OCD therapy did not work for me

But it might work for you hopefully!

I didn’t give it long enough.  I didn’t attend enough sessions.  I didn’t enjoy the hour long therapy sessions.  I didn’t dedicate enough faith in the homework set.  I didn’t apply mindfulness or meditation successfully.  I failed at making private therapy work for me, after half my life has been detrimentally impacted by it.

I doubt I will ever be free of OCD.

I am very interested, and therefore aware, of body language and the interactions I have with people.  Therefore I found myself distracted whilst in therapy about how the therapist was responding to what I was confessing – it was obviously uncomfortable for me to pour my inner thoughts out.  I felt mentally exposed and embarrassed to be truthful.  What I also felt uncomfortable about was seeing yawns being suffocated, and being distracted by a strange tapping on the notebook by the very experienced therapist and expert sitting opposite me.  I’m sure the therapist I visited had heard it all before, but it was not encouraging enough for me to continue spending money and feeling absolutely no improvements at all.

One piece of advice that I will always remember being given from the therapy experience in 2018 is …

OCD is a full time job.  How right that is.  I suppose it depends on the severity of the condition, but I can relate to this statement and consider it worthy of consideration when I’m not coping too well.

I consider my mind to be like a washing machine, swirling around continuously, and not just for the usual hour or two of a washing machine cycle.  My thoughts are hard to ignore but add in a worry and it’s as if you’ve added a red sock into a white wash – all thoughts are tainted.

Swirling tainted thoughts
OCD thoughts are like a washing machine                with a red sock in a white wash

The obsessive element of this condition is probably more troublesome than the compulsions because whilst you can try numerous tactics not to carry out a compulsion (like checking, double checking, or washing your hands) you can’t stop intrusive and disruptive thoughts attacking your necessary everyday thinking to be able to function as a human.

OCD is generally categorised as thinking continually about germs, contamination, harm etc which IT IS, however additionally (with my condition anyway) I can have something bothering me that I just can’t stop thinking about, not just for an hour, two hours, four hours, it lasts for at least the rest of that day or more. Swirling and tainting every thought.

Here is an example:  Today I discovered that a shop-lifter had stolen a £30 item from the little independent village shop I own and run.  How could anyone be so brazen?  I would have been sitting eight feet from the large item that was stolen – why target my shop?  Did they have a bag to put the ornament in?  Did they have a big coat to hide it in?  I always try to be engaging when customers enter the shop so did they respond in a friendly way and then as soon as my eyes were distracted they took the opportunity?  Did they dislike me?  Will they come back and do it again because it was easy?  What other small things have gone missing that I’ve not noticed yet?

I try talking it through with family, I try to put context to it “it’s only £30” but whilst other people are able to ‘put the thought to bed’ I just cannot.  This tainted thought then grows arms and legs to anything else I need to deal with that day until I get overwhelmed with negativity.  I like to think I try to be positive and optimistic whenever possible, but this powerful tainted thought overtakes – today it is about a shop-lifted ornament, tomorrow it will be another worry plus the shop-lifted ornament.

Above I mentioned a red sock in a white wash, but that would make the clothes pink which is a cheerful colour.  I should have said a black sock in a white wash because then the end result is grey – that is what OCD does – it makes your day grey (I’m a poet and I didn’t know it) smiley face emoticon.

Worry makes the day tainted
Stop having a grey day with an              Obsessive Mind Overload