Last night, I posted a link in the Psychedelics forum, specifically under the Magic Mushrooms forum, about a research being done on the effects of psilocybin used to treat OCD. Check it out, it's pretty interesting.
mushrooms do take away my ocd completely....although same with when i get really drunk.... mary jane makes it worse for me..i miss smoking pot ....i haven't actually been classified with it....but i read this story about a girl with ocd and i related a lot to it....i was that sidewalk thing...though not all the time but when i'm aware of my steps i dont like to step on the lines so its hard because you gotta stop short to get over the next line...1..2...3 then 1.2..3... uhmm...its really affecting my life though...not the walking thing it can kinda be fun sometimes haha...but i just have huge social anxiety and compulsions dont work..still have to do em.... to be honest im pretty ashamed to even admit mine...i'll tell ya about the sidewalk thing....but mine is more of a mental thing
i was fairly convinced i had OCD before reading this but now i am completely convinced that i have OCD. i count everything. the tiles on the floor, the number of posts on a fence, the number of lines on a desk, or a table or something. my worst though is counting the number of lines on the highway in the car. i'll sit there and count them in threes (sometimes fours) and cant concentrate on anything else (thank god i dont have a licence huh?). i get really annoyed if i lose count or whatever. everything has to be super tidy. i have my cds in a certain place and if they get moved or placed in the wrong space, i get really irritated. i check things constantly to double check that they're done. when i was younger i used to tap my fingers on things and i would tap each finger the same amount of times but it would always feel like one had been tapped less or more than the others and i would spend hours trying to right this feeling. thankful this has worn off, but i still count and tap my fingers a lot.
There is a good book entitles "The Boy Who Couldn''t Stop Washing" By a Doctor Rappaport. It is one of the best books on OCD for lay people. By and large most people with OCD do better using therapy AND medications. OCD is a problem with neurotransmitters, and behavioral or cognative therapy alone just can't change your neurotransmitters. In fact, "cognative therapy" is probably the worst for OCD sufferers, because they already KNOW their obsessions and compulsions don't make sense. Even in behavioral therapy, usually when one "ritual" is extinguished, an other takes it's place. Therapy to help you deal with the world AS an OCD sufferer is best, along with meds, to FIX the broken neurotransmitters, is best. You can't stop OCD by talking, it's been proven so many times. DEALING with life can be the best therapy can do for you, the meds can at least HELP your transmitters to fire and uptake properly, not completely, but at least enough so you can function. A lot of people with OCD have had it since childhood and don't even REALIZE they are socially impaired or that they are limiting their actions. What happens is, they just assume that the limitations they place on themselves are normal, (as most likely at least one of their parents had it as well) and they don't SEE themselves as impaired. Therapy and meds can help you function more normally, and happily. No, they are NOT "happy pills" you can be on antidepressants and still be miserable, but in many cases antidepressants can help you a lot. Many children have "Magical Thinking" which is similar, but not identical to OCD. In young children, this is NOT the result of a neurotransmitter condition, but just part of normal functioning. Children outgrow "Magical Thinking" if they do not have OCD. No one "out grows" real OCD, it is a lifelong illness.
i count things, repeat things in my head, i could rearrange a cabniet or table 50 times until it's perfect, i can't leave things a mess or not in their place, things have to be done in particular order to my liking, i make lists, i obsess over way too much
i count thing, mainlt letters and stairs, then i count again including the punctuation. and then i end up recounting till i go do something else. it used to be alot worse than it is now tho, aaaand it doesnt really bother me
i repeat peoples names over and over in my head, and if i see images from past or negative i have to think of something sucessfull. lol
Hi guys, sorry to revive an old thread, I just found it tonight and read it through from the beginning. I was diagnosed with OCD a few days ago. I've been treated for depression on-and-off for ten years. Looking back I've always done obsessive stuff, but more recently it's started becoming more of a problem (ie: getting in the way at work, because I get halfway through doing something, and have to go back to the start and check it's all done properly!) I do a variation on the xoox thing - I tap out the patterns with my fingers. Like, first 'round' will be little finger, ring finger, middle finger, index finger. Second round is ring, middle, index, thumb. Then middle, index, thumb, little.... and on it goes! And I pace, a hell of a lot, and count. And I've always been big on 'balance' - like the having to step on a crack with both feet thing. Or, if one hand's been in hot water coz I'm washing up, and gone all wrinkly, I'll feel all out of whack and uneasy unless the other hand gets a soaking, too.
My mom unfortunately has Dr. Phil-level OCD. Seriously. She probably washes her hands 100 times in a day, and she will do it without even thinking why. Like sometimes I'll just ask her to hand me a bag of chips and she'll start washing her hands, and I'm like why are you doing that, you won't be touching the food, and shes like "Ah... I guess you're right... I just kind of do it out of habit now." Hah. IT gets way worse than that though... she is a hoarder to the EXTREME. She cannot throw a single thing away. Newspapers, anything that has to do with me... not a day goes by where she doesn't tape at least 2-3 things on TV, like supposedly interesting segments on the news or Oprah or something, and I'm serious, NOT A SINGLE TAPE IS WATCHED. EVER. NOTHING IS EVER REVIEWED... it is just obsessively put in its neat little place, never to be seen again. It's really frustrating and its caused some SERIOUS turmoil in my family that has yet to end and might never end. My parents decided to build a house, as they had been planning to do for a long time, saving money and designing it and everything... but by the time they built it, her OCD had gotten so bad that pretty much all of the people involved in the house ended up refusing to work with her, because she couldn't make a decision about anything and always had a complaint about some imperfection. She just didn't understand that a house is never perfect... so, she basically said "I quit" on the house, and my dad had no choice but to finish it without her, and so now of course my dad ruined their dream home and that kind of thing. Not that anyone wanted to hear that shit, and obviously this is an extreme case, but I just thought I would point out how devastating it really can be. Actually, I think that it runs even deeper than OCD with my mom. I never realized it until about a year ago, but now I am absolutely certain that she has some form of autism. She rocks constantly, she has no concept of the volume of her voice once she gets deep in convo (I have a problem with this as well), she holds her hands funny and many other things. She didn't talk 'til she was 4 or 5, too. It was pretty freaky when I realized it, and I don't think she has a clue... But yeah autism/asperger's and OCD go hand in hand because autistics are also really into completion and counting and that kind of thing. Good luck to anyone with these kinds of issues. I think for some it is a part of the personality that is almost impossible to totally shut out, but just don't let it get out of control like my mother has
my dad has it. And I think I might. Like if my boyfriend offends me (usually totally not on purpose) I go over what happened, why it happened, what we were thinking when it happened, our FEELINGS, over and over until I get clarity, which rarely happens, and it drives him CRAZY!!!! Or is that normal? I feel like I can't help it. I analyze things from as many perspectives as I can. It's why I'm an honor student and philosopher. It does have it's positive as well as negative. But I don't do anything I've ever heard of OCD'ers doing
Jesus lord, theres an OCD trend Anywho...Most things I do are ruled by that fear of me "becoming" the person im thinking of while im carrying out some action. Like, if I walk through a doorway while thinking about Charles Manson, I think that i'll start to espouse all his ideals and what. If I dont walk through the doorway again while thinking of a positive person, then I actually do seem to think like Charles Manson would. Thats bad, isnt it >.> Lol. Its the same if I think of a negative, hateful idea while doing something. If I dont "correct" myself, then i'll start to "believe" in that idea, as wrong and immorale as it may be. I cant control what I think sometimes, either. This ties in with the stuff I explained above...I'll start thinking of someone I really dont find to be that great of a person, and its quite hard to stop. It frightens me because of the first thing I talked about...The idea of me thinking like the person and...crap o.o Nevermind xD
I have OCD. I suspect I had it mildly all throughout my childhood, though I wasn't diagnosed until I was 14. When I became anorexic it escalated like crazy, which is quite common. Then of course when I was recovering I felt like I was losing control even more, so it got even worse. I lost almost all of my friends during that time period, and I also had to drop out of conventional school because it was interfering with my life way too much to even continue having a social or normal academic life. From age 14-18 my OCD was pretty insane, and it drove everyone around me crazy, those that it hadn't driven away anyways. It was so frustrating. I would cry and despair, but I just couldn't stop. It was horrible when I was dead tired and all I wanted to do was get into bed, but atleast 2 hours of OCD rituals would have to be completed first, every single night. At age 17 I went off my OCD meds and at age 18 started smoking a lot more pot. It helped for a while. About a year ago I went on meds again because it became unbearable, but I've been off them since February of this year. I've got pretty good control over the disorder now. I do a lot of self Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and continue to smoke pot. They help. And my most pressing compulsive obsession for the past few months has been pushups and squat-lunges. Sometimes at work I'll have to go into the cooler or the office and do them or else I won't be able to concentrate on anything and become extremely agitated until I get it out of my system. I must say, my arms and legs are looking quite nice though. lol
Your pattern...the x's and o's...did you know that's Hindu chant stuff? Watch this... The Hare Krishna mantra reads as follows... Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. reduced to letters, this can be the following... xoxoooxx xexeeexx Okay, so not exactly the same. BUT...in the advanced mantra, they follow this repetition. Hare Krishna Krishna Hare Krishna Hare Hare Krishna Hare Rama Rama Hare Rama Hare Hare Rama reduced to letters, this reads, xooxoxxo xeexexxe In the expanded advanced mantra, the full emergence of the pattern is revealed as xooxoxxo oxxoxoox oxxoxoox xooxoxxo xeexexxe exxexeex exxexeex xeexexxe This is a 10,000 year old tradition which began a religion...the pattern means something. Don't push it aside as a malfunction of the brain.
