how to stop the ocd anxiety escalating like crazy?

[emma_lou]

I have horrific intrusive thoughts, mostly my thoughts tell me to 0473 and i see images of me harming
my beloved children

Was doing really well on my meds up until my period came to visit yesterday.  BAM, the thoughts were back,  and im sorry but i find it hard not to be frightened when they come back, they do scare me, i hate seeing the images

I ran to the mental health team who told me to basically go away, no appointments.  I then ran to the GPs convinced i was a terrible person

I KNOW whats wrong with me, so WHY OH WHY, do i let the anxiety escalate??? its uncontrollable it feels at the time.  Did my period cause me to go downhill?

This OCD/PND/GAD has been since my son was born 14 weeks ago.  As I said, after being a complete wreck the meds worked, then BAM i went crash

Just needed a rant, I just dont know how to stop myself getting so upset about the images and the obsessive thoughts of 0669.  It feels like a voice is telling me to do it, but its my voice and I hate it so much

[eduk8or]

Emma lou,

I have had this too, so you are not alone.  My harming thoughts can come and go like you mentioned.  Sometimes I don't get any thoughts for days and am doing really well and other times they come flooding in.  One thing that really helped me is to work on not letting these thoughts bother me.  Everyone has thoughts like this once in a while, but the OCD makes you focus on them because you feel they are so horrific.  Your brain has thousands of thoughts each day and most of them you can dismiss without another thought, but when these harming thoughts appear, you have marked them as "dangerous", so your mind focuses on them.  It's like someone telling you there is a pink elephant in the room, but you are not to think about the pink elephant.  The more you try to make yourself not think about the pink elephant, the more it pops in to your head.  The idea then is to let these thoughts float in and out of your brain like any other thought.  How do you do that?  One technique I learned from a book is to pretend you are sitting by a stream.  Visualize yourself sitting there with the water.  There are leaves floating down the stream.  The current is slowly taking them away, down the stream.  When you have a harming thought, visualize yourself putting the thought on one of these leaves.  Watch it slowly move away from you, down the stream with the current.  Don't react to the thought, just watch it drift away.  There are lots of good books out there with many techniques in them.  I know you have little kids, so it might be hard to get reading time, but your local library probably has many.

[emma_lou]

thank you so much for your response, it is much appreciated xxx

[lilyrose1]

I never understood why this happened before, but now I know it's related to OCD.
Sometimes when I am driving or basically in any random situation, I get these thoughts, what if I lose control of the car etc. or if I am in an elevated place, I fear that I would just jump over the edge etc. Even though I know I would never do anything like that. I don't know where these thoughts come from.
Or sometimes disasterous images pop up in my mind... accident scenes, blood etc. I don't like it AT ALL.

[ocdengineer]

I deal with Pure O as well.  It is a difficult anxiety disorder to deal with in particular because it is all in your head.  No physical manifestations other than extreme anxiety and fear and this goes misdiagnosed very often.  Emma_Lou, it is very common for women to have intense fears and anxiety after the birth of a child.  This is normal from a purely physical sense as well as an emotional one.  On the physical side, you have just taken on a very difficult challenge in motherhood and it is probably overwhelming even if it is a second or third child.  There is a certain amount of sleep deprivation that accompanies any newborn and your hormones are not even close to stable.  I really didn't have my real wife back for nearly a year.  LOL.  It does get better though, so keep your head up and understand that you are not your thoughts.  Edukor is absolutely correct in that thoughts are merely noise in your head.  Everyone has noise, however, once you attach yourself to a certain though that causes fear it is very hard to let it go.  From the purely emotional side, you are probably stressed out to the max.  Stress causes anxiety which is another word for fear.  I have found that for me it is best to face your fears directly rather than avoid them, so next time you have a horrible thought about your child.  Give he/she a hug and keep doing that no matter how scared you are.  Same with anyone else.  Any fear can be faced this way.  For instance, I am horrified to go on this month long trip across the country because it is out of my comfort zone completely.  I have to go now, if for nothing else, to prove to myself that I will be OK.  It doesn't make it any less horrifying though.  I can tell you this, the more you face your fears, the less fears you'll have.

Check out my blog in the Member Blog section.  I have a bunch of tips and tricks there, some good links, and my story.  If you are like me, you'll find it comforting to know you are not alone.

Take care,
OE 

[emma_lou]

thank you so much.......

i dont know what to say except for thank you, i have zero help from my mental health worker, who actually ridiculed my ocd thoughts 

Bit teary this morn..... ocd is a bitch, but its one i will beat, i am more in control nowadays thankfully

Shall certainly read your blog ocde, in fact i have read snippets of it before and thought how eloquently you write

thanks all :)

[recoverer]

I may be able to help a bit
I had similar thoughts, seen a knife one day and had an image of sticking my duaghter
it lead to a panic attack and months of why o why
i did get better assistance from the doctor though

here's the deal
meds won't cure. They help releive some symptoms and give you time to figure it out
the intrusive thoughts are a symptom of anxiety - designed to scare the ehck out of you
you may have been exhausted, so you need to take care of yourself

i can send you in the right direction if you email me at freeme@freeintrusivethoughtsocd.com

i assure you you will recover, this is a normal symptom thousands of us have, you wont do anything crazy - in fact the whole idea scares the heck out of you