Hyperawareness OCD of all body movements

[stonewash]

Hello everyone,

I've been diagnosed with hyperawareness OCD for a few years now, and wanted to ask others if they've had a similar thing, and any coping strategies they've used.

First, a bit of background; since April, I've been going through a big medication change; I went back to therapy as my OCD was still having a big effect on my life and one of the things we decided to try was a different SSRI. I had been on Sertraline 200mg but came off it as I felt that although it helped with the secondary depression/anxiety, it didn't help that much with the actual OCD thoughts and hyperawareness. I tried fluoxetine but my psychiatrist increased it too fast and I had really bad side effects, so I came off it. I am now trying fluvoxamine (currently 2 weeks in and on 100mg; the therapeutic dose is 300mg so I've got a while to go especially as I'm increasing this one slower).

Basically, things have just been getting worse since April; the hyperawareness I've had for the last 4/5 years has been of my own mind, and the fact that I am thinking, and the focus on that has been getting more and more intrusive. It's been gradually shutting down my life, making it harder and harder to get to work, concentrate on anything, see my friends etc, and has eventually made me suicidal (about a month ago I had to go to the crisis team at my local hospital, who were pretty useless, they just sent me on my way with some diazepam). My therapist suggested a 6 week break from therapy as I haven't really been able to engage with it and so I'm currently just living at my parents house fighting to get through each day.

About 4 days ago, after reading a few articles, the focus of my hyperawareness suddenly shifted to an awareness of my own body, and of basically every single movement I am making. I am finding this terrifying, as it's making me feel totally trapped in my own body and I feel so panicky as it's so so burdensome, imagine how many movements you make in a day and having to be aware of all of them. I am trying to adopt a "so what" attitude to it, as I think this is something my therapist would tell me to do, but it just feels too hard as the awareness feels so all encompassing and like there's no way out of it. I've read some other threads on this about how it fades in and out for people but it's really not doing this for me, it's with me from the minute I wake up to the second I go to bed.

If anyone else has gone through something similar and has any experiences or advice they would like to share about how they coped or got through it, I would be so so grateful, as I feel so lost.

Thanks so much everyone.

-stonewash

[OCDme]

I think that if you use a logical equating process, you can realize the irrationality behind that a little more clearly. For example, when you're hyperaware of your automatic body movements, think of how automatic your immune system is. You have no idea how all those chemical reactions and atomic movements of your immune system happen but you don't worry about it. So whenever you're hit by the intrusive thoughts about your body movements, think of why it's like the same as freaking out about how complicated your immune system is.