Dealing with Harm OCD

[Jayamashey]

Hi All,

I have been viewing this forum for a while but this is my first post.

I have been struggling with harm OCD since June and trying to come to grips with it. Note, I have never been violent and these are opposite of my character. I had never been clinically diagnosed with OCD in the past, but have always had minor anxiety.

After a bout of burnout and major panic attacks my GP prescribed me an AD (over the last 5 months I tried 6 different ones all with unbearable side effects). Shortly after being on then discontinuing the AD, I started having images pop in my head of me stabbing my spouse. This completely freaked me out so I started to see a psychiatrist who prescribed another AD (Effexor) which made me bedridden and increased the frequency of the negative thoughts. I took those for less than a week and dropped them. However, I spiraled into a cycle of fear due to the thoughts and "urges" associated with them. At the time it was that I was going to hurt my family members. I was afraid of when they came home and I had to spend time with them.

Fast forward 4 months to now and for the most part I am doing better with the anxiety/stress and with some of the Harm OCD thoughts. I spend as much time as possible with my family and no longer avoid them, but still have challenges with thoughts/urges/doubt. The OCD seems to have changed and appears to focus on "new" ways of causing harm or provided scary unwanted urges. Gone are the stabbing family with knives or running over random people thoughts/fears, to now just a fear or feeling that I could strike / hit someone with a fist or tea mug (weird I know). The worst is with my spouse (whom I love deeply) who when I am sitting or laying next to I almost get this sensation that I can reach out and "pop" her with my fist - very distressing and feels so real.

My question is, for anyone that has experienced or conquered harm OCD, how do you / did you deal with the uncomfortable feelings and urges / thoughts when around loved ones?
For me I try to accept it's ocd but sometimes it's hard sitting with the feelings and thoughts, yet I don't want to run away and avoid them, but I also don't like them lingering for so long.

Sorry for the long post. Any comments are welcomed.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hi and welcome to NMP

I have had some harm OCD issues in the past but it wasn't my major form of OCD which was Magical Thinking OCD, touches & checking rituals, some symetrical thinking, etc.

For me it was more about strangers but I did have one or two about family.

There are several things that I learnt about tackling OCD:

1. If you have an underlying anxiety disorder such such as GAD, it can either fuel your OCD or prevent you from tackling it. So, I made some improvements to my OCD but hit the wall and I only got past this by ignoring my OCD plans and working on my GAD which allowed my OCD to decrease on its own. Then I starting comiong back to the OCD and made more progress against the hardest forms that I just couldn't tackle before.

2. Its all about emotional reactions. If you respond with emotion, the subconscious makes the connection and it starts to associate the neurons between thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, etc and it keeps reinforcing it all. I learnt Mindfulness and tried to get it more & more into my daily life. This helped me more than CBT ever could. It taught me to think in a different more non judgemental way so that as the thoughts came, I tackled them in this way and over time they became less frequent and less intense. I still get them, and studies have shown everyone gets intrusive thoughts or varying degrees so its not about getting rid of them but tuning them out like the non anxious people who don't even realise they get them. I have them now and tend to smile or laugh or just let them pass through in seconds without thinking about them. I have smiled or laughed instinctively because they are ludicrous.

3. OCD is a big trust issue, we seem not to trust ourselves. Cognitively, we do as we rationalise these intrusive thoughts but at a subconscious level, we don't. Building on these core skills can really help in anxiety disorders e.g. confidence, self worth, self esteem, etc as well as learning to trust yourself at a deeper level.

So, my advice would be to learn Mindfulness because you can practice this without anyone knowing when you are around them. Over time, you will see things improve not only in them being less frequent and intense but in how you handle them and no longer let them get in your way.

I know exactly where you are coming from with it, I've never been in trouble or violent and it made we wonder if I was changing into that but I knew I really wasn't. I think confusion & frustration just makes the rumination impact on us more.

[Jayamashey]

Thanks Terry. When you say mindfulness do you mean mindful meditation?

[MyNameIsTerry]

Yes, thats it. Its a larger concept than meditation which is only one of the ways you apply it but meditation is perhaps easier to learn initially in a guided form.