I feel absolutely defeated by OCD

Hello Anonymous, I totally relate myself to this also. It has never helped me to feel better specially when I start to read on how ugly or bad this can get. Thank you so much for your very kind response! 💗💖

Hello AnonymityK, thank you so much for your very kind words, it means a lot to me 💖 it gives me hope to read your messages. My relatives think the only thing I'm candidate to is, to a psychiatrist and meds, I don't want to take medicines. I'm not yet in ERP therapy because I haven't even found help here in Sweden, I'm hoping I will finally get to contact with some therapist here. But I don't know where else to find help. Yes dear I have noticed how hard it's for them (my family and husband for example) they get so mad and disappointed, telling me: "but I just talked to you yesterday, weren't you listening to me? Did you just ignored me?". They think just to talk though on me it will cure me and next day I will be "normal" again.

@XPaulina Yes! I understand, considering taking medication can be scary but remember nothing is permanent, you change your mind and that’s okay. My family was the same way specially my parents, it can be a generational thing, my parents are used to “dealing” with problems with out help, so they take that approach with everything. I was able to educate my parents about ocd and my partner too. Have you attended any of the peer groups NOCD has?

@AnonymityK If you aren’t able to find a therapist right away, you should look into following Jenna, she is a therapist that has seminar available for people that might not be able to get a therapist right away. They are not actual one on one but they are good. Here is a link to her website, you can also find her on Instagram, https://jennaoverbaughlpc.com/.

@AnonymityK This organization also helps support people with OCD by providing info on where help is available. https://iocdf.org/organizations/svenska-ocd-forbundet/

@AnonymityK Thank you so much for your empathy, it's exactly the same with my family and very hard to understand for my husband, as well. Same as yours, my parents thinks you must help yourself alone. I have really tried to educate them in this matter. But as we haven't seen each other in more than 6 years, and we live about 11,000 km away from each other. So I can just send them articles, videos, and hoping they will understand. I have even suggested them to talk to some specialist there so he/she could explain them better. And no, I haven't and I didn't know about those groups at NOCD. How can I find them?

@AnonymityK This means the world to me 🙏💖 thank you so much for this information I will asap open the link and read about her. I will as well follow her on Instagram. All you're sharing with me it's gold. Thank you so much for your time and sharing this with me💖💓🙏

@AnonymityK I'm reading now in Sweden, THANK YOU SO MUCH for that link, it seems to be extremely rich in information. As I live very close to the artic circle, there's no help up here but I'm reading I could maybe request it through the healthcare here. That makes me think maybe I should report the psychiatry clinic here since they denied giving me help and I actually have it written in a letter they sent me. And I didn't do anything about it. All the best for you and send you all the best wishes for being such a sweetheart and helping others as you're doing now ❤️ 😊 💕

@AnonymityK hi! I see that your profile says OCD conqueror, I'm 20 yrs old and have been dealing with horrible harm ocd for about 2 or 3 weeks now, I'm scared my mind will somehow become blank and I will want to harm others or myself. My mind feels foggy and I just don't feel like myself. I love my family and friends more than anything in the world but I'm scared that I'll become numb and that will change. I'm so scared I'll never be able to feel okay again. I have a therapist for when I had horrible anxiety and de realization over the summer, I couldn’t barely eat anything and would wake up feeling sick to my stomach anxious for no reason, and I was prescribed a low dose of anxiety medication but I haven't taken it in months because I started feeling better after a while of seeing my therapist and finding out I was extremely deficient in vitamin D and starting my vitamin D supplement, but l'm now wondering if I should take my anxiety medication again. I'm just so upset and scared, I want to feel like myself again. I just don't feel like me, when I speak it just feels weird and my mind feels so foggy and tired from being so in my head 24/7. I'm not sure what to do. I do not see a OCD therapist, I just see a regular therapist and I have an appointment coming up in a few days. Any advice? Or if anyone else in this comment section sees and relates or knows some advice I would appreciate it so much.

@XPaulina Aw thanks! I wish you all the best, and I about the groups they should be under the therapy sessions on on the app, unless it has changed.

@allyyyB4 Hey, I’m sorry your dealing with this. It’s definitely a hard theme. I did deal with harm OCD before, regarding my child, so I understand how distressing this is for you. The best advice I can give you to conquer this theme is to sit with the distress, cut off your compulsions, and just accept your thoughts. (I know it’s hard.) For me it looked this this, an intrusive thought would pop up, “ what if I develop a psychotic break and hurt my child (insert a horrible image of how).” My response: “oh that’s scary, but it is possible”. Right away, my compulsion would be to ruminate about how horrible I am and I lived in my head but I would catch myself and would try to bring my self back to the present in the moment. Its hard to do that, but start by doing verbally, so as soon as you catch yourself ruminating, verbally say, I’m ruminating or I’m doing a compulsion and proceed try to bring your self to the present moment ( this part was hard but there are videos online about being present and mindfulness). Another big compulsion was avoidance, I would not want to be alone with my child. Try to be present around your family, start by joining them for dinner.

@AnonymityK Just remember our brain is just an organ and one of its jobs is to keep us safe, and derealization can be part of that. It help me to just be aware of it, I start to accept that I was going through it and eventually the fear and the emotions I felt got better. Is your therapist specialize in ERP treatment for OCD? If so, work with her to identify your compulsions and start some exposures for this theme, I know it’s scary to talk about our intrusive thoughts with harm but it helped me to be honest with my therapist. Try to remember that OCD even though it causes us a lot of distress, what it intends it’s to help us and to warn us about “danger” but it has it all wrong, it’s like an broken alarm. And since it’s broken, majority of the dangers are not real, for example, OCD telling you, you might want to hurt the people you love. If every time it tells you that, you avoid or do compulsions, you are basically telling OCD that it might be dangerous so it keeps sending the thoughts to confirm it, once you accept them you teach it that it’s not and the thoughts eventually don’t make you feel as distress or they go away. You will eventually feel like your old self again, it takes time, for me it had to get hard before it got better. ( I had to accept my thoughts and let the distress sit there, that was the hardest part). In terms of your medication you should consult your doctor, psychiatrist or the person who prescribe the meds to you. I hope all this makes sense, your stronger than you think! Also, OCD is OCD, the theme doesn’t really matter, it’s all the same!

@AnonymityK @allyyyB4 ^ for you!

It's also a very good suggestion, I will really try to stay away from internet when dealing with a flare up. Thank you so much 💓 💗

Thank you so much for the very educational response, it reminds me my time at the university. It sounds like you're a psychologist, perhaps a neurologist or psychiatrist? I'm a psychologist, it feels much worse, because everyone tells me: "can't you help yourself? You shouldn't be having these problems since you're a psychologist" 🥴😵‍💫 thank you so much for your response SomaticSun🌤

@XPaulina No prob Not a psychologist or psychiatrist, just read a lot. Too much. 😂