OCD Obsessive compulsive disorder - ocd

[CafeAulait]

Does anyone else suffer from OCD as part of their PTSD?

 

[helena]

Hi,

My SO has mild OCD - I think anyway, it hasn't been diagnosed.

He is obsessed with neatness, order and cleanliness but he says that comes from his military training.

He is also crazy about protecting me from getting run over (????)

When he first lived with me he drove me crazy with his obsessions about having things in order, cupboards, grocery shopping - at the supermarket it is completely stressful for me because he has to take control of having each food item in the right order - really funny when I think of it now but I tend to do the shopping on my own because I can't always deal with it.

He isn't in to handwashing or checking obsessively for leaving the gas on etc so I guess this may be a mild form.

 

[Deleted member 541]

I don't have OCD, but I have traits of it. I think that many people do. But, it can be annoying at times. I have the neatness and cleaning thing..... Always have. If my place is a mess(which it never is) I feel a mess too. Everything has to have a place, and everything is in it's place. I have other little things that are of the OCD traits, but the biggy for me is the cleaning & neatness thing.....Gee, wonder why I clean houses for a living?????? LOL!!!!!

 

[Grama-Herc]

Don't know if this would be considered OCD, but, I have the need to be able to open closets, drawers, etc. and see what I am looking for.

Can not deal with having to move 30 things out of the way to find what I am looking for.

I am always "cleaning" my closet. Packing and unpacking the same boxes. Trying to arrange things so I can "see" my stuff. But, I can never get it right.

This follows thru in the kitchen also. Cans, etc in a row so I can see how many of an item I have.

Guess you could say I hate to have to "look" for things!

 

[PerfectEmpire]

Does anyone else suffer from OCD as part of their PTSD?

My complex of symptoms has an OCD component. During my worst times, when I was hospitalized twice in one school year, my OC's were running my life. I was a slave to them. I couldn't talk about it either. This is why it went undiagnosed. Nobody knew that I was counting everything. They saw my strange movements and sounds as a mere sign of mental illness and nothing more. They didn't know it was all obsessively calculated. Much of it went hand-in-hand with my anorexia. If I didn't touch something a certain number of times, I'd "get fat". If I didn't look over my shoulder a 3rd time I'd be out of control. And these aren't even a fraction of the compulsions I was keeping up with. It was hell. Absolute hell.

Now I just get upset and wash my hands a lot. But nothing debilitating. Nothing direly irresistible. I avoid triggers. That helps.

 

[PerfectEmpire]

Clarification:

I think that the difference between OCD and hyper-tidiness is that in OCD every compulsion has a rather extreme consequence. Ex: "If you don't ________ then _________." And the connection between the two blanks is totally nonsensical. Ex: "If you don't tap your back 3 times, you'll get fat." As in you'll blow up right away - become 300lbs instantly. The beliefs are relentless, the voices are terrifying, and there is no control.

This is much different from having the innate desire to keep things organized. "If I don't organize this file cabinet then I won't be able to find what I am looking for" makes complete sense. If it is drawn out to say "If I don't organize this file cabinet then I won't be able to find what I am looking for and then I will be a failure" then there might be a problem! Talking to a therapist will help.

According to the DSM IV: In OCD, "The thoughts, impulses, or images are not simply excessive worries about real-life problems." Rather, "The behaviors or mental acts are aimed at preventing or reducing distress or 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."

Please, please, please if you are experiencing something like I experienced don't hide it. The voices told me that I couldn't tell. That was one of my compulsions: the compulsion to keep my suffering a secret. OCD is no way to live. It will wreck your life. It is hell.

 

[trial'n'error]

It's hard to even get help for OCD symptoms because you just feel so flat-out crazy. Why would people in my family get sick or die just because I took an odd number of steps in the hall at school? I knew that if any authority figure found out what I was really thinking (mostly counting everything, and worrying about the numbers, at the time), I'd be locked up forever. Insane as it was, it was a genuine and overwhelming fear. I first experienced OCD at the age of eight or nine years old and didn't get a diagnosis and good treatment until I was in my thirties.

 

[ghost]

F*ck You, I Won't Do What You Tell Me

Never had a problem kicking alcohol, cigarettes, pot, prescription pain killers, benzos - but OCD - major, major problem.

OCD and perfectionism have been the bane of my existence; my poison; my downfall.

OCD is fundamentally addictive behaviour, and has the potential to be as equally as destructive as other addictive behaviours.

I know that some people use medication to manage their OCD. I personally, could never entertain doing this. To me it would be the same as using anti-depressants to manage alcoholism or drug addiction.

OCD is a maladaptive reaction to fear. The little voice says: 'do this or this will happen'. It's basically extortion. In my view the only way to beat it is to make a stand, and not react to the little voice. I used to use a line from the Rage Against the Machine song Killing in the Name Off as a kind of mantra in dealing with my OCD:

'F*ck you, I won't do what you tell me.'

Fear operates on deception. The extreme consequences that are threatened by OCD compulsions are generally ungrounded (i.e. you're car probably isn't going to explode if you don't say three Hail Mary's before you fill up the tank.) When you stop reacting, you stop feeding the fear and the deception. With time, the power of the compulsion diminishes, and you’re left with a very satisfying feeling of peace and self mastery.

Be warned. Like with any addiction, the longer you feed the beast, the bigger and more powerful he grows, and the more it will take for you to subdue him. Further, like with any addiction, you never stop being OC, it will always be there in the background, waiting for an opportunity to take control again. They say that 'vigilance is the price of eternal freedom' - Very true with respect to addiction; very true with respect to OCD. You give an inch, it takes a mile. Getting it under control is only part of the battle. You need to keep it there, and that takes daily discipline, strength and courage.

Unfortunately, I wasn't disciplined enough...

 

[suzie q]

I am one of the one's with multiple diagnosis and yes, OCD is one of them. Mine manifests its way by having obsessive thinking and compulsive behavior. The compulsive behavior is reacting to the obsessive thinking and finding ways to shut myself down.

I've spent years looking at pennies and their dates, putting them in their proper years and separating the early pennies yet again because they are all copper. I also do this with nickles. When the US quarters were minted with states on them, the obsession took over. To shut my mind down, I would spend days putting together a puzzle just so I didn't think. I'm not a clean freak (well in my head I am) but am unable to focus long enough to accomplish what my mind says I need to do. I start one project and get distracted into other things that need doing. Most of the time I am unable to even follow a list. I wish all my thinking were about something knowledgeable or important, but most of it is triggered by impulses I don't have control over.

I have meds to help, but still cycle into bouts that are maddening and silly to me. I know I don't have ADD/ADHD and wish I had a way to control this better. Fortunately I now am only obsessed on things that seem to be safe. Guess that's some progress. :dontknow:

 

[Blues in NYC]

My mother exhibited (and still does) a degree of OCD-like behavior in her undiagnosed trauma related mental health problems. It was very much tied to her internal disaster fantasies (or endangerment). Whenever we as children did anything that interrupted her routines or disrupted the highly specific organized "order" of the stuff in our home, we risked sending her down a dark path.

It could lead to verbal abuse when her endangerment would kick in and she'd foresee that because we didn't stack cans properly in the pantry that we would surely end up as dead drug addicts in the gutter by age 18 if not sooner.

Challenge her further on this and you risked having her either crumple to the floor in a mess, start screaming maniacally, or eloping for up to several days or as was often the case a horrible combination of all three.

As a result, we learned to internalize her OCD-like tendencies. Now that I'm further into recovery, I've begun to disassemble (and hopefully rewire a bit) some of those tendencies that have become a part of MY suite of cPTSD symptoms. Granted, every coping mechanism cum symptom is a double edged blade and there is something to be said for keeping a clean house or being somewhat methodical to approaching a number of forms of work. So I'm needing to take it slow as I rewire these things. It's pretty clear to me it is not stand-alone clinical OCD. Each time I face some of my tendencies, little bits--often in flashback--from my youth come back to me. A majority of this is learned behavior that needed to be on all the time, not just some mysterious internal compulsion.

 

[CafeAulait]

WOW! Thank you all for sharing so much with me! I've never been diagnosed with PTSD or OCD and I'm one of those that believes I know me better than any doctor and can pretty much figure out what's going on with me. This attitude is part of who I am and I understand that perhaps few feel the same way.

I suffer from mild OCD. The intensity of it is determind by the amount of stress in my life. I do things like........

1 - I can't just put the screw on cap on anything.....I have to twist and untwist the lid multiple times before finally snugging it down. I have done this for many years and the result is I have caused physical difficulties in my wrist as a result.

2 - I mimick typing with my fingers when I'm not typing. Not all the time, depends on the stress level. I will hear a word or a phrase and repeatedly mimic typing it with my finger over and over again.

3 - I repeat things over and over in my mind. It might be a license plate number, a jingle from a commercial, or a catchy phrase. I may repeatedly say things to myself in my mind like......well for example.... gotta gotta gotta do it now, gotta gotta gotta do it now. Etc and so on just to give you an example.

4 - I used to repeatedly check the nobs on the gas stove. That developed after finding my mom in the oven at 16. I don't have that problem now because I don't own a gas stove.

5 - I do what I call silent grunting. When I was younger, I was quite verbal about it, but as I grew older I learned how to do it silently. I guess it must be a stress reliever or something, who knows.

6 - My mind is constantly active. It's not unusual for me to watch a television program or the news and not recall a thing, because my mind is somewhere else.

Anyhow, I'm sure that's not everything, but those are the ones that seem the most prominent to me.

 

[SpringRain]

Yes - my new psychiatrist told me that she believes the OCD is as a result or due to the PTSD. It's exhausting. My new T. believes she can treat it so I have my fingers crossed. - Rain