Dealing with weird feelings in body due to refusing OCD.

Right so new here so bare with me please as I may not know the ins and out of this forum.


I have been shown to have OCD since I was very young 7 ish and I am currently taking 200mg of sertraline a day to deal with it, which has greatly improved my dealing with and ignoring of my rituals on the most part.

However, there is this newish ritual, (started around 4 years ago) that I just find impossible to deal with and could really use some help, also bare with me once more as I find it difficult to explain and talk about this due to the nature of it.

When ever I perform certain actions, (mind that this could be virtually any action though usually triggered by actions that require slightly more thought such as changing the tv channel, loading a pc game, buying something from a shop etc)
I frequently get weird feeling in random parts of my body as well as an image of a random person that I know, honestly can range from any person I have ever met for any period of time, though will dissipate if I repeat the action as long as a persons image does not again appear in my mind when completing the action. As you can probably understand trying not to think about something only makes that thought more prominent and intrusive as such I find myself repeating actions again and again making me more and more stressed as well as wasting my time.
Now if I refuse to repeat the action the feeling in my body persists and is not only very distracting as well as uncomfortable but also makes moving on from the ritual all the more harder if not impossible to me. The feeling can be described as a sort of numbness and prominence of the body part (by prominence I mean as if I am focusing all my effort on it) which makes it harder to pay attention and also gives a feeling of me being slower, perhaps because I am more focused on my actions.

Most of my rituals in the passed I have conquered but this one is proving highly stressful due to it actually physically affecting me (even though I know it is purely psychosomatic). I have had counseling in the passed which solved absolutely nothing except giving me a more prominent interest in human biology.

Really any help will be appreciated, and although I would normally fight against the urge to repeat the action this feeling is so intense it makes it hard to sleep or stay focused.

Many thanks.

One of the hardships of OCD is thinking obsessively about what we are thinking and coming up with "structure" as a means of explaining it.

In your case, it is the issue with your newish ritual. Once it happens once or twice you set upon a way of explaining what is happening and that gives birth to its existence and makes it more difficult to get rid of.

As I mentioned in another thread medication and a refusal to "play along" with my thoughts/rituals are the best ways to handle my OCD. I know there are ramifications for refusing but it is important to break the structure of the thought/compulsion.