Obsession panic

[sarahjs]

Hello, I'm new here. I literally feel as though I can't go on anymore. I've had OCD since I was 10-I'm 21 now. It started with hoarding. Then it grew to other things. In summer, for some reason, the hoarding gets worse. I am obsessed with rubbish. I hate the idea that once something is chucked away it is never seen again. My OCD makes me analyse and forces me to remember every bit of rubbish I see being thrown away. I found a plaster on the bin at work and I don't know if it had blood on it, and the thought of not knowing this has caused anxiety attacks and if tried going through the bins to find this plaster but I couldn't find it. I feel so uneasy, all I can think about is if the plaster had blood on it. Please can anyone help me? I can't do this anymore.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hi Sarah,

Welcome to NMP. I'm sure you will find lots of supportive people on here.

I know what you mean. It's an overpowering urge that you have to fulfill this ritual and you may not even understand what the consequence is if you don't fulfill it...just that you have to do this or else.

I've had GAD for 8 years but my various OCD's started after about 3-4 years of this. I couldn't walk past road signs without reading them, reading them with a certain image or thought in my head or my posture a certain way. I was doing a load of touching rituals as well. I also have Magical Thinking OCD so would struggle that bad things would happen if I didn't cancel them out with certain mental & physical rituals.

If I'm honest, at the height of it, it was dreadful. I felt like I was going crazy.

It has taken me a couple of years now but I have managed to dispell most of this and whilst I sometimes do some of it when I'm a lot more anxious for any reason, I have greater control of it and don't let it beat me or affect me much. I still struggle a lot with the Magical Thinking though, although it's not as intense.

What I found was that there were simple too many rituals, objects, etc that I did it with that CBT just wasn't helping me. I found I couldn't attack it head on.

What I did was to not attack it at all, and to learn how to relax my mind more through relaxation techniques and above all Mindfulness meditation helped me.

This all took some time and 2 years later on of my treating this, I am still dealing with it but it is manageable now, it really is.

My rituals decreased within 6 months of relaxation techniques and Mindfulness meditation. From there, I was left will the really hard ones that I always struggled the most to address but over time they descreased and lost their control over me.

I certainly had problems similar to what you say. I could not go to bed without checking this, touching that, ensuring I watched this program, walked this route in the day, put something in this draw, etc. I would have problems discarding items although I wasn't really a hoarder in my mind but I was holding onto things of sentimental value which I shouldn't or even bits of paper 'just in case'.

I felt for a long time, and still suffer this to a lesser extent, that my life was just a checklist of things each day. I had to do this, had to know that, if I didn't here what someone said I would be pestering them to repeat it as my brain needed to check it off the list.

Some people may find they need to take the CBT cognitive approach and use statements to fight their thoughts. For me, I attacked it from the sides by making myself generally calmer and retraining my mind to control my thoughts better. I found over time that these thoughts would then come & go without me needing to take control of them.

Look at Mindfulness meditation. There are plenty of threads on the therapy board. there are free meditations on the internet, apps, free courses, etc. Mindfulness is now blended with CBT and recognised by NICE so it's evidence based, certainly for depression and I reckon it will be in the future for anxiety disorders. Look for Mark Williams and Jon Kabat-Zinn for the blended stuff as these are the founders of the various methods.