I have OCD

[lepidoptera]

I saw on the aviator about that guy, Howard Hughes, who has that disease. I can relate to it. I have actually been diagnosed with OCD. I am scared. The OCD started when I was seven and got progressively worse. I am scared that I will turn out like Howard Hughes. I am so scared. I don't want it to happen. Not to me. I can't handle the idea. I have the common symtoms, with the exception of the germaphobia. I don't know how to cope. Any suggestions??? Plz?

[atinymonkey]

David Beckham has OCD, along with 1 in 6 of the population. A mild for of OCD is a necessary requirement for some jobs, such as research or analysis. Your psychologist is the best person to help you, not the faceless internet. Nobody here knows enough about you to offer meaningful advice.

 

Have a look for support groups here: -

http://www.ocfoundation.org/

[iglak]

it's a possibility that your unconscious reaction to fear is to generate OCD symptoms, and your fear of developing major OCD symptoms is actually starting to cause them to exist.

 

Howard Hughes has a major form of the disorder, which is somewhat rare to find. you shouldn't be afraid of becoming completely socially inept from your own OCD. even if it gets to that point, there are things you can do to make socializing easier, without requiring Howard Hughes' money.

[lepidoptera]

it's a possibility that your unconscious reaction to fear is to generate OCD symptoms' date=' and your fear of developing major OCD symptoms is actually starting to cause them to exist.

 

Howard Hughes has a major form of the disorder, which is somewhat rare to find. you shouldn't be afraid of becoming completely socially inept from your own OCD. even if it gets to that point, there are things you can do to make socializing easier, without requiring Howard Hughes' money.[/quote']

 

My form is actually quite severe. I have many many symtoms, and some of them occur very often.

[atinymonkey]

it's a possibility that your unconscious reaction to fear is to generate OCD symptoms' date=' and your fear of developing major OCD symptoms is actually starting to cause them to exist.

[/quote']

 

What lepidoptera said was that she has been diagnosed with OCD when she was 7. The OCD is not a psychosomatic symptom of acute hypochondria.

 

The reason I mention it is because you have to understand the background before you offer a diagnosis. Nobody but lepidoptera knows the details of her condition. Lepidoptera would not benefit for either false hope or incorrect diagnosis.

[YT2095]

my suggestion is that if the one that diagnosed you as having OCD in the 1`st place is worth his salt, he`ll also have reccomended a course of action in the same breath (so to speak).

 

Being "Scared" of it isn`t particularly usefull to you when you consider that it`s hardly fatal and many MANY people get along with it and learn coping mechanisms very succesfully

 

take it step at a time and don`t DOOM yourself before you get all the data, honestly, I can appreciate your concern, but leave it at concern only

[lepidoptera]

my suggestion is that if the one that diagnosed you as having OCD in the 1`st place is worth his salt' date=' he`ll also have reccomended a course of action in the same breath (so to speak).

 

Being "Scared" of it isn`t particularly usefull to you when you consider that it`s hardly fatal and many MANY people get along with it and learn coping mechanisms very succesfully

 

take it step at a time and don`t DOOM yourself before you get all the data, honestly, I can appreciate your concern, but leave it at concern only [/quote']

 

I have other things besides OCD. I have episodes, where I literally go crazy. I feel like I have a nervous breakdown. I scream for hours, lying on my floor. I run away, I can't control it. I am scared of all of this as a whole.

[Phi for All]

I have episodes, where I literally go crazy. I feel like I have a nervous breakdown. I scream for hours, lying on my floor. I run away, I can't control it. I am scared of all of this as a whole.

Fear of lost control is very common. Please see a professional. Did you or your parents choose not to pursue a corrective course when you were diagnosed with OCD?

 

My daughter had control issues when she was 3 years old. It was leading towards OCD-like behavior and ADD symptoms as well. We did some unconventional sensory integration work with a unique clinic in Boulder, CO. Her behavior has improved dramatically.

 

atm is right, though. Without knowing you, all the advice in the world is meaningless, except to let you know you are not alone and that others care about you. Please go see a professional. At thirteen years old, you've got a lot going on right now and your fears needs to be addressed.

[Guest loopie]

I've suffered with a loved one with OCD. Consultations, medicines and health therapies will all modify the debilitating effects of this common anxiety disorder. Never be ashamed of it or yourself. You can prevent it from devoring you. If any comfort, I admire your ability and strength for telling us about it, and are taking a pro-active approach to get help. E-mail me if you ever want to rap.

John

[atinymonkey]

Never email strangers on the internet. Not even men who what to 'help' 14 year old girls, like loopie does. Legitimate support groups are listed here http://www.ocfoundation.org/ or for emotional support you can email Jo at http://www.samaritans.org.

[Guest loopie]

Monkey- I take offense at your suggestion that my offer of e-mail assistance was lacking honor and contained ulterior motives.

Great advice to not e-mail strangers. Normally. However, any mental disorder needs all the Help it can get, and it is not "normal".

Perhaps your paranoia is based on real experiences, and I understand that.

Caution is one thing, but putting a ban on communicating is futile, pointless, and unrealistic, especially for "anyone" in need.

I'll offer help to anyone I please.

[Nevermore]

I have a terrible case of OCD too. I find that immersion works for me. I will do whatever it is my ocd prevents, and take whatever measures are nessacery to prevent any Ocd rituals.

Example: Lets say you're a germaphobe. ( I know you're not, but as an example...) Putting your face on a public object and then not washing it would be hard for a while, but then seems easy. Almost like the drive to bathe your face after toutching things is gone. It is sort of like breaking through a wall, into an OCD free zone.

Mind you this only works temporaraly, for me at least.

So, Immerse yourself.

[atinymonkey]

Monkey.........bla bla bla............I please.

Whatever motives you put forward are immaterial. Soliciting the attentions of teenage girls over the internet is in no way acceptable. Nobody can perceive your intentions over the medium you are using, even if they were genuine you are being remarkably stupid to both put yourself in a position where your motives could be viewed as dubious. The internet is not anonymous. Take a reality check, and stow the moral indignation.

 

If you genuinely wish to offer support, do it through regulated channels such as support groups. That way you protect both yourself and the person you are attempting to help, and you both have the support of other people and the advice of professionals to help guide you.

[Lance]

I also have (somewhat) severe OCD, but I find the idea of becoming like Howard Hughes more appealing than scary. Howard Hughes was more than just a basket case, and I consider him to be a great man.

 

What I'm trying to get at here is that most disorders come with more than just negative side affects, and its hard to say but do you think Howard would have accomplished all he did without OCD?

[husmusen]

Whatever motives you put forward are immaterial. Soliciting the attentions of teenage girls over the internet is in no way acceptable. Nobody can perceive your intentions over the medium you are using, even if they were genuine you are being remarkably stupid to both put yourself in a position where your motives could be viewed as dubious. The internet is not anonymous. Take a reality check, and stow the moral indignation.

 

I feel you're wrong in this ATM.

To use the "" around help was bordering on an ad-hom and a bloody nasty one at that. I have seen this perverse morality that says you should avoid helping people in case some individual gets the wrong idea.

It applies all over the place.

Don't help the widow, people will talk.

Don't help or comfort little children, someone might accuse you.

Don't stop if you see a person lying by the side of the road they might be muggers and so on and so forth.

 

As far as I am concerned offering someone a shoulder to cry on, is not against any law except perhaps in Yemen, (tough for them then). As long as that's all he does, I can't see the slightest thing wrong with it.

 

Now if you have evidence of some bad intention lets hear it. If you don't you need to calm down a bit. If you're concerned for leoptidira, PM her rather than insinuating things on the forum. Oh but that could perhaps be taken the wrong way so perhaps you'd better not .

 

P.S. Lepidoptera, I'm NOT advising you to take up loopies offer, not because I suspect him of anything but just because I don't know him/her from a bar of

soap and I (and you) have only two posts to go on. For all I know he could be some eight year old who thinks it's marvelous fun to get email addy's and submit them to spam engines. (Just an example) You might want to try talking to Coral or Dak or some of the others who are more of a known quantity so to

speak (if they don't mind, ask first).

 

Cheers.

[atinymonkey]

I feel you're wrong in this ATM.

I have seen this perverse morality that says you should avoid helping people in case some individual gets the wrong idea.

It applies all over the place.

Yes' date=' it applies all over the place. There are a damn good reasons why it does. You worry that it fosters a society where people are taught to ignore one another and lead an isolated compartmentalised existence, and in a way it does. I agree that it's an increasing aspect of the nanny state that restricts the more humanitarian instincts people in society have.

 

However, that aside, it is not perverse morality. It is drumming into people what is appropriate and what is not. If someone doesn't know when to use the Heimlich maneuver and when a tracheotomy is required, nobody would be comfortable leaving a choking man and a knife in there hands. The same applies with a good natured fool and an emotionally fragile person seeking support. Even if loopie is genuine, the offered help is dangerous to lepidoptera because he has no idea what he is doing.

 

I don't know what training you have as a nurse in regards to patient attachment, but even the act of becoming someones support can damage the person you are trying to help. If a person needs emotional support, they can very easily become dependent on the person giving that support. Once that dependence is in place, it's only a matter of time until they get let down. I can pretty much guarantee* that will set the person back to where they started, or worse.

 

To use the "" around help was bordering on an ad-hom and a bloody nasty one at that.

Yes, it was meant to be blunt. Loopie triggered a number of warning bells, which I'm happy to share with you:-

 

1) loopie has only posed in this thread in this forum. He specifically posted to solicit an email dialog. He has not posed anywhere else since.

 

2) The advice loopie offered was vague and unhelpful. I think if he had detailed involvement in the treatment of ocd he would not had offered such odd advice, it would have been specific. Something that was backed up by the second post referring to ocd as 'not normal'. Half the people in my office have ocd, are fully functioning individuals and earn a great deal of money and respect.

 

3) There are skilled and trained people on email who can offer professional councilling and support. I linked to them in my post, to direct lepidoptera to people who have the tools to help.

 

4) As Phi pointed out, there is no way any internet communication can supplant the professional. All the advice she can get from loopie, or any of us, is meaningless.

 

5) pro-active is not a word or a phrase. You can be reactive, or active. The 'pro' is redundant in proactive, and the majority of people who use it are just regurgitating terminology that they think makes them sound competent. It's management talk, and it irks me. ( yes, I know this one is a personal reason but I'm being honest).

 

6) loopie has no email set up on his profile, and I doubted he would be able to offer the sustained commitment to check and reply to his pm's more than once. I was replying to loopie as a cover to make a point about anyone wanting to set up similar email communications.

 

tbh, I didn't think he would ever return to read the post. The comments were for lepidoptera only. Loopies suggestion was in many was ill advised, and the slight on his 'honor' may help to prevent him actually hurting someone he is trying to help.

 

Which all seems beside the point, as at the end of your diatribe your post statement actually agrees with me. Almost as if you didn't like what I said, but ended up saying the same thing.

 

*i.e. have been trained, shown case studys, read the suicide notes of patients, watched the dependency build up, had to plan withdrawal of care etc etc.

[Dak]

I have other things besides OCD. I have episodes, where I literally go crazy. I feel like I have a nervous breakdown. I scream for hours, lying on my floor. I run away, I can't control it. I am scared of all of this as a whole.

i used to go out with someone who had sever panic attacks (which is what this sounds like), and am still friends with her. she's great, and very happy in life, and arguably one of the most overall mentally balanced people i know. I also know a few other people with mental problems who do fine in life.

 

basically, what im trying to say is that things like this can have a severe impact on ones life, but that doesnt nessesaraly mean that you cant have a very happy and sucsessful life, which are the most inportant things.

 

Id echo phi and atm's advice -- see a psycologist for psycological help, or go to one of the support groups to seek others like you who can help with advice -- but remember that emotional support comes primeraly from friends and family.

 

and remember that coping with ocd is something that you have to do yourself -- others can help, but ultimately its you who will be coping with it.

[husmusen]

It was not a diatribe, it was neither bittter(annoyed certainly), nor excessivly lengthy.

 

I'm glad you explained your reasons as I get more where you were coming from, but I still feel you were out of line making insinuations about loopies motives in the manner you did.

 

I actually agree with many of your reasons for being cautious. That is why I posted my conclusion because I felt it was important that lepi not draw the wrong conclusion that my advocacy of his right to make that offer, without people making rude and un-evidenced insinuations about his "real" motives, did not mean I was advocating the offer itself.

 

If it was the word "Bloody" that made you think my post was harsh, in Australia that's a farily weak word, but I usually avoid using such words on international forums specifically because of their widely varying potency.

 

As for your explantion of "I didn't think he'd come back to read it."

 

Whoops.

 

And yes your right I do worry about that kind of attitude as I fear it

could do an enourmous amount of harm over time to any society that embraces it, a social poison of sorts.

 

Cheers.

[atinymonkey]

It was not a diatribe' date=' it was neither bittter(annoyed certainly), nor excessivly lengthy.

 

I'm glad you explained your reasons as I get more where you were coming from, but I still feel you were out of line making insinuations about loopies motives in the manner you did.[/quote']

Yes, you are probably right. I tend to be overly harsh, and the reply was far to personal. I needed pulling on it, tbh. The reasoning was fine, but my post was needlessly barbed.

 

I think I'll just duck out of the thread, before I make it more of a mess.

[Guest loopie]

My God this forum is odd. Yes, the only posts I made were on this thread because a.) I have a life off the net, b.) I'm new here, and the OCD struck a very personal cord in me, and c.) I offer help wherever I am, even on the faceless web, never expecting some self-righteous keystroker to cut me off with a flaming because I may be the only nice guy IT has ever met, net or otherwise.

Farewell, I need not your condemnation, diatribe, or pitiful sanctimoneous babble.

BTW, my email is xawj2002@yahoo.com for anybody that wants help. Anytime.

[Phi for All]

The loopie doth protest too much, methinks.

[husmusen]

More to the point he just posted his email address on an open website that can be scanned by bots without using a, write-as-I-meant cipher , poor soul.

 

Here comes the spam, like a marching army of soldier ants.

 

(I did this once on my webpage, 1000+ fscking spams a day of which 100

penetrated the best filters. I had to can the box in the end ).

 

One lives and learns

Cheers