Compulsion

I am not a professional and I cannot provide any psychological advice. What I can tell you is that you are not alone. Symptoms of untreated OCD had basically taken over a huge portion of my past life, and it unfortunately lead me to drinking to find relief. I was also taking prescription medication to manage the OCD symptoms, which is actually very often made ineffective by drugs and/or alcohol if they're taken at the same time (which I often did). In fact, while I took medication at the same time as drinking, I found it made my symptoms worse. I was/am also seeing a therapist, but I did not find much benefit in the past because... well... I was drunk all the time. I got 100% sober 5.5 months ago, which is a huge accomplishment for me. After getting sober, I continued therapy and even saw greater benefits from my therapy work. What I failed to maintain alongside therapy was medication management. So, now that I am sober and seeing greater benefits from therapy alone, I might also find that medication will be much more effective, as well. I am NOT assuming that you drink or use drugs as I tell you a snippet of my story. However, I AM outlining the importance of professional intervention that discusses talk therapy and perhaps medication management. My compulsions are "squishy." If I "squish" one compulsion down, then another one seems pops up in its place. Sometimes, the activities or thoughts I perform to "deal" with or stop other complulsions END UP BECOMING A DIFFERENT TYPE OF COMPULSION IN THEMSELVES. (Capitalized words are not to signify yelling; they are used for emphasizing major points.) In a weird way, I become obsessive-comuplsive about OCD... OCD-OCD... Something like a Meta-OCD. 🤔 Anyway, I'll wrap this up by reminding you that you are not alone, and by reaching out and asking for help you have already admitted to yourself that what you experience is an issue and you are unable to do it alone. That's the best first step you can take in dealing with these symptoms. Now, off I go to dealing with my own stuff. I hope this helps. Good luck.

Yeah, that is Magical thinking ocd. I have realised that I have been avoiding places where they play music from the radio stations, because there is this singer from our country, who has been quite popular here, although I have never liked his voice or his music, and he is a friend of a person that became one of the two main triggers of my ocd. That person really disappointed me and hurt me. So now I fear everything about and connected to this person. Even hearing a song form his so called friend singer. They both live quite far away, each on their different parts of the country. I know it doesn't make sense that sth bad could happen just by hearing a pre-recorded song on the radio, but I feel so dirty if it happens, that I can't wait to hit the shower. The anxiety is unbearable. I feel everything I touch until I take a shower is dirty as well. I avoid taking a bus when I need to go somewhere, so I end up either not going at all or walking kilometers and kilometers. Stupid! But that is ocd winning over me. I avoid going to parties, for an ice-cream or a soft drink in a bar, anywhere where they play pop music from this country. I feel the same way if I see or hear anything or anyone that reminds me even remotely of the person that I fear most. And there's more "fun stuff" like that that drives me nuts, because I know it's illogical and yet I just can't sit it out. I try sitting with it, postponing compulsions, but in the end even when the anxiety starts to wear off, I cannot not do the compulsion. My compulsions are quite me friendly lately. Now I take a shower in 10 minutes and that's it. Two years ago, before I started taking Zoloft, I had no life. It would take me 6, 7, 8 hours of doing compulsions. I would not only wash myself, but after the first shower, I would wash and clean the clothes I was wearing at the moment ocd attacked and all I touched before I took the shower. After that I had to take another shower, wash things again, another shower, wash the shower cabin, take the final shower. I was killing myself. The exhaustion was not human. The last time, in November 2022 I actually collapsed to the shower floor. I had no energy to move anymore and my body looked wrinkled and colorless and bluish from all the water. That day I took the first pill. I had had it at home for 2 months, but I hesitated. It wasn't all great immediately. It took a year and a half at the maximum dose to see the really big changes. But the anxiety got better after a few weeks. There were some side effects to my physical health, I am still dealing with them. It took a looot of patience and not giving up. But today, even though I am far from perfect ocd wise, I do have a life. 2 years ago I didn't. I was consumed by ocd. Now I am in charge and ocd is just a part of me. It acts up from time to time, but it doesn't ruin me anymore. I apologize for making me the centre of this post. I just wanted to tell you that I understand you 100%. You are not alone. I wish you as much as I wish for myself that you manage to find a way to deal with fears and anxiety =ocd. Keep in touch. Have a calm and peaceful day.