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Notes: Last active 2 years, 4 months ago
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Topic Title: Should I get help?
7 posts
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butterfly1 said 4 years, 6 months ago:
Hi, I am new to this forum and I wondered if anyone could give me advice.
For the last 3 or 4 years I have suffered from night time anxiety from unwanted, repetitive thoughts. They vary in severity and in nature, often I worry about my past actions or disturbing thoughts that I worry I enjoy, or about checking things. If it is bad I often resort to waking someone else out to get it off my chest, which is both upsetting for them and for me as I realise it is very selfish when I am doing it.
I am pretty certain my symptoms match up with ocd but I am not sure about the next step. My family have advised me not to seek treatment, especially as I have fazes where I can control it for a few weeks at a time. I am not so sure though because it got a lot worse when I had a serious set of exams and I think that it will continue to be a problem when I have real life stressful situations as I get older. It is a vicious cycle where lack of sleep and stress makes it even harder to stay calm. On the other hand perhaps the fact I can attempt to control it may mean it isn’t really ocd. I hoped that by talking here someone who feels similarly may be able to give me so
me advice.
enya2019 said 4 years, 6 months ago:
Hello, you wanting help is never selfish at all, especially when you are struggling with something like OCD, you need to remember that you are the one experiencing your own mental health and you should be able to decide how you want to help yourself, therapy would be really good for you so don’t let anyone else decide for you, they don’t maybe know how much you can struggle with this, I always think about things I’ve done in the past and experiencing a lot of guilt so I know how tiring and sad it is, i think you should tell a doctor and maybe see if they can get some counselling for you because it would be very good for you to tell someone professional so they could get you the help you needed, I personally am not diagnosed either, but I’m certain I’ve had OCD since I was a young girl, and I can have months without it being bad and it can come back so quick for me and that’s called a relapse, ocd can come and go just because it isn’t all the time doesn’t mean it couldn’t be that, having therapy for it would make you feel less stressed and hopefully help your mental health become a lot better and at least more manageable, remember you aren’t alone, you can always come on here and talk about what you’re struggling with because we’re all here for each other, I wish you so much luck
butterfly1 said 4 years, 6 months ago:
Thank you so much for the kind reply, it really helps to know there are other people like me that I can talk to.
I don’t think my parents think counselling works at all and they will 100% not allow me to take any medication.
butterfly1 said 4 years, 6 months ago:
I am definitely considering giving counselling a go though, I learnt about different mental health treatments in school and honestly it sounds like it could be so good for me if the gp or counsellor could support me.
When you have stressful thoughts what do you tend to do about it? A family member told me they suffer from ocd too and he says just to read a book etc. but that rarely works for me.
butterfly1 said 4 years, 6 months ago:
I know ocd is different for everyone and I don’t think we are very similar at all in our symptoms because I have never seen them really upset about it so they seem to have it under control. I usually talk it out but I know I am exhausting my family, just offloading it is not a long term solution.
Thank you so much for the luck and feel free to talk to me if you ever have a bad point because I 100% understand
enya2019 said 4 years, 6 months ago:
Cognitive behavioural therapy would be brilliant for what you're experiencing right now, and exposure therapy, if you go to a gp and talk about your symptoms you could get a referral to a counsellor about it and it would be really good for you, I have intrusive thoughts everyday all day, but what I do is try not ask for reassurance because that just makes ocd harder to handle as it is only temporary relief, and I don't interact with the thought I try not to give them purpose because I know that thoughts are indeed just thoughts and not facts, I try my best to distract myself and do something I enjoy, even if it's watching a YouTube video, I let the thoughts be there, I know I can't stop them and that if I keep trying to make them go away it will only get worse, so letting your thoughts be there and just label them as thoughts might help you, also a lot of people have learned to manage their ocd through just having therapy and no medication, but let me know how things are going and if you decide to go to counselling, and I'm here to talk to aswell, I love helping people on here even though I struggle myself, it's always good to know you could help someone feel a bit less stressed by knowing they aren't alone, good luck
am12345 said 4 years, 6 months ago:
I think I have always had a mild case of ocd when younger but had gradually increased as I’ve gotten older I’m the last year or two. I used to sleep holding my hair in case it would fall out , I had to sit up a certain amount of times in bed to stop something bad happening to my family. Now I’m pretty sure I have contamination ocd . I wash my hands many times and after I’ve washed them I go to leave the bathroom but then think I’ve touched something contaminated or dirty and then wash my hands and keep repeating this until I do it right. Last year I also had other intrusive thoughts and compulsions which now luckily I rarely have. However I still want to get diagnosed but I don’t want to ask my mum to or anyone.