Hmm..Pure o? Or insane?

[PanchoGoz]

I think it can be a life saver yes, but I would like Rapidhopeless to try some CBT techniques as well to see if he can feel better! I read the glimpsing bit (ok, heard, it was an audiobook), I like that technique, but there are other good techniques too like having an interview with your thoughts, viewing them from a medetitive or mindful state, creating exposure experiments; I have learned a lot about obsessive thoughts and I have effectively beaten them from my CBT course, I wish these tips were more well known to people, they really help
What you say about ignoring the thoughts though - you are right, its impossible, they can't just be ignored, but they can be understood and accepted with the right help

[rapidhopeloss]

PanchoGoz I have been trying to do something about these thoughts for weeks now, Ignoring them, trying to occupy my mind etc etc, it's not that easy,I can't STOP my mind from being this way it seems,and I can't STOP myself from being afraid and anxious, it is in no way that easy and if it was,nobody would have this problem for long,would they?

I certainly know I would do anything to be normal again and not live in fear, Hiding away in my bedroom on my own, scared is not fun!! Where If I were normal I would be out and about, socializing with people, MAYBE even going out on dates..

I suffered for weeks, so excuse me if I am trying tablet's to try and make myself better!

I highly doubt they will work, Anyway.

[LAURA48]

Hi - have you seen anyone like a Psychiatrist - that was the best thing I did - feel much better to talk to someone who really understood. I understand how you are feeling - you feel so alone - life is hell - this last bout I have had since October 2011 has been horrendous - was put on the med merry go round by well meaning GPs but that is what they are a General Practitioner!

Could you stretch to going private? a fair bit of dosh - but in my book well worth it as had so much hassle on the NHS Gateway crap! and I work for the NHS! I spoke to my boss who is a GP today to hand in my sick note and he was talking about the system how bad it is for them when doing referrals when they know patients should be seeing professionals.

Anyway I digress - there is a correct medication for you at the moment on Citalopram 20mg but bumping up on next visit he may add small dose of Olanzapine - but for sure if these work will stay on them for life!!

[PanchoGoz]

rapidhopeless I am glad you have tried to stop the thoughts, but you hadn't made it clear that you had done anything to help yourself first so forgive me for my ignorance.
I am in no way trying to stop you trying medication, I was trying to ensure you had tried some recommended techniques first, which is what any good doctor or therapist would do, pills are a huge help and I'm sure you will make progress sooner or later with the right ones.

I know being scared is not fun, and you may have suffered for weeks but I've suffered since 2007 and I really do know how it feels. I've tried everything in the book and have only managed to beat my intrusive and obsessional thoughts now with what worked for me, I'm sure you will find what's best for you with some positivity and knowlege.

I reccomend you see a GP or psychiatrist if you haven't done so already as Laura says or let us know what they said if you have.
All the best.

Oh and please, don't keep telling yourself you are "not normal" and other people are normal. It's not like that everyone is different! xxx

[LAURA48]

Pancho - are you on any meds - what sort of skills helped you as you sound as though you have "cracked it" which is encouraging - I agree you do need some sort of approach to hand in order to deal with them?

[PanchoGoz]

Pancho - are you on any meds - what sort of skills helped you as you sound as though you have "cracked it" which is encouraging - I agree you do need some sort of approach to hand in order to deal with them?

I've not tried any meds, but I've heard a lot of good things from people about the effects so there is no harm in looking into them but also trying self help techniques too I suppose
I've been on the CBT4PANIC online course - mainly for panic, but has a whole section on obsessive thoughts (I've not been diagnose with anything and I don't know if I have pure O but I obsessed and obsessed over certain thoughts and fears, which is much the same, and it gave me panic attacks.)

I'm sure the creator of the course won't mind me sharing some tips I learned from the course and from other places and I'll recommend that course - I won't copy anything, and it's stuff I've learned from other places as well. It is really very good even if you don't have just panic attacks on their own. if you do find this helpful you might want to try it. So here goes, I hope this helps you both a little bit:

1. The biggest thing you need to know is that the content of the thoughts is irrelevent. A thought you find scary is only scary because of the importance YOU attach to it. Not everyone fears the same thing - this is because our anxious minds find one thing to fixate on.

2. The thoughts give you that anxious jerk because you are sensitized to them - you had the thoughts, found them scary for a reason you may or many not know and you now react to them with fight or flight. The thoughts persist in a cycle - you are anxious which puts your mind on high alert and so you are on the lookout for danger - your thoughts come in and cause you fear and panic, so that you are more anxious, and so more on the lookout and so on.
The action of BLOCKING the thought makes it worse - the more you try NOT to think about it the more you think about it. Don't think about a pink elaphant. HA!

3. And so it is, ironically your disire to rid yourself of these thoughts that keep them going. If you didn't care about them, they would indeed just...go. Like a song stuck in your head, that's not scary, you end up accepting it, it goes. You need to understand that the thoughts really are just thoughts that are a result of your anxious, high alert mind.

5. Importantly, you must know that with anxiety, you NEVER EVER lose control of yourself (Rapid read this bit mate) because fight or flight (the dread you feel) makes you incredibly controlled, more than ever - it needs you to be totally in control to respond to danger, your mind is amazing when you are anxious.

6. Underlying beliefs cause the thought - You fear that you will harm someone (Rapid again), but unerneath, perhaps it is a deeper fear of losing control of yourself or losing your mind forever - both very common fears. You will see you underlying belief when you challenge the thoughts.

4. You will find when you think the thought, you think that you will feel like that forever. This is just anxiety playing tricks and throw in a dollop of depression too as these thoughts drain you after a long time. The thought arrives, eugh horrible feeling, eugh, scary, eugh, wrong, but then what do you think about your thinking? Why is it scary?

5. Here I find it best to do a question and answer. Catch the thought "I will harm my family", then ask, why would I do that - "I might lose control of myself" why might that happen - NOW here do you say "I won't lose control because this has never happened in my life and anxiety keeps me in extra control" or do you say "I am insane, I am going mad" <<< that needs correcting, that is an anxious belief, fuelled by ingrained anxious thoughts - if you had all the understanding from CBT that I can't write all in one go here, you would have tons to fall back on to counter this belief.

6. You not only keep the thoughts going from trying to avoid or block them (remember Rapid - trying to STOP and AVOID), but from employing these safety behaviours; clutching your phone perhaps, biting nails, staying at home, moving away from people if you think you will harm them, hiding, surpressing the thoughts, distracting yourself for relief, endless online reading about what these thoughts mean - that makes you feel better for a while yes, but the thoughts are still there and will keep coming back. You will never learn that, in Rapid's case (sorry to keep using you as an example mate, all respect for you) if you don't avoid being near the person, nothing will happen. You can prove that your anxious belief that you will lose control - will not happen. Picking your lips to supress thoughts - feels better, but it's telling yourself something is wrong with the thoughts, the thoughts get importance points, they win, they persist. using phone - you're telling yourself danger is near - thoughts get points, win and persist. Once you know how to deal with a mental panic attack, you know you can cope with them, you can drop these behavious.

7. What to do to feel better when you are overwhelmed by the thoughts?
0 treat them as a panic attack, relax yourself, take in the outside world, smile, focus on an outside object etc.
0 label them - it's that thought again, label it to stop an arguement continuing in your head like HARM THOUGHT - and there it ends for a while.
0 be objective, the thoughts are not how you actually feel about things (you know that deep down even if you can't see that now, you will one day) say what the thought is out loud and how you feel about it. NOTHING like "I am going insane", that's what you make of the thoughts, just state the thought: "I'm scared I will harm someone", and how you feel: "wobbly legs, sweating" and note any safety behaviours. Observe youself.
0 DON'T give the thought importance by reacting to it, however tempting.
0 Distract yourself while you are dealing with the thoughts in this way if you want to, it's not an arm wrestle.

8. Remember you need to not fear the thoughts, not care about them for them to go. You need to desensitize by exposing yourself to the thoughts a little at a time - this is the biggest and hardest part of getting better. Actually try to make them worse if you can. You have to these things gradually though, first of all you may only be abe to just glance at a word relating to your fear. Note your fear levels when you do this. Do it again and again until the fear levels drop then move on up to something more challenging, like rereading a sentence you have written about the thoughts. Little by little, step by step, have patience. Then, perhaps in Rapid's case again, one day you will able to grab a knife and balaclava, aim it at you family's heads and feel no fear as you know very well that you will not hurt them. Exposure is really the ticket in getting better as desensitization in a rigourous schedule and in a controlled way just slices the fear from the thought - but of course a good therapist may be best here.

I hope this helps a bit - I could go on for hours about all the other stuff that has stopped the thoughts - mindfulness being a biggy but I must get off this laptop as I have the sweatiest armpits right now.
Can I clarify anything for you? Feel free to ask.

Understand that this is what works for me but everyone is different, if it doesn't for you, that's fine, but I encourage you to put your heart into working on your fear of the thoughts for a while, and by all means, work on your medication too.
Take care,
Pancho.

---------- Post added at 20:04 ---------- Previous post was at 20:03 ----------

MY GOD that was a long one.

[rapidhopeloss]

Thats all very good information and lots of tips there So thank you.. I am sure loads of people will find them very helpful.

I don't think what I have is OCD though sadly.
Just a horrible weird person.

[PanchoGoz]

I'm not sure whether I'll be able to convince you otherwise then - a therapist may be the best option for you.
But I can try............YOU'RE NOT A WIERD HORRRRRIBLE PERSONNNNNNNNNNN!
YOU DISLIKE THE THOUGHTS ABOUT HARMING PEOPLE, THERFORE, THE THOUGHTS ARE NOT HOW YOU ACTUALLY FEEEEEEL!
Good luck convincing me there's anything wrong with you!!!
In fact I CHALLENGE you. You have one post to convince me you are a wierd horrible person, I can garuntee you are not and that it is just anxiety.
Best of luck.

[rapidhopeloss]

I'm not sure whether I'll be able to convince you otherwise then - a therapist may be the best option for you.
But I can try............YOU'RE NOT A WIERD HORRRRRIBLE PERSONNNNNNNNNNN!
YOU DISLIKE THE THOUGHTS ABOUT HARMING PEOPLE, THERFORE, THE THOUGHTS ARE NOT HOW YOU ACTUALLY FEEEEEEL!
Good luck convincing me there's anything wrong with you!!!
In fact I CHALLENGE you. You have one post to convince me you are a wierd horrible person, I can garuntee you are not and that it is just anxiety.
Best of luck.

Ok, well!! fine..I haven't done anything horrible/evil yet but These thoughts I have..i mean no I haven't acted on them and I NEVER WANT TOO....but, what If I just lose it? and act on them? what if I secretly enjoy these thoughts? I could be a psychopath and just now discovered it yet

I don't feel like I have control of myself :( and sometimes I just get strong urges to do it, like the other day I had a thought of hitting my mum who was sat next to me and I felt I had to try SO hard to keep my arms still and NOT do it :'(

[PanchoGoz]

Ok, well!! fine..I haven't done anything horrible/evil yet but These thoughts I have..i mean no I haven't acted on them and I NEVER WANT TOO....but, what If I just lose it? and act on them? what if I secretly enjoy these thoughts? I could be a psychopath and just now discovered it yet

I don't feel like I have control of myself :( and sometimes I just get strong urges to do it, like the other day I had a thought of hitting my mum who was sat next to me and I felt I had to try SO hard to keep my arms still and NOT do it :'(

RIGHT.
Number one. You don't want to do anything bad, you don't like the thoughts and importantly, you have never done anything like what you imagine have you?
Number two. "what is I just lose it?...I could be a psychopath and just not discovered it yet" <<< you have an anxiety disorder which is why you are on this forum - it's why you mention pure o and have posted about it. In my post I said that people with anxiety disorders don't just lose it - people who "lose it" are psychopaths, you are not. Psychopaths have psychosis, anxiety is neurosis, the two are CONFLICTING CONDITIONS which means you cannot have both. The fact that you think you could be a psychopath proves that you are not because you are sanely reasoning it - psychopaths and criminals don't turn themselves in before they go on a rampage!
Number three. The "strong urges". I had this myself once. When I was in the car, I thought I would reach out and grab the steering wheel or cover my dad's face when I was on the major roads. I actually had to sit on my hands because they felt so much like they wanted to just do it - it felt so easy. This is actually fight or fligh giving you that get up and go feeling in your arms - your limbic system thinks you are in danger and makes you ready to fight, which may involve your arms, or flee, involving your legs. It would never MAKE you do anything though, as I said you are in EXTRA conrol when anxious.
And number four: You still haven't done any exposure have you? I won't allow you to accept that you are "not normal" until you have stood next to you mum and pretended to hit her jokingly orhugged her or something so that you can SEE FOR YOURSELF that you are very very sane.

You have this problem because you are a sensitive, scared but nice person, and I would gladly come and sit on a sofa with you because I now know for a fact that you have obsessive thinking and not psychosis, just from what you have written.
Thank you for reading, any clarifications? Challenges?