There is hope for OCD, my story

[5inthenest]

I came to this site for support with the anxiety I've been suffering since being in a car accident with my children 10 months ago.  I noticed there was an OCD forum.  About 15 years ago my OCD was out of control.  Now I live pretty much without it.  I only feel it on very rare occasions when I am highly stressed or worried.  Mine was the compulsive handwashing, causing raw bleeding hands, swallowing, counting tiles, ceiling dots, having to flip back each page three or ten times when reading a magazine, and the list went on and on.  My biggest fears were something bad happening to family members or myself getting a disease(even though I already had one).
After struggling with it for years I finally came to realize I couldn't go on like that.  I wasn't living my life, I was miserable.  I finally just told myself enough and I'll take all the bad stuff that happens to me or whoever.  It was so hard at first, for a long time it was hard and scary.  I had five kids an exhausting career and I think I sort of forgot about the OCD.  I'm sure many of you think that's impossible, but I really believe when you are ready you'll just let it go.  Yes I'm no expert and this may sound so ridiculous to many of you, but I'm living proof.
I still get the thoughts every now and then, but I push those thoughts aside or if I catch myself doing one of the rituals, I stop.  It really is possible to just stop and move on.  Nothing bad has happened to me or my children or the world.
So I'm just here to say there is hope and you can live a fairly OCD free life again.
At this point I'm struggling with a small bit of anxiety brought on by chronic pain.  It has also gotten better over the last 10 months.  I get all the nasty stuff like chest pains, tingling in extremeties, numbness, trouble breathing, etc.....I'm dealing with it.  I do notice it's all a little easier if I just say I don't care.  If I say I accept my death if I must die or if I'm having a heart attack that's fine, then I feel better.
I hope this has given at least one person comfort.  I apologize if I made little sense.  It is somewhat hard to type and make sense with the little ones constantly in and out asking me what's taking me so long. 
I hope everyone is having a better day than they had yesterday and don't give up hope or your faith.  Take Care

[coover]

This is good, I'm glad it isn't so severe for you anymore. Great job!
I only have one tiny comment. It sounds like you only suppress your tendencies rather than working through them appropriately. I really am no expert either, but my doctor told me that *recent* research has discovered that neurons in the brain are lost when we go through these bouts of depression/anxiety and other disorders. These neurons can never be recovered, and it makes the condition/disorder worse and harder to beat. She told me it is possible for people to break out of these disorders without being treated with medication, however, if a distressing event occurs later in life for you, it will actually hit harder because you will have lost neurons that would have helped protect you from such a blow, and you will continue to lose more and more neurons, delving deeper into the disorder. Anyway, only a precaution, you may not be in the situation :)

your friend coov

[NightOwl]

The past couple days I have seen signs that I am close to being able to stop being obsessive.  I hope sooooooooooo much it continues.  I have felt horrible at times too, but did notice moments I was able to get a girl off of my mind for a while.  Life would be so great if I could always concentrate on what I am doing only!

A particular guns n' roses song happened to be on when I found out about a couple bad things in my life, so I started thinking I have to turn down the music at the end of it to make it not do something to a family member.  Then sometimes I forget to and nothing bad happens though.  I wish I could stop that, but I TRULY wonder sometimes if it is real that it caused it becuase God didnt want me listening to it.  I hate taking chances!

I have a lot less compulsions I think...  It's more obsessiveness.  But in that case and a couple others, I compulsively do things.

[mprinceton]

Thank you so much for posting that. I too do the tapping, counting, flipped pages, and re-reading sentances to ward off the feelings that my loves ones will be hurt or that something bad will happen. I didn't understand this for the longest time and its so beneficial to hear your story. Lets me know that I'm not lossing my mind. One of my biggest problems on top of the ritualistic behaviors are my obsessive thoughts. I will be for hours completely pre-occupied with a major event in the news replaying it for hours and I just can't let it go. It really kicked up right around 9/11. And basically any news event or traumatic event that I hear about in passing can pre-occupy me for hours on end during hte day. SOmetimes even the entire day. I noticed the drug Fluvoxamine was aweosme at treating these things but its a trade off. I've found that my obsessive OCDish  mind is very good at memorizing things and being right on the ball with answers when it counts especially in my continueing education and job. But the problem is you go and take an SSRI and i'm just zonked and my effectiveness is reduced by 50%. It literally pulls the power out of your brain. I can feel it even today things are moving slowly and I'm near near to who I really can be. So its such a double edged sword and I'm searching for that fine line so I don't have to go on without reaching full potential you know? That right there is the biggest challenge of all these disorders I think.

[ocdengineer]

I can definitely understand your story.  I have OCD as well, but Pure O where my intrusive thoughts are not followed by compulsions.  They are usually so horrible that they caused me great anxiety.  I was able to master the thoughts, but the lingering anxiety still bothers me at times of stress.  I used a combo of medication and meditation to help with my intrusive thoughts and it works very well.  I also was fortunate to have found a great therapist when I was younger and a great psychiatrist now, so I am happy with what has happened.  I also work in a high stress environment where correct answers are always needed as quickly as possible and I think I would not be well suited for the job that I have had I not had the OCD personality traits that I do.  It is funny, but I think the same thing that has gotten me the career I wanted and the life I wanted is also the thing I have to battle with daily to keep the prior.  Kinda ironic, huh?  LOL.  It is good to hear of other OCD survivors.  It is a long hard path, but I agree that the disorder is very manageable.

Take care,
OE