jeannie
28-02-05, 13:19
Hello,
My name is jeannie and I am 43 years old. Until about a year ago I didn't know what was wrong with me, but now I know that my problems have got a name - OCD. Although I've been in and out of therapy for years I always kept the OCD to myself. After becoming ill again after a 14 year break I went back into therapy with my old therapist and after a yeras therapy I eventually opened up properly to him.
I mainly suffer from obsessive thoughts and only sometimes compulsions, although really I suffer from both.
I have three children and a husband and have moments when I think I might stab them to death, which obviously I would never do. I'm petrified of knives and keep them generally out of my reach. During the day time it isn't too bad, but at night I sometimes get very scared which started making me drink more in the evenings so I could go to sleep faster. If I'm not worried about killing somebody, then I'm worried about having hurt somebody else's fellings or am worried that certain people who mean a lot to me are mad at me or I'm scared of getting some terrible illness. Generally I hear something or see something on TV and it all goes from there, depending on how my mood is. SOmetimes things won'T upset me at all and other times.....
I can think of things for hours on end and come to absolutely no conclusion. SOmetimes I try and tell myself what a waste of time this thinking is, but I still can't stop. I seem to have built up a "safety net" around me, which is my OCD. I need to ruminate to feel safe and check that I'm not doing anything wrong, but in the end it just upsets me and wears me out.
Five weeks ago I asked my therapist to put me on medication, because I felt it would help me to calm down and work better in the therapy.
I'm now on Fluoxetine and he was quite pleased with me when he saw me last, because although I still have my classic symtoms I felt better and could talk in the therapy about things I'd never talked about before.
He then threw me into an attack on purpose, which I found extremely upsetting, but he really tried to pick me up and help me. I went home suffering quite badly from my OCD, but am telling myself that it is just the OCD which is making me ruminate all the time.
I know OCD is caused because of chemical inbalances in the brain, but I also think that because I had to sort my own scarey problems out as a child (I was always worrying about things) - my mum kept telling me not to be á hypochondriac and laughed at the things I was scared of - that I must have found this way of making me feel secure, which of course OCD doesn't really.
I'm a very insecure person and although I do an awful lot to help others I often feel bad and not such a good person after all.
I hope my medication starts to work better in the next few weeks. I'M on 40mg. I did hear thet fluoxetine only works for OCD by 60 mg, but I'll have to see.
Thanks a lot for listening to me.
best wishes,
Jeannie
My name is jeannie and I am 43 years old. Until about a year ago I didn't know what was wrong with me, but now I know that my problems have got a name - OCD. Although I've been in and out of therapy for years I always kept the OCD to myself. After becoming ill again after a 14 year break I went back into therapy with my old therapist and after a yeras therapy I eventually opened up properly to him.
I mainly suffer from obsessive thoughts and only sometimes compulsions, although really I suffer from both.
I have three children and a husband and have moments when I think I might stab them to death, which obviously I would never do. I'm petrified of knives and keep them generally out of my reach. During the day time it isn't too bad, but at night I sometimes get very scared which started making me drink more in the evenings so I could go to sleep faster. If I'm not worried about killing somebody, then I'm worried about having hurt somebody else's fellings or am worried that certain people who mean a lot to me are mad at me or I'm scared of getting some terrible illness. Generally I hear something or see something on TV and it all goes from there, depending on how my mood is. SOmetimes things won'T upset me at all and other times.....
I can think of things for hours on end and come to absolutely no conclusion. SOmetimes I try and tell myself what a waste of time this thinking is, but I still can't stop. I seem to have built up a "safety net" around me, which is my OCD. I need to ruminate to feel safe and check that I'm not doing anything wrong, but in the end it just upsets me and wears me out.
Five weeks ago I asked my therapist to put me on medication, because I felt it would help me to calm down and work better in the therapy.
I'm now on Fluoxetine and he was quite pleased with me when he saw me last, because although I still have my classic symtoms I felt better and could talk in the therapy about things I'd never talked about before.
He then threw me into an attack on purpose, which I found extremely upsetting, but he really tried to pick me up and help me. I went home suffering quite badly from my OCD, but am telling myself that it is just the OCD which is making me ruminate all the time.
I know OCD is caused because of chemical inbalances in the brain, but I also think that because I had to sort my own scarey problems out as a child (I was always worrying about things) - my mum kept telling me not to be á hypochondriac and laughed at the things I was scared of - that I must have found this way of making me feel secure, which of course OCD doesn't really.
I'm a very insecure person and although I do an awful lot to help others I often feel bad and not such a good person after all.
I hope my medication starts to work better in the next few weeks. I'M on 40mg. I did hear thet fluoxetine only works for OCD by 60 mg, but I'll have to see.
Thanks a lot for listening to me.
best wishes,
Jeannie