IM GOING INSANE I MEED YOUR HELP

Is anybody out there going threw what I'm going through? I'm 16. I've been struggling with OCD since I was 10-11 yrs. old and didn't know I had it. Long story short, I'm being to turned. It forces and convinces me to do things. For example I could eat a cookie before bed just to have a snack even if I'm full my mind will repeat over and over I should have had that cookie then I'll be sitting there trying to trying to ignore it but it gets stronger and then from being full I get hungry and just crack and have it. i suffered with hand washing door checking floor checking hoarding. I can't take it anymore. This got to the point where I fear now with this anxiety the wanting to do something illegal and immoral is growing and taking over and I'm going to have to do it in order to apease my thoughts. I'm going crazy. I don't feel like myself please please help me.

Dear OCDsufferer1999:

I hope you make an appointment and see a good professional as soon as possible: a psychotherapist or a psychiatrist .. or both, maybe see general practitioner first who will refer you to either one of the above or both.

I have suffered from OCD for fifty years. I made it so far, that is I survived and am not incarcerated... and better than that, my OCD is way better. I have been learning and still learning how to live with fear in a way that it doesn't take over. So there is hope for you too.

Please post again...
atina

I've had harm related OCD for four decades (thoughts of killing, suicide, etc), and I can tell you I've never done anything. At no time, have I lost control of myself, and killed anyone. And I'm not going to, either. I still get the thoughts, but I've learned to not pay attention to them. They mean very little to me, because I've never acted on them. I'll worry about it, when I do it. Until then, I'm not worrying. And I'm not going to do anything. If I can do this, you can, also. It's hard to do at first, but it gets easier.

* Dear snaga2,0:

I was wondering, if you can share (and you may have already in the past): how did you stop paying attention and being alarmed by your thoughts: was it gradual (over the many years) or sudden (as in a revelation or an awakening jolt kind of realization)? Was it intentional, you working on it or did it just happen...?

I stopped most of my compulsions through such a sudden, so it seems, realization at 30. Some kind of courage I mustered to not do what I was compelled to do. The little things I still do, I don't know how to proceed, removing something from the table before eating, for example. It seems harmless and relieves some anxiety, so I don't resist those much. Any thought about this?

atina

Well it's mostly harm OCD I've done this with. If we were together, Atina, as a couple, eventually I will have the intrusive thought to kill you. That's just the way I think. Been having harm (killing) thoughts since I was a child. And I was just.. I would follow some compulsions to make sure I didn't kill a loved one, but the past few years I rather spontaneously began to say ###$ it. ###$ it, I'll worry about when I come to with blood all over the place. Got tired of worrying about it. I've never killed anyone in 40+ years of having these intrusive thoughts, so........ ###$ it.

Began to do that with other things. Not checking plugs and heaters and locks bunches of times. Not walking all the way back to the car to make sure the windows are rolled up and the doors are closed.

The more outrageous stuff (killing my s/o), was relatively easy. Because it's ridiculously crazy. Checking to make sure I didn't commit a hit-and-run a mile back, is much harder to resist (and it's 50/50 whether I go back and check or not). It's more plausible... leaving a heater plugged in, more possible (and has happened) still, and it becomes a matter of how many times I'm willing to allow myself to recheck. But eventually, in all these things, you have to reach a point you say ###$ this $#%^ I don't care what happens. Once I break thru that barrier- it goes away (for the moment)

* Thank you, snaga2.0

What I am getting in your answer is that you got angry, you had enough of that bull... You got mad, angry, frustrated, had enough of that abuse. These OCD thoughts are just that, abusive to the self. Like a bully giving us a hard time again and again... and yet again and much more to come... and no matter what you do, you can't satisfy that bully, so at one point you had enough and you say: "F*** you! Get off my back! If this is so, this is what I am getting from your answer, it makes good sense to me.

Maybe that bully is a certain kind of Toxic Inner Critic just raining on our parade so very often. I like it, I like the anger at it.

Thank again:
atina

Well... it got old.


I view Harm OCD as a demon, or an imp. Something separate from myself. It shares skull space with me, but it isn't me. I happen to believe in demons, so maybe it is. Isn't for me to say, however. It has its uses to think of it as a foreign entity- just as it's sometimes handy to think of light as a wave, and sometimes to think of it as particles.

Started with the harm thoughts as a ten year old, and my parents were breaking up.

Yes, I've had enough of the harm thoughts. Now when I get them, I mostly ignore them. Yes, it nags at me to have them, I think I must be a bad person, otherwise why would I think those thoughts? but still actions speak louder than words. I've not killed anyone YET. I don't expect to, either. Got the thoughts right now, writing about it. Just shrug them off. Thoughts that are not put into deed are thoughts that die unborn. I'll worry about it, when I do it.

Dear snaga2.0:

What a powerful testimony, this last post of yours. It leaves me speechless. The massive suffering I see in it is almost unbearable to read. Harm OCD, a demon sharing your skull, a ten year old child. Forty years, is it, now fifty.

My OCD was mostly fearing my mother will die. Starting at five when she announced histrionically, at night, that she was going to kill herself and left into the night. My many rituals were aimed at preventing her death.

I survived fifty years of being afraid, now fifty five. I am afraid every day still, afraid so often but paying attention and healing, a process I started in 2011.

She threatened to kill herself often, since I was five. Now I am fifty five and she is seventy five.

Thank you so much for sharing. Your writing is strong, and I know it will stay with me for a long time.

atina

A parent threatening to kill themselves is a heavy burden on a five year old. ((hugs))

snaga2.0 wrote:A parent threatening to kill themselves is a heavy burden on a five year old. ((hugs))

Yes, that's bound to traumatize a child. No wonder you started developing rituals. x