Does anyone Else’s ocd flare up bad when in stressful life situations? I was doing amazing and now that I’m having some drama with my life it seems to have come back with a vengeance. Anyone else?
Yup! Or big life changes, even positive ones, also cause an increase!
@laurenalyssa13 I’ve noticed even when big positive things happen it flares too! It sucks lol!
Yes, but don’t forget that you’re not the same person you were when you first started dealing with OCD, and fighting it will be different this time. I’m sure it’s trying to take control *because* you’ve been doing such an amazing job, which shows you’ve got the tools to beat this. I believe in you and your strength!
@flyana Thank you so much! 💗
Hello LNB90210, As others and yourself have shared stress comes with both positive changes and negative changes in our lives. These periods of transitions inherently challenge us, due to the change taking place. Weather due to a break up or even planning a wedding, there is stress due to the change taking place. To your point, stress does impact symptoms, just like it impacts our mood. This is why I always recommend taking time out of your day for some self-care. This can be spent doing anything you find relaxing or enjoyable. So that you can return to the changes taking place in your life, with a full battery. I hope this helps. If you are struggling with your OCD and would like assistance in making space in your life, don't hesitate to reach out. Know that at NOCD we are always here to help!
Sounds about right.
No yea it happens guys ! I graduated college and I even left home for an internship the summer after graduating and came back and was doing fine . Normal. Nothing . But then like 2 months later thoughts just came flooding in . The job I was in was pretty boring and the fact that I had completed college and the fact that it was dark and gloomy outside since it was Winter contributed to my thoughts and I wasn’t eating well either. I had lost track of my fitness a bit . I felt stuck in life not gonna lie , like it’s all up to me now to figure it out since I graduted college and ouufff it’s gotten better thank god , my OCD was like at a 9/10 . Now it’s gone down to like a 5/10 over the course of a couple of months . And this has been due to starting a new job at a new company and literally just waiting it out . Just patiently waiting. And honestly changing up my routine again . Getting the new job made me feel alive again , like I actually have an important job where I’m needed, before I was sitting behind a computer all day working as an assistant and it made me feel terrible cuz it was so boring. Not saying working as an assistant is a bad job , but to me made it wasn’t it, especially because it was only part time and it could be better . But anyways I been though this before when I graduated High school. And I already know I have an anxious mind so I know it’s all a false alarm 🚨.
@Anonymous The main thing helping me right now is reminding myself that I’m stressed and this will pass. It seems to always get really bad when I’m having something stressful going on, so I just have to talk to myself a lot and remind myself it’s going to be ok!
@LnB90210 It’s all anxious thinking 💭 remember that . OCD is all just a spiral of thoughts that feel very stuck . I get it . A couple months ago I thought I wasn’t gonna be able to get to the point I’m at now . I was crying every single day . If it makes you feel any better my boyfriend of 4 1/2 years is a police officer and I told him to arrest me because I feel like I’m going crazy and he always told me NO. I’m a huge overthinker and it’s ridiculous what I’m asking him to do. My OCD has gone down just with time and changing up my routine a bit and I know if I don’t pay attention to it , it will fade away again . You will be okay
@LnB90210 What exactly is stressing you out right now?
@Anonymous I’m going through some legal stuff right now. Nothing I did wrong, I’m pressing charges on someone for harassment, and that’s got me super stressed out.
This is so common. Happens to me, too. OCD is triggered by a lot of things, chief among them stress. Recognizing that is a huge win, though. The more conscious we are of the machinations of OCD, the better we are at catching its tricks!
Yes! OCD knows exactly when to show up. I tell my to go kick a bucket... it helps :)
Yes, but for some reason it got way way worse quickly. It was fine and then i had a few stressful situations(ive had chronic stress forever so idk why now) and it went into overload.
My last and almost life long theme/sub-theme largely subsided recently and my ocd felt like it wasn’t even an issue. Then I went on winter break from uni and being alone made my mind come up with a whole new topic to obsess over. TLDR on my fears, my advisor wouldn’t email me back for a while about signing up for classes so my mind started to worry “what if he doesn’t in time and you can’t enroll this semester and you lose this whole life you just built and all these new friends” So when that issue was resolved my mind found other scarier ways I could be uprooted from my current life and friends that I’ve grown so attached to. Then my mind remembered back when I was struggling with false memories and scrupulosity and I essentially made a post on a forum 2 and a half years ago saying I did something or was convinced I did something that I never actually did. Now I’ve been spiraling about someone finding it reporting me and I either get seen as a horrible person or arrested or something over something I never actually did but “admitted” to out of fear of going to hell. My mind won’t let it go and keeps finding new reasons for it to be “valid” “logical” or even inevitable. I feel like it’s just hanging over my head and I can never rest easy. Especially when I try to focus on my daily tasks or plan for the future I get this horrible flair up of “why plan for the future when this could come back in that future and you get uprooted from all of it” my mind won’t rest without certainty being uprooted won’t happen but certainty doesn’t exist, at least not with ocd. This sucks and I miss being care free.
Anyone have any good coping strategies when they have an ocd flare up or attack?
I started dealing with OCD when I became fixated on health issues, particularly the fear of contracting a life-threatening disease. If I experienced any kind of medical symptom, no matter how small, that even remotely hinted at something potentially fatal, it would drive me crazy, and I couldn’t stop obsessing over it. Then one day, I started having intrusive thoughts about accidentally hitting someone with my car, and I would end up driving in circles to check if I had. Eventually, I found myself overwhelmed by a flood of new obsessive thoughts and compulsions. One day, while I was at the park, a squirrel came near me, and for some reason, I felt like it attacked me. I Googled it and learned that squirrels could carry rabies, which spiraled me into a deep fear of rabies. I became consumed with the thought I received a bite from a squirrel, raccoon, or bat any time I’m in areas that trigger me. It started off only being inside then transferred to even being in my own home. This made me obsess over every physical sensation in my body, compulsively checking to make sure nothing was wrong. One compulsion that I hated the most would to be putting rubbing alcohol on me to make sure that I had no open wounds. Every day feels like I’m walking around in a fog of anxiety, constantly worrying that I won’t even make it to old age. Sometimes, it gets so overwhelming that I just want it all to end. It stresses me so bad at times to where my brain feels like I’ve been studying all day.
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