OCD therapy did not work for me

Posted on 23rd January 202023rd January 2020

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

World Mental Health Day

Posted on 10th October 201810th October 2018

Image result for world mental health day

Today, 10th October 2018, is a reminder to the public to be aware, I don’t need to be reminded about mental health however it is useful that it reminded me that I must update this site more frequently.

Those of us that live daily with mental health issues are so busy coping, that this special day for awareness should be an opportunity to pass on a message for help, understanding or even just a little more patience from family and friends around us. In my case, with this OCD Exposed site, I have the opportunity to reach readers across the world.

Therefore …

Since my last post in June, I took a big step forward by reaching out for therapy with a professional, in fact a professor. During the last few months my emotions have been heightened as I delved into:

explaining out loud to a complete stranger, how I do live with OCD – e.g. how many hand washes per day;
what do I do differently with my peculiar behaviours – what is the rationale behind them;
why do I behave differently – what am I hoping to achieve by behaving differently;
what is the benefit to my OCD behaviours – am I happy when I’ve performed them;
how can I slowly, but surely, stop doing my OCD behaviours – baby steps leading to steps;
what do I want to achieve through therapy – picking off the most difficult or annoying behaviours;
how does my OCD impact the people I love – is it self-indulgent to impose my OCD on them;
what would I like my life to be like with the help of therapy – picture life without (some of my) OCD.

As you can imagine, this calls for a great deal of reflection (and imagination too regarding a potential future)!

Therapy has stirred up all my insecurities, and has eroded what little confidence I had a few months ago – it is as if I am exposing the inside of my head to someone who is paid to listen, even though I have chosen that person and have a great deal of respect for their experience and knowledge.

With my sensible hat on, I tell myself that it is probable that ‘things have to get worse, before they can get better’ and ‘no pain, no gain’. The daily grind and effort I put into obsessive compulsive behaviours needs to be transferred as energy I put into making my therapy a success in exposing, and reducing, the anxiety that causes me to behave differently to 97% of the population.

This post is my contribution to World Mental Health Day.

Shopping

Posted on 8th February 20188th February 2018

I know I’m naughty to continually want to shop. I am at my happiest when shopping, even if it’s for mundane groceries – any excuse to get myself off to the shops. I can’t wait for it to be someone’s birthday, anniversary or Christmas so that I can ‘shop ’til I drop’ and burn off calories in the process. On top of that the internet has made it possible for me to shop 24×7, 365 days a year, even from the comfort of my sofa.

I even bought a house so that I could return the largest room back into a shop, so that I can shop for stock! I was in paradise shopping for stock that I hoped customers would want to buy at a marginal profit, to earn a small living. I think the economy improved from 2013 until December 2017 with all the shopping I efficiently performed.

I started to get concerned that my spending on stock was equaling (if not exceeding) my income from sales, and eventually I slowly but surely came to the realization that my ‘little shop’ was costing me money and heartache – the heartache is a whole other story that I’ll write about another time.

So as the holiday period for Christmas 2017 arrived I took the decision to close the shop and not reopen it in January 2018. The fall out from this decision has meant that I’ve desperately needed to go on an economy drive and it was suggested to me that I keep a spreadsheet of ALL my spending, oh boy that was a nasty shock.

Because of my economy-drive and the accountability of even £1 spent, I’ve really appreciated how reckless my spending has been for many many years. The end result is:

My shop is full to over-flowing with stock, that currently has no access to customers purchasing any of it – so bang goes birthday or Christmas present shopping for many years to come, as I’ll have to use up my stock and hope the relatives and friends don’t notice.
There is too much stock in the shop to revert the space back to a living room (as it was when I bought the property) and the rafters would struggle under the weight if it was all put into the attic, plus that space is full to capacity with previous years spending.
My personal cupboards, drawers, wardrobes, ottomans, and shelves are full to breaking point with all my “treasures” and supplies of every conceivable consumable from hand wash to stationery – a woman can’t run out of toiletries and post-it notes or envelopes, but I could supply the whole village in the likelihood of an alien invasion.

Over the last six weeks I’ve come to realize that I do have a shopping problem – to say I love “retail therapy” or that I’m a “shopoholic” is not a funny throw-away comment anymore. It can’t be right that I look forward to running low on butter or toilet rolls so that I can have an excuse to go to the supermarket, but as you no doubt experience yourself, hardly anyone, especially a shopoholic like myself, can walk into a supermarket and not be tempted to buy more than you went for.

I thought I’d read a great deal about OCD, but clearly not because yesterday I was surprised about how big a problem shopping can be for sufferers – the condition is named monomania or Compulsive Buying Disorder.

It must be incredibly painful for people with OCD that absolutely dread having to go shopping, perhaps because too many people are in an aisle and can be off-putting that they’ll brush against them, or the process of even getting to the shops is too traumatic. I read that the packaging being perfect is a worry, that there can be no sign of tampering and that the item being bought needs to “feel right”, both at the shelf and then again at the conveyor belt/till.

http://www.ocdaction.org.uk/forum

On the OCD Action forum (see link above) I read how one lady was checking packets of toilet rolls for split/damaged packaging and was then horrified to see a colleague watching her. She covered her embarrassment by saying she had seen a competition on the wrapping last time she bought the rolls, and was looking for it on the packaging again! Us people with OCD need to be so creative with our excuses to hide our true behaviours, and it is sad in my opinion.

I do suffer with the above problems – always vigilant about the distance kept from strangers (if they touch me accidentally they don’t realise my outer garment will need washing), never touching the shelving or conveyor belts and never touching the handle on the trolley (I use the metal frame). I always take items from the middle to ensure that the least fingers have touched the item and that the potential for it to have been picked up off the floor after dropping off the shelf is minimised.

All of that said though, the pleasure of shopping for me outweighs the OCD inconveniences.

If you would like to read more information about this subject, the link below is very useful.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1805733/