Hi everyone,
I specifically made an account just now to talk about this current obsession I've been having. I really don't know how it's gotten to this point, but even as I'm typing this I am extremely aware of the position of my tongue in my mouth and it's causing me great anxiety.
Before I go into things about my tongue, I would like to give a brief background on my situation. I have suffered with OCD for many years, but I would say I used to have the "typical" kind of OCD, usually associated with a fear of losing control and harming others, and the compulsions that went with this. Somehow this kind of faded away a few years ago, and I had a period of two years where I didn't seem to have any symptoms. During that time however, I was still worrying/anxious about other things, and I suffered from an injury which led to a chronic pain problem, which added to my stress.
After this period of two years where I didn't seem to have any OCD thoughts/compulsions, I woke up one day and suddenly noticed my teeth were feeling different, as if the bite had changed. I then started to obsess about how my teeth came together and turned to google to see if anything was wrong. This caused me to panic even more, and I thought it may be because of TMJD or other conditions, and I suddenly became hyper aware of my teeth and jaw. This was very new to me, as I had never felt like this before. I then started to get "urges". as if I wasn't in control of my mouth, and I felt the urge to grind my teeth. Teeth grinding is usually a subconscious act which people are not aware of, however for me it became conscious and I was aware of it at all times. I don't think I actually gave in to the urges to do it, but I just feared that I would, which kept my mind on that particular sensation.
The way I would explain this, is it's like a sensorimotor obsession (when automatic bodily processes become conscious), however instead of just being "aware" of the physical sensation within the body, I get urges to perform certain movements, which makes me feel as if I'm not in control of my body. The only other time I feared losing control physically was when I had the "urges" to harm others and felt like I was going to.
Since this teeth/jaw awareness, I've had several obsessions running along the same theme, with the fear of losing control. It has spread to every area of my body, from fearing I would lose control and injure myself while working out, to fearing I will make obscene facial expressions in public. All of these fears have caused me to become hyperaware of myself physically, in order to make sure I don't give in to the urges. I get triggered by things people say if it relates to any of my fears, and then I become convinced it is their fault that I am like this. Googling has made everything a lot worse. I initially only use it after getting triggered, to find an explanation for why I am thinking like this, and to try and subdue the panic. It causes the panic to grow and my fears to multiply, and I keep googling and thus the cycle continues.
Sorry for rambling, I just have a lot on my mind and find it hard to express myself clearly. Going back to the current tongue obsession, this is the latest in the line of body focussed awareness issues. It started when I somehow interpreted a message from the universe, coming from the TV. which told me that I wouldn't be able to speak properly. Looking back now, I realise it wasn't the universe speaking to me, it was just my anxiety latching on to the message and assuming it was meant for me (because of synchronicity). I then became hyper aware of my speech and found it hard to get my words out properly. I feared that I would not be able to talk properly in doctors' appointments, and this would hinder getting better, both physically (re the physical issue I mentioned earlier), and mentally. I would go on to fear this, with differing levels of anxiety, for some time. Every time I saw an advert on TV or anything related to speech, I figured it was a message meant for me.
This is until my anxiety over the issue spiked massively. It was late (around 4am), and I was talking to a friend of mine. During the conversation she told me that she felt like she almost swallowed her tongue while talking, and that it moved to the back of her mouth. She said this so nonchalantly and as if she didn't really care, then carried on talking about whatever she was talking about. My panic hit and I realised this relates to my fears, and I wondered if my tongue would do the same thing while I was talking. This made me angry because I felt like I had just come to grips with this fear, and that this would set me back. I was so tired at that point that I just fell asleep.
When I woke up that morning my mind was still aware of this, in-fact it's the first thing I noticed in the morning. I had a bit of work to do, which I did while still having this nagging thought in the back of my mind, regarding my speech. Whenever I spoke to people I became more aware of it again, and was wondering if this would effect my ability to talk. Fast forward to later on that evening, I had just got home from shopping at tesco, and was quite tired. I went on the computer and decided to try and chill out by listening to some music, and doing some general web browsing. The nagging thought was still there, and suddenly I had the urge to google what she said to me. I wanted to make sure other people had this swallowing thing, and it wasn't just some random occurrence that had come to trigger my anxiety and fears. I put in the search terms “Swallowing tongue talking.” I wasn't really thinking about it much at the time as I was tired, I was just going along with my impulse. I saw nothing about swallowing the tongue while talking, I just clicked the first link that I could, for some info, without really thinking about it. Of course this link was to be about an orofacial myofunctional disorder called “Tongue thrust.” The first paragraph I read was:
Tongue thrust (also called “reverse” or “immature” swallow) is the common name given to orofacial muscular imbalance, a human behavioral pattern in which the tongue protrudes through the anterior incisors during swallowing, speech and while the tongue is at rest. Nearly all young children exhibit a swallowing pattern involving tongue protrusion, but by the age of 6 most have automatically switched to a normal swallowing pattern. (Wikipedia).
What initially scared me was that I may do this with my tongue and it will effect my speech. I tested this out my pushing my tongue through my anterior incisors and trying to talk, and noticed I wasn't able to talk properly. I then started googling “tongue thrust”, but as soon as I realised this could happen at rest and while swallowing too, the fear magnified. I also wondered why my specific search terms would result in me seeing that article, and this angered me greatly and made me think it was bad luck yet again.
I went to sleep and woke up that morning in full blown panic. I had developed the urge to thrust my teeth with my tongue, and feared developing this tongue thrust disorder (just like before with TMJD and various other disorders). I was now consciously aware of my tongue at all times. It felt so unusual, like it was too big for my mouth. I noticed its position behind my teeth, and was changing it consciously because I was aware of it.
I carried on googling and this made the fear multiply. I am now aware everytime my tongue makes a movement, and I have this extremely strong urge which makes me want to push my tongue to the roof of my mouth, and pull it back and feel my tonsils. Every time I think about this my anxiety spikes, and I just want the thought of it to go away. Sometimes when I give in and do it, it doesn't relieve my anxiety at all in the way a compulsion does, it just makes everything a lot worse, knowing I lost control of myself physically and that it could happen at any moment.
For most people these types of habits are subconscious acts that they are not aware of, that they must try consciously to think about and stop doing. For me however, it is not even a habit in the first place. It is something I am not even aware of until I get triggered and it becomes something I fear doing. I fear developing it into a habit that I will not be able to control, and thus I am automatically conscious of it. The types of thoughts that come into my mind are:
"What if I do this with my tongue and won't be able to stop doing it, and it then tenses up automatically and happens by itself."
"What if I won't be able to forget about this sensation, after becoming aware of it. What if my mind stays fixated on my tongue and I can't focus on anything else"
"If I keep doing this it will push my teeth out of alignment"
"What if people notice me tensing my tongue (because when you tense your tongue the neck/jaw area expands)."
Just now my tongue tensed up and almost crept up to the roof of my mouth, and the feeling made me extremely anxious, but I somehow managed to control it and bring it back to its normal position. I don't understand why I think the way I do, and from constant googling I can't find anyone with this same problem. I feel like I am unique with these problems and it just makes me even more anxious. I'm currently taking 100mg clomipramine, which I've been on and off for three years, however it isn't helping. The only thing that helps me is sleeping. When my anxiety gets bad I sometimes sleep for up to 20 hours, as a way of coping with it and not having to think about it. I realise that this is not the correct way to cope with my problems. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should do?
Sorry again for explaining it in such a convoluted way, but I really can't focus right now. I would really appreciate any suggestions.
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Why does my body act like it's something that does not belong to my body anymore 
