OCD: The “Right” feeling.

I think uncertainty  is one of the fundamental qualities of OCD patients.  It is that we must feel certain to feel “right”.  But that “right” feeling is only good for a while and next time the same event occurs, you’re in a loop searching for the “right” feeling again.  This now has become an infinite loop.  For those of you who have OCD know what I mean by the “right” feeling.  It’s the feeling after you’ve performed all and enough rituals that you feel “phew! Everything is good and sound”.   This I think can be applied to many variances of the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Looking for this “right” feeling is what keep OCD sufferers spending hours performing rituals.  To beat OCD, we need to stop searching for this “right” feeling, living without this “right” is not going to cause you or anyone any harm.  One of the best non-medication treatment routes for OCD is CBT(Cognitive Behaviour Therapy), one of the components of CBT is ERP (Exposure Response Prevention) which is the main practical therapy of CBT.  You are expose to your fears or obsessions, then you are refrained from performing rituals which gives you that “right” feeling.  The goal is to achieve habituation which basically means your brain are used to the trigger and is no longer fear of it.  It’s like jumping off a 10 meter high Olympic diving board 10 times.  If there is a way to meter anxiety, the anxiety on the 10th time would be a lot lower than the 1st time.  The more you do this, the more your brain learns that it does not need to fear and when you have no fear, rituals are not required to lower your anxiety.

Now, let me ask you this question.  In the years or even decades of you suffering from this disorder, and countless hours of ritualizing.  Did any of your feared outcomes come true?  I can almost guarantee everyone’s answer would be “NO”.  

Now, let me ask you another question.  Thinking back all these hours you spent ritualizing, do you think any of your feared outcomes would come true if you didn’t ritualize?  I can again guarantee everyone’s answer would be “NO” again.  Then we need to stop finding the “right” feeling.  It’s not right.

Sometimes I still struggle with it because it’s just human nature to wanting to feel safe, but once you keep doing it, it becomes more tolerable.  Life is full of risk, the risk of our obsessions coming true is just as likely as a sane person murdering someone.  They don’t live everyday worrying “oh someday I’m going to hurt somebody, I have to control myself.”, then why should we?

Last night as I was holding my precious daughter, I got into an argument with my wife and I got mad.  Harm OCD kicked in, always during your most vulnerable state, I was having unwanted intrusive thoughts towards my daughter.  I could decide to put her down on her bed(escape) or continue holding her(expose), I decided to continue holding her.  Later when everything was over, my brain had the urge to search for that “right” feeling again.  One of the main rituals I do is replaying memories.  I still have that urge this morning to replay my memories to make sure I didn’t harm my daughter(even though logically I know I didn’t and never will) but I’m not doing the ritual because I know if I do it then next time the same thing happens, I would have to perform the ritual again.  What I’m doing is training my brain telling the brain there is no harm even if I don’t perform the rituals.  Next time you are in a situation where you can either escape or expose, always choose the expose route.  Over time your anxiety will go down and you will feel strong!

Remember that “Right” feeling is the monster of OCD, don’t search for it and live with whatever you’re feeling. 

Thank you!

OCD: Good childhood to miserable teenable years.. Fighting OCD

I had a very happy childhood, a very loving and caring family.  I believe it was around grade 9-10 of high school, an event occurred in my family that changed my life.  An event that I was told about triggered my hand washing, my obsession of contracting diseases, especially HIV.  I’m not going into the details of the event but as an advice for parents, keep issues/problems away from your kids, only tell them what they need to know, especially at an age where their brain is developing and are prone to mental illnesses.

My OCD started and I was out of control, I didn’t even know anything about OCD back then.  All I knew was that I was scared of contracting HIV 24/7.  Whenever I went out, I avoided touching things to the point where I would stare at people’s hands to make sure there were no cuts or anything and squeezed my hands tightly so I didn’t touch them, there was that urge of touching the cut as well.  Another example would be opening a package from the mail, if I saw something red or anything that resembled blood, my brain just locked up in fear and I would spend hours performing ritual.  Rituals could be checking the package over and over again until I was satisfied there was no blood.  I remember I was walking to work in my high school year and as I was walking I saw a syringe(no needle) on the ground, it caused my anxiety to go through the roof.  I went back many times to check to make sure there was no needle even though I never touched it, then I would spend hours performing rituals, replying the memory until I was satisfied that I didn’t touch it.  It was miserable, my brain was over firing, everything seemed like threat that I could lead me contract HIV.

Then two years later, our family opened a restaurant.  As I was cutting something in the kitchen.  BOOM! This thought of me stabbing people with the knife suddenly came into my brain and I was scared to death.  This was the start of my HARM OCD, I clearly remember that day, that place and that thought.  I started to avoid knives, driving and anything that triggered these type thoughts.  I spent hours and hours of performing ritual, mainly to reply my memories to make sure that I didn’t harm anyone.  Just to give you an example, walking alone on the road one day and a lady walked by me, it would triggered UNWANTED thoughts of me harming her and then I would spend hours performing ritual, going back to make sure that she was not lying on the ground or anything, as well as replying memories over and over again until I was satisfied.  Another example would be before I leave for school or work, I would check my bag to make sure I didn’t have any knives in my bag.  Anyways,  I’m not going go into the details of this, you can find many examples of HARM obsessions on the internet.

OCD took my teenage/college life away from me, I had a girlfriend(my wife now) then but I was dealing with OCD every second of those time.  I couldn’t enjoy stuff, I couldn’t do things alone, I always had my girlfriend with me just as an assurance so I didn’t do any harm to anybody.  I was hit with UNWANTED thoughts every second of the day and they caused great anxiety.  At that point I still didn’t know anything about OCD, I thought I was crazy.  I was afraid to even searching up on google, I was afraid that google result would come up and label me as serial killer or something.  I was struggling so badly that it had limited my life so much and I couldn’t take it anymore.

I was literally on the verge of breakdown and I took the plunge and googled “unwanted thoughts of harming others”.  BOOM! Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, I was crying!  There was actually a name for this and I was not crazy!    I started reading about on the internet and honestly, that was the happiest moment of my life.

Then I went out and bought this book and I was shocked!!! It described every thing that I had been struggling from for years.

Overcoming Obsessive Thoughts: How to Gain Control of Your OCD

I started following the self-help CBT therapy and I slowly got my life back.  But just knowing that you’re not crazy and that you won’t act on those unwanted thoughts, my brain finally had some down time that I’m able to achieve calmness at times.  The hand washing and the HIV theme is gone now but I’m still dealing with HARM OCD but It has went from 100% to 30% because of therapy and taking therapy into practice.  I’m able to living a normal life now, I drive and no longer fear of knives.  I can do anything that a normal person can do now!

My experience from all of this since we just had our first beautiful child, is that keep certain things away from your child, keep them focused, happy and health.  If you have something traumatic, DO NOT TELL YOUR KIDS.  I’ve always wondered if my parents didn’t tell me during that traumatic event, my life might have been totally different, maybe I wouldn’t be here writing about OCD and Depersonalization / Derealization.  But I do not blame my parents, even if they didn’t tell my anything, some other things could have triggered my OCD, maybe it was built into my genes already.  But again this is my opinion like always!

IF YOU ARE STRUGGLING RIGHT NOW WITH OCD, PLEASE SEEK HELP, YOU ARE NOT CRAZY, YOU WILL BE FINE.

More OCD posts to come!  I will talk about recovery,  CBT and my treatments with psychologist.