panic disorder, I became withdrawn and so full of anger. My life has been stuck in the same place (emotionally at least) since I heard that news story a decade ago. It has stopped me from moving away, from having relationships, studying.

I have learnt to handle my OCD and generally speaking I manage but sometimes I spin into a whirlwind of emotion. I feel intense anger, shame and guilt, sink into a depression and become suicidal. This happens twice a year at least. In fact I'm in the midst of one as I write this.

My question is to anyone who may have more knowledge than me, does this sound like PTSD?

Is it possible that I got PTSD from my mothers death which then manifested as OCD as a coping strategy and then when I heard that horrific news story I just had a nervous breakdown and my OCD and PTSD significantly worsened?

I wonder because I don't get flashbacks of any specific event and generally speaking I sleep pretty well, just generally exhausted from being constantly in fight or flight mode all day every day and I don't have panic attacks as such, just suicidal episodes that can last for anywhere up to a month and leave me almost catatonic. When I tell people that I have had these intrusive thoughts/anxieties for 10 years relentlessly, every day, they seem to have a brazen look on their face as if they don't believe me.

If anyone could give me some advice or feedback that would be greatly appreciated (sorry for the long post).

Thanks.

 

[Justmehere]

I have been diagnosed with OCD in the past and I recovered from it, no longer have that diagnosis. I had PTSD then and now.

The nearly sudden loss and death of your mother at the young age of 9 is sure to have played a role. My own OCD came out of my brain trying to cope with trauma. Trauma affects different people differently and plays a significant role in many mental health disorders. The reaction to the news story seems like an OCD event - but with the anger component, it does seem possible is happening than OCD alone.

Are you working with a therapist? This seems crucial. They are the only ones who can diagnose, and with the level of suicidality you experience, it's clear some support is needed. Trauma focused CBT (different than just CBT) and/or ACT therapy are two treatments that I have used when I had both OCD and PTSD and are generally quite effective for many anxiety based disorders.

 

[hodge]

Welcome, Daily Grind. You don't get PTSD from a "normal" life tragedy like your mother dying. I am so sorry for your loss. And I'm sorry you soffer OCD. One of my best friends does, too. But it takes some kind of life-threatening or personal integrity threatening event like rape to get PTSD. I am so sorry you were so deeply affected by that horrible story. I would be, too. I would encourage you to see a therapist or psychiatrist to get rediagnosed and to get help for your suicidal episodes. That's nothing to ignore. I'll post a link that explains the criteria for PTSD.

 

[hodge]

This isn't the article I had in mind, but it has the same basic info: Dsm-v Ptsd Diagnostic Criteria

 

[Nevermore]

I believe you! Reading this, I felt such a wave of sorrow when I read what you said to your father before your mother died. People forget that children grieve and suffer like that. Well, "forget" is the wrong word, but probably your father was grieving himself and worried about how he was going to raise a family by himself etc etc.
I can relate to this in a different way - my mother didn't die but she disappeared into mental illness, and although I think I always felt sad after that, I never talked about it and nobody attended to us, her children's feelings about that but life became very stressful.
Strangely enough, I had a similar thing to you at 17 - heard something that really frightened me and fell into a depression that never really left me.
I think the knowledge hit me that the world was not a safe place and I was pretty much on my own emotionally.
Maybe that's what happened to you?
Emotional support is so crucial to feeling safe in the world, especially when you're young - but always really.
I don't know how your family was after your father died, but did you feel you had to be strong and not "bother" people with your emotions?
That is a lonely place to be as a kid.
I've read studied about who gets PTSD and who doesn't, and it seems like a lot of it has to do with how secure you are in childhood, feeling that others are there for you no matter what.
what you say makes sense. Is there a way that you can get emotional support now?
Seeing a therapist has helped me in that way but I wish id done it earlier, like st your age! But the support doesn't have to be s therapist - someone who understands

 

[TheDailyGrind]

Thanks for your reply. No there wasn't much emotional support at all after she died unfortunately, that's probably lead to insecurities. I just did some research on PTSD and found that some of the symptoms rang true, it did seem to make sense to me, but if you can't get it from a 'normal event' then I don't have it. I'm sure it is something more than OCD though so I will continue to search until I get a diagnosis!

 

[Nevermore]

@TheDailyGrind losing your mum so young is not a normal event!! Definitely not when it happens to you.
im not sure if I started developing PTSD after my mum got ill, but I do know it set me up for PTSD down the track, or cptsd which is more what I've got.
It boils down to unprocessed trauma and you do have that. if you can address it now and free yourself up a bit, life could get a lot easier.
I wish that for you

 

[joeylittle]

I'm sure it is something more than OCD though so I will continue to search until I get a diagnosis!

PTSD has a pretty wide set of symptoms, and overlaps into symptom sets for mood disorders and other anxiety disorders, so it's not uncommon for people to look at PTSD and say, 'wow, that looks like me'. But I'd encourage you to not try and narrow in on your own diagnosis. It's really good that you are aware there's something else going on, and that you want to dig into what it is. That's, right now, the most important thing.

When you mentioned that you seem to hit depression issues a few times a year, and in the same pattern of symptoms each time, it made me wonder if you've educated yourself about the whole spectrum of depression diagnoses. Again, not so that you solve this yourself - it's just another possibility. Bipolar is also really a spectrum, and sometimes surprisingly subtle on one end or the other.

It's tough, wondering what's going on in your head. I hope you can get access to a good doc who will take the time to get a full history. Something that helped me, when I was finally trying to get some answers, was really going back over the cycles of my moods - forgetting how I had been interpreting things, and just writing down what actually happened. For instance, a common depression criteria is that you are unable to work. I never thought I was unable to work - so I was conveniently skipping over the fact that every 5-7 weeks I just felt like I couldn't put on a public face and would call in sick to work for a few days, and wasn't able to get out of bed. But in my head, it wasn't 'unable to work' - it was 'being bad at coping, being lazy'.

The more you can create a log of your actions, separate from interpretation, and try and not make them smaller - or bigger - than they are, the more help you can be in your diagnostic process.