Hello all and Merry Xmas,
I am also an OCD survivor (and it was and still sometimes is 'close shave').
I am a pure O sufferer with mostly health anxiety (HIV, MS, Schizophrenia) but also used to have thoughts of hurting people especially close ones (even my dearest cat at some point). It all started with panic attacks and general anxiety and ss a result of all this I also developed depression.
It got really bad when I was 23 (before that I only had two short episodes) and within three months I was put on Paxil and everything disappeared however when I stopped taking it a year later it all came back so I was put back on it again. I took Paroxetine for 8 years altogether but the last 3 years I was taking only half the tablet, then every other day etx until I weaned myself off it and was absolutely OCD free for a year. But a lot of stress and antibiotics poisoning (really bad for the central nervous system - never ever take quinolones if you want to live) brought it all back, I started having panic attacks again and soon OCD kicked in big time with me being convinced I had Schizophrenia because I had a feeling my head was splitting in two.
I went back on Paxil but I can only take 1/4 of a pill a day, if I take more I get bad headaches and a kind of serotonin syndrome, muscle spasming and feeling hot all over. Anyway, I wanted to tell you that I found something that really helped me enourmously, in fact for 4 days it made me feel happier and more positive about life than anything I have tried before :-) I read an article on OCD by a person who recovered and it says that the key thing is to ACCEPT your thoughts truly and unconditionally, no matter how crazy, weird and unacceptable they are. All my life I have been running away from them, and the more I was running away the stronger they were getting, WHAT YOU RESIST - PERSISTS. So I started sitting in meditation and every time a bad thought poped in I just said to it 'I love you and I accept you' and I made sure it was not just words, I really meant it and felt it. And sure enough the thought would just go! I was left with a kind of melting relief feeling in my stomach, like I let go of something. I started doing all the time, and withih a day my depression was gone, almost no OCD and no panic, and I was so happy. Because I thought I was onto something I stopped taking the 1/4 Paroxetine and unfortunately the panic came back (not the OCD though - or not as strong) so I went back on it and I'm still working on the acceptance. I think I will need to do it for a long time, maybe a few months before I rewire my brain but I truly believe it is the answer! I just wanted to share it with and I am also attaching the article below. Please don't give up, it stems from seriously low self-esteem, and when you finally accept yourself - but truly and unconditionally and you will stop being so critical of yourself the OCD will be manageable, I just know it, it is possible to change your brain chemistry with your mind and I am a proof of it, even if only for 4 days. I know it's was not drugs completely, because I have never felt so good on Paroxetine, it was like for those 4 days I went back to being just myself, without all the crap and stress, I could cope and I could love, myself and others, I could even stand being around my parents without making them guilty of all this sh.t I have to go through, even though I know they played a huge part in my OCD.
Anyway, I'm sending you all love and wish you perseverance, I know we can beat this thing - paradoxically not by fighting with it but by accepting it.
When you accept things unconditionally, you transform them :-)
Love&light
Sara
I once suffered from OCD, Social Phobia and Depression and now have completely recovered under the guidance of Mr. Heixi, a famous Chinese psycho counselor, it is he who has given a totally new life, now I have translated his research findings in Social Phobia, OCD as well as other neurosis and share it with all the tortured souls in this world, I wish it will give you some hope in beating the mental beast in your heart.
Please feel free to contact me if you would like to talk to me for more advice, I would like to share my experience of complete recovery from the nightmare.
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Complete Recovery from OCD
OCD Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by intense, recurrent, unwanted thoughts and rituals that are beyond the person's control. So when we speak of OCD, there must be 2 sides: one side is the recurrent unwanted thoughts, and the other side is your strong desire to get rid of these unwanted thoughts.
So from these 2 sides, we can work out the essence of OCD. The essence of OCD is that you are not willing to accept the existent objective facts and try to escape from it.
As we all know, all the matters have their own reason to exist in this world, they all follow the law of nature to exist in this world, the law of nature which cannot be disobeyed at all!
Remember the first time such weird idea came across your mind? Every person, during his or her life, more or less, occasionally would encounter such weird idea or action. So, however weird it is, it has its own reason to be there, it is reasonable to be there, it just appeared in your mind because of the law of the nature, but it pops up on the wrong person, it is you! If it pops up in other normal persons, they may neglect it or feel uncomfortable just for a short time at most, then they continue their lives and do what they should do, and forget such idea, but you, you are not like them! The bad personality created by the environment you have been living in since your childhood always renders you low self-esteem and self-denial. When you encounter such situation, you will not turn outside ( by “outside” we mean “do the things you ought to do and do not mind however weird the idea or action is), but inside (by “inside” we mean you begin to deny or refuse such idea when you encounter it, you begin to think “why such idea came across my mind”, “I cannot let that happen”, “I must get rid all of these weird ideas, which will make me comfortable”), now you begin to fight these ideas over and over again.
“Everything has its reason to be there including all of your weird ideas if the law of nature makes it to appear there, even god cannot help you to escape from it”, calmly and carefully taste these words, you will get much. If you understood this “ultimate truth” in the first place, you would not become what you are like today! If you understood however weird the idea or action is, it is created by so many factors including external environment and internal mind or personality, it is REASONABLE to be there, you will not fight it or try to free yourself from it, it would not haunt you like this today!
But you never think this way, you have been trying to fight it, try to deny it rather than accept it, you would find that the more fiercely you fight it, the more fiercely it would counter-fight you. You have spent all the energy in the battle and feel so exhausted, but you enemy is always stronger than you however hard you try! Who has made it to grow so strong and so powerful, YOU!, you are not killing it but irrigate it, stop that at once! You have gone the wrong direction, turn back at once, what are you waiting for?
All in all, the essence of OCD is that “ you are trying to deny yourself”, “you are trying to escape from yourself” , Is that possible? Imagine if you pull your hair upward wishing to lift yourself up from the floor, will that happen? I believe your answer is definitely “No”, but I tell you, actually you are doing the same thing as hair-pulling, and you have been doing it for many years maybe, will you continue to do it? It is up to you!
OCD is an extreme expression or outburst of Low Self-esteem or Self-denial. Please note that not only OCD, all the other mental disorders ( including all kinds of Phobia, Depression, Insomnia, etc ) share the same feature. To be more accurate, The essence of all the persistent mental sufferings is extremely low self-esteem (inferiority complex) or Self-denial.
You are trying to abandon yourself, you are trying to escape from yourself, you are willing to do anything else except the complete acceptance of yourself. You have gone against the law of nature, so you will be punished for doing so. It is simple!
You keep going forward, trying to find where the way out is, but the way out is just behind, only by turning back will you find it.
“Accept Yourself”, this is the maxim you can find in almost all the oriental lore such as Buddhism Scriptures. Yes, you are so painful just because you cannot accept yourself, you hate yourself, you cannot tolerate yourself for even one second.
Every morning just after waking up, you start to fight yourself! Your activate every muscle, using every method you can find to “kill” yourself, you search throughout all the Books and Articles about Psychology, wishing to find a way to eliminate those ideas which are making yourself uncomfortable even painful. The more exhausted you are, the more bravely you fight! You wish to pay any cost to kill the true “yourself”, which is an objective presence in the world. You even don’t give yourself one second to take a breath. You will only give up when you have no energy left, maybe you will find when you come up with the idea of “give up”, you will suddenly feel relaxed and comfortable, but it will only last for a short time. Some friends have told me that they will suddenly feel comfortable when they decide to see a therapist, only the idea of seeing a therapist will make him feel better, interesting? In fact, when you decide to see a therapist, you are actually doing the similar things as “give up”. You might say to yourself “ I really have no way of dealing with it, I will see if a therapist can help me.”
Ask yourself:
When will I be able to jump out of the cave of OCD? When will I jump out of the cycle of OCD?
Do you know the Newton Law on force and counteractive force..
Where there is a force, there is a counterwork. Where there is suppression, there is confrontation. Where there is a fight, there is a counter-fight.
That is just the feature of OCD.
So “acceptance” rather than “fight” is the only way out.
However, when we speak of “acceptance”, we must point out we must accept it from the bottom of our hearts, accept it heartily and completely rather than only accept it on the surface. Here, real and complete acceptance is a must.
If you really accept from the bottom of your heart, even if you are fighting, actually you are accepting.
If you just accept it on the surface, even if you are accepting, actually you are fighting.
Dear friends, do you really understand the 2 sentences above? If you do, you have taken a big step forward.
If you just accept it on the surface, it is useless, what's worse, your OCD will be more severe and you will suffer more because actually you are fighting.
For example, Narcissism is not self-confidence, actually it is low self-esteem.
__________________
I once suffered from OCD, Social Phobia and Depression and now have completely recovered
I wish my experience can give you some hope.
msn:heixi.jacky@hotmail.com
mail:heixi.jacky@gmail.com
Now I will detail my understanding of OCD, below you can find some questions and my answers, the focus is the concept of “acceptance”.
Q: now I understand, you mean we must fully and completely accept all the symptom of OCD, what’s more, we should embrace it with our hearts to make it fade away as soon as possible, but so far I cannot use this method well enough.
A: You are wrong, when we speak of “acceptance”, we don't mean “acceptance” is a method, there is not any method included. “give up” itself is just “acceptance”, stop using any method, accept it from the bottom of your heart. Never strictly demand that you should accept all the symptoms, never strictly demand that you should embrace it in order to make it fade away. Because if you consciously demand yourself to accept it, actually you only accept it on the surface rather than accept it from the bottom of your heart. The essence of such “acceptance” is still “fighting”. That’s just what I mentioned “If you just accept it on the surface, even if you are accepting, actually you are fighting.”
Q:I think the acceptance of symptom itself will not work, we should analyze the real cause behind the symptoms. Only by doing that can we find a way to solve the problem. We don’t have to dwell on the symptom, we should accept what is really in our hearts, namely accept ourselves from the bottom of our hearts, rather than accept it on the surface.
A: It seems that you have been studying and practicing Morita Therapy for a measure of time, but those who never study Morita Therapy are still spending all of their energy in fighting symptoms, trying to escape them all days and all nights, therefore firstly we should teach them to accept the symptom. Furthermore, real “acceptance” is “give up”, give up clinging on to any symptom.
And you say, “we should analyze the real cause behind the symptoms. Only by doing that can we find a way to solve the problem”, come on, please stop doing that, you should awe the nature, OCD is a perfect closed loop, even if you exhaust all of your brain cells to analyze it for the rest of your life, you still cannot jump out of OCD. Human being will never defeat nature. Yes, your analysis is perfect, you are really “intelligent”, but you have neglected one problem “The more analysis you make, The farther you will go away from the solution”. You are still cycling in this closed loop of OCD. Here please let me quote one remark from Taoism “the farther you go, the less you know”. For example, a very knowledgeable person will try any method learned in all the psychology book to free himself from OCD, but finally he will bound to fail. On the contrary, an illiterate rube will easily stay away from those weird ideas or actions.
In fact, thousands of years before, Buddhism told us one ultimate truth, “The only way to stay away from the pain is to give up any method to stay away from it.” If you understand now and give up any efforts to free yourself from OCD, you will wake up from your nightmare.
So now, friend, give up any method to deal with OCD, throw away all psychology books, every method used will make you fall deeper into OCD, there is never any method. Get up! Live freely as you wish! Sing!, dance! Work! Make friends! Life itself is the best “medication” for OCD.
For some people suffering from severe symptoms, strong external stimulation can be applied.
To put it another way, if a person is immersed in deep meditation, a sudden and unexpected strike on his head may pull him out of the meditation state.
Severe OCD sufferers are in a nightmare-like state, they cannot wake up themselves, they must shift their attention from their symptoms to life under the guidance of an experienced counselor. Strong external stimulation means a busy and full life, or an emergent task which need his or her full attention.
The essence of all the mental disorders is low self-esteem or self-denial with OCD of no exception. All the weird ideas have their own reasons to be there. Remember, “Whatever is, is right”.
However weird the ideas which come across your mind is, they are rational. Most people would neglect it, even if they fight it, they will not cling on to it for long time. On the contrary, your personality, which is formed by external environment you have been living in since your childhood and the pathological internal mind, makes you focus on it, cling on to it. You deny its rationality, try to escape from it, actually you have denied one ultimate truth:” Those weird ideas is an indispensable part of yourself. “ You will never escape from yourself, so “give up” any efforts.
Therefore, to the OCD, complete “give up” is complete “accept”, to be frank, only when you despair of defeating OCD--saying to yourself: “OK, I give up, I prepare to live with OCD for the rest of my life, because it is an indispensable part of me myself.”,-- you can wake up from your nightmare and live the life as you wish.
OCD is yourself, you are the OCD.
Some people may ask me:” Do you mean I cannot defeat OCD until I despair of defeating it.”
No. I don’t mean that way, because you cannot force yourself to despair, that will be another malignant cycle. Once you know the essence of OCD, you will free yourself from it without despairing. The OCD is yourself, you can never defeat yourself, give up any futile challenge, and walk towards the life, then you will get gradually recovered.
__________________
I once suffered from OCD, Social Phobia and Depression and now have completely recovered
I wish my experience can give you some hope.
msn:heixi.jacky@hotmail.com
mail:heixi.jacky@gmail.com
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