Things To Do In Bristol When You're (OCD)ead: OCD

Goodbye Mr Psych

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:37:05 GMT

Well....as predicted before the appointment, Thursday's psychiatrist appt was a case of 'th-th-th-thth-th-that's all, folks'.

Have now been discharged from the place back to my GP as, to all intents and purposes, there's nothing more they can do for me at this present time.

We've hit a dead end with medication beyond what I'm on now w/o gong into the realms of stuff that'd present a potentially major health risk due to my diabetes.

The psychologists (even if I hadn't declared war on them after the disaster of a year or two ago) have basically said I'm doing all I can do CBT-wise and, beyond experimentating with psychoanalysis (which they've admitted won't actually cure anything, may well just make things far worse and is now a redundant method of OCD treatment - and seemed incapable of asking my questions about it) or exposure therapy (pretty much impossible to apply here as it's fundamentally designed for mental>physical OCD and not mental>mental - plus there's just nothing to get 'hold' of as mine is too widespread, so not atypical OCD and I simply don't trust them to competently do it). Ultimately they don't know what to do or suggest, beyond me playing lab-rat to a group of people who've already displayed some major incompetence...as with the medication, to much risk of making it way way worse for no payoff.

So that's that. My psychiatrist was great and we had a long chat about stuff and how they could improve procedures there. said that if it worsens severely in the future I can get referred again and tat if I keep up-to-date with things in the rea of OCD and spot any new treatments then to bring it to their attention (yeah I know, but he meant well). Very sympathetic to things and clearly a little disillusioned with the psychologists dept himself - a genuinely nice guy.

Anyway - that's it. Is an odd feeling and have had the past few days to myself trying to suss out how I feel about finally hitting the point I always dreaded, that of 'there's essentially nothing more that can be done for you Mr Drew - this appears to be as good as it's going to be for you in the forseeable future. Bye'. It's not fun tbh, though there's also an odd sense of relief and stability in knowing that (in all likelihood) I've now got the mental measurements of the best and worst extents my OCD can take me to and can now plan around them.

Beyond that I don't think I'm ready to think about the future...am dimly aware that some pasrt of me has already reviewed it and came to a pessimistic outcome, but will deal with that when I'm up to it.

Bah Bumhug!

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:54:21 GMT

'Tis the season to be mentally challenged, paranoid and bark at the moon it seems.

Ah well - the OCD cycle hit its low point for enough days to allow me to have a breather and sort some stuff out at least. Had an inkling over the weekend that it was starting to gear itself up again so had to cram in a trip to Robs & Nicks last night in the knowledge that it'd probably aggravate it but, as it'd be a while 'til it calms down again anyway, it'd be worth it. On the plus side it was good to catch up with them in person, I had some very nice spaghetti bolognese, 'Jarhead' was a good film and I managed to pick up Mum's final two presents on a 1am trip to Tesco's.

On the minus side, the whole mental tiredness thing as the result of a new cycle starting kicked in some OCD and depression post-visit and a few scenes in 'Jarhead' what I expected and put me on edge (fuelling the fire seems to be a self-infliction trick i'm particularly good at). Found Nana playing on my mind a lot as well last night, so resorted to some late night depression-eating (not proud of it but the occasion demands it sometimes) and sat up 'til 3am or so. Sometimes the only defence is to exhaust yourself.

Still - was worth it. I think something you learn with this (over time) is that it's gonna get you whatever you do - you just have to pick your battles at the time you think you can best deal with the after-effects in order to have even a semblance of normality.

So today was a quiet day, spent in the company of an early-morning diazepam and regular naps. Not particularly productive but pretty much the best I could do. Had a hunt around the 'net for that most elusive of creatures, the 'work at home online job', but am starting to think they may be a myth.

Anyway, I'd say I'm now off to bed but I've fallen into the regular trap of spotting 'Die Hard' on TV and being unable to tear myself away from it (it's a great film after all).

Yipee-Ki-Aye, folks.

Re-defining my Disorder - what it really IS...

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 05:40:39 GMT

This is an important blog entry, I think.

For near 2 months I've not been able to shut down mentally and it's been driving me mad, this need to really pin down my OCD as it changes and writhes around. Has taken a night without sleep (a regular thing but, this time, not even broken sleep) for me to suddenly nail it...

I'm an an obsessive thinker. I never really appreciated that before but that's the true core of my disorder. I think I've lived somehow in the belief that if I could get to grips with and 'solve' my two main obsessions over the past 10 years about inappropriate sexual reactions and the fears around them that I would be 'cured'.

That's not true and it never was.

It's taken me 10 years to get those issues under control, to regain my confidence and figure out what's real and what isn't. That's to an extent, of course - those triggers never fully disappear, they just become easier to subdue and control - but, by and large, the worst of them have now faded....

...and have allowed me to fully expose what's underneath. Y'see, they're an effect - they're not a cause. The same as all OCD sufferers, you're taught to try and control the effects in the hope that doing so, in conjunction with medication, will alleviate the stress and lessen the cause. The problem is, which is now clear to me, the cause is a need to obsessively think. And that can be about ANYTHING. It isn't constrained to one area like contamination or counting - deprive it of when outlet and it'll simply find another. Of all and it will either create one or slowly grind you down about perfectly normal things as you never, ever switch off.

Am starting to grasp that this really is bigger then I thought and that it really is incurable. Have never accepted it properly before but, as I grow to see the nature of it, I grow to see I have to. You can';t treat it as there;'s nothing for psychologists, even non-inept ones, to get hold of. They can teach you (or you can teach yourself) how to cope with the effects if they flow into a specific area, but not a general, constant level of thought. I can't medicate any further due to my diabetes and bad side-effects. Plus that's been so unsuccessful so far, any further meds are the ones less liable to cure it. This is a rarer form of OCD - it's even harder to treat then the others.

So there you have it. The best way to deal with it and the way it fluctuates seems to be to starve it. Unless you're in a rare minimal obsessive spell, any form of stress or responsibility can drive you spare. Even when you are in one of those spells, you must be very careful - mental strength/tolerance and ability burns out very, very quickly. In general, you can do short bursts of fairly unstressful stuff (like supermarket shopping) but then need a fair bit of recovery time as mentally you end up tired out. Interaction with people is difficult and, unless in right mood, will burn you out very very quick. Distraction is a bit of a myth - if it's something non-stressful and interesting then it can help within the span of you doing it. But if you're not in a great spell even that'll be too much - or the instant you stop the thinking is back straight away. You can't make any committments appointment-wise without a degree of warning to the party concerned that it depends what you're like on the day and the job that accomodates such flexibility that'd be needed for you to attempt it doesn't exist. In extreme cases you can push it a bit - times of extreme stress/grief etc actually give it a focus or can prove a distraction from your current obsession - however, it has to be really exceptional circumstance-wise and, once over, you end up decimated.

Ultimately on the rare periods that it's at a low ebb you can do 'normal' things but have to be wary of burnout, normally you're very limited in what you can do mentally/socially and @ its worst you just have to baton down the hatches and totally isolate yourself 'til it goes off.

There - finally got it down on here. Maybe that'll help me control thinking about it all the time.

Bang, and the good spell is gone...

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 05:19:13 GMT

Another example where I hit mental burnout through OCD and only retrospectively see that i'd been approaching it for a week or so. This is getting to be a habit and, in truth, I need to recover a little more of my guardedness re: my symptoms. Still haven't managed to do so since I went backwards ocd-wise at the start of the year and, seeing as I don't appear to be returning to where I was anytime soon, I need to be a bit more wary.

Experts may so 'that's the wrong approach' but that really only applies to recovery and the mythical cure. Have hit that brick wall already, so this is about control.

Mixture of 2 things sent me over the edge this time. Firstly the same one that's been plaguing me on-and-off for months, the acceptance of my illness issue. My OCD has always had something more disturbing to throw itself into, so never realised just how powerful a problem this was 'til now. Knew it was (spent 6-7 years fighting it thru working and uni etc after all) but has just been focused on more lately since the last pcych appt I guess.

The other one, I suspect, is routine being disturbed. One of the more cliched OCD symptoms to suffer from that i thought I'd avoided tbh, but am starting to notice part of me that really HATES routine being disrupted - and I mean anything, to the point of being actively upset and disturbed by it. Have to keep an eye on that.

Not a fun week...

Shut up, shut up, shut up!

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 10:14:10 GMT

The ritualistic chant of the obsessive thinker. Doesn't work, but it beats smacking your head against a nearby wall to take your mind off things.

Yep, not a good spell at all - still the same one that's been there on and off since the last psych appointment, where I went over-analytical on my brief OCD drop-off after the diabetes skit last summer. One of those nightmare spells where it takes very little thought about it to mentally lock yourself up for the best part of the day and end up turning to the diazepam.

The thing is, the longer you have an obsessional streak about something, the more you learn how to combat it using CBT and (if not stop it) learn to 'ride it out' without poking at it until the spell subsides. This one's a newer one that I haven't figured out yet - hence am having more issues calming it down.

Worst thing is - the answer to last year's riddle (why the hell did my OCD have a massive drop-off for 4 to 6 weeks after my diabetes hospital fun) actually has no answer! The psychs are mystified about it. For a disorder that plays on any element of doubt or lack of certainty, it makes it hell.

On some level I think I realise that not only does it not matter but that there is no one answer. Most likely there are elements of a few: being forced to totally 100% rest for a while (even more than normal) would have allowed my mental levels to build up a little reserve in the tank, having something that major probably distracted my attention from it for a while (same happened when nana died - eventually you pay the piper when it catches up on you) and, back then, a 'good spell' could last up to a few weeks. Not just that but OCD tends to f*ck with your memory - I'm told my memory of being OCD-free back then really wasn't the case, it was just there at a lower level for a while (and am starting to vaguely remember that myself).

Ultimately for some reason that whole diabetes near-death type thing subdued it for a while. It was an anomaly and impossible to reproduce I guess. Sooner or later, that'll sink in. 'Til then - leave it alone!

OCD-eal with it

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 08:38:44 GMT

Ok, it's 9:12am - on a Saturday that may as well be 3am.

Thing is, there's nothing all that interesting to actually write about atm. Really has been one of those boring months where nothing has occured and all is pretty much as it was OCD-wise, life-wise and diabetes-wise.

One decision though - see the psych Thursday and think I'm going to suggest holding up the white flag for the forseeable. Fluoxetine and occasonal diazepam may not be great. They don't offer the kind of stability I'd once hoped for, they've not got me that much nearer my 'old' self. In truth, they're on a standard with the other meds I've tried that have had the effect of just taking the edge off of things (more the depressive element in truth - not really the OCD flip-outs).

BUT...

I can't help thinking that, after some years of med-testing, if it's not got any better then this so far then it's not going to. Bear in mind that they've now tried all the first and second line treatments. The next lot (if memory serves correctly) are anti-deps and anti-psychotics which, as well as having a nasty rep, may also really affect other areas of health like my diabetes. The likelihood of finding something that'll provide a miraculous recovery will drop now we get into these areas.

I'm not convinced it's worth it.I'm tired mentally and physically of riding the sife-gx rollercoaster w/o any pay-off at the end, and the ones off these are likely to be even worse. The thing is, it may not be a perfect stability, but at least I've found a spot where it's a bit more predictable and I can start to learn to work within the disorder's limitations. Let's face it - every time I push it over recent months, it just pushes back even harder and leaves me running to keep up again. Not just that, every time you try a new medication you put yourself under pressure and stress all over again - will it work, what if it does, is it working, how do I know, ad infinitum....a bit self-defeating really. Especially when it invariably doesn't.

Not just that...for my own sanity, I need to feel like I'm moving on somehow. I've been in stasis for over 3 years now trying to make this go away and (though I'm better thru being more used to it) it hasn't. And lets face it, there was never any guarantee it would. Searching for the right drug was always a needle in a haystack attempt. Maybe its time to get used to living and progressing with my disorder more, within its limitations. Accept it for what it is - something that means I'll rarely operate at anywhere near my past levels mentally, and regularly have periods where I just have to withdraw for a number of days. Rather than torturing myself for having good days and being able to do some things, perhaps I should realise such an attitude is stupid - I have what i have and I should make the most of being able to have some comparatively good days. After all these years, they're not a sign of anything more then 'its just the way this disorder works'. They don't last - make the most of them.

So that's the deal - I think it's time to stop twisting and stick for a while. The psych knows that too, I think - though they can't come out and admit defeat outwardly. The pitfalls of the next level of medication are just too much, unless I have a sudden really bad decline. And, as Kev has said, finding the drug that gets the chemical balance right may eventually happen - but you may not have anything left mentally to come back to.

See, told you weird entries are better. Oh, and isn't it about time Nicole Kidman got better then 52 at Brain training on that bloody advert?

Alternatively...

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 08:45:09 GMT

...I need to stop leaving blog entries at 1 in the morning because they just end up being too weird.

Transience

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 23:58:34 GMT

Yes I know - I just haven't felt like it (which should give you some insight really). Besides, I'm sure you're all used to me now updating this thing at odd times.

So it's 12:30am and I find myself pondering on just how transient life has become for me now, while at the same time it's also motionless.

How can I explain something so oddly contradictory? *sighs* It's difficult...look.

In one sense, life appears to be an endlessly non-moving thing stretching out infront of me. Nothing is liable to change - things are what they are and will most likely remain so. I have what I have and have found a sense of calmness in finally accepting that, in realising I simply have a condition which mainly has me working at 50% of my old self, intermittently has me blowing a fuse and near-mentally incapable of even holding a conversation for sometimes days at-a-time and, on rare occasions, lets me have the old moment of being my old self. Wish I could change it but it seems that isn't gonna happen and its taken me over 3 years to actually accept (more or less) that i have OCD and aren't just subconsciously being lazy or something. The problem is - how do you plan and make plans? How do you achieve the security, sense of achievement and feeling of having a social place that comes not only from a stable job, home life, mental state and relationship but from having goals and targets. Something to aim for, to work towards I guess. How do you set yourself new life goals when those you had have been so utterly destroyed and most abilities/experience you'd normally throw into a new direction have been made impotent?

That's where the strange contradiction comes in, the sense of transience. Everything for me now is so immediate. Planning is nigh-impossible due to my ever-fluctuating mental states, ideas flit in and out of the brain, forming and dissolving according to whether I'm able to fulfil them or not. You suddenly have to live in the very instant you're existing in, from moment to moment. And us humans simply aren't well-suited to doing that, me especially. Anything you get enjoyment or stimulus from is an instant fix and passes as quickly, as you latch onto it and suck it dry before your mind lets it flip-reverse on you. Spontanaeity becomes shallow and unexciting somehow.

God, I'm rambling nonsensically. I know what i mean but expressing it? That's harder. I need something to aim for - soemthing to provide purpose beyond the standard cliches. Something to give me meaning, I guess.

Rambling over.

Meds and Z's

Sun, 08 Jul 2007 10:23:05 GMT

Ok, has been a tough time OCDwise lately (even more so then some people realise - those who know me r-l know that more has gone then reported here and it's stuff I can't talk about for certain reasons - don't worry, is nothing I've done!) and is kinda showing up some of the flaws in the current meds (Fluoxetine).

Seems the main way they try to curb the OCD is through a semi-tranquilising effect. Now this isn't good because it means you feel exhausted during the whole day - not that my social calender is exactly buzzing but it doesn't help, especially when it then starts causing some problems with going out completely (easy to get institutionalised plus become more fragile to triggers thru lack of exposure). Plus they don't actually help you sleep at night so you're liable to wake up the standard 3-4 times then feel like you haven't slept even more when you do get up, due to their effects.

But they're also a double-edged sword on a mental level. My form of the illness is far more mentally-focused then others, far more mentally intense and exhausting. Numbing that a little is a good thing. BUT the way you combat your OCD is also through the same mental process, employing CBT techniques and keeping control etc. So whilst the OCD may be slightly less intense, your mental ability to deal with what is there has also been lowered. Kinda defeats the purpose really.

Not even thought about my forthcoming birthday as can't guarantee I'll even be awake enough to do anything on it, let alone go out etc. Ho hum.

So much for that clear spell...

Thu, 31 May 2007 20:16:10 GMT

Should know by now that such spells in my OCD are just temporary. Was even good enough to go out to see a friend for a few hours yesterday with her child there - despite my anxieties I thought I was fine. Ok, had gone edgy as soon as everyone got back from holiday the day before but assumed that was just tiredness...

...but hours after visiting, my OCD hit with a vengeance, throwing lots of charmingly graphic and disturbing imagery at me to try and wind me up. I'm not going to describe it - if you've read any of the back story on T2D then I shouldn't have to - suffice to say that, despite understanding the reason for it and how it works with my OCD (and that it simply is just anxiety-generated thoughts), it doesn't change how disturbing and physically ill it makes you feel sometimes.

Got a tenuous grip on it, insomuch as am aware that my disorder is trying to play said images through my head on some, semi-subconscious level but am managing not to consciously dwell on them and upset myself even more, but the result has been a night and whole day of feeling the familiar clenched aching of my brain, as if someone has a hand inside your skull and is applying firm pressure. Concentration level = poor, feeling pretty low, frustrated, angry etc.

Sometimes I just want to smash everything, y'know? Just get hold of every single object in this place and break it all in an incredibly satisfying way, in the desperate hope that it'll somehow release all this tension. Of course, it wouldn't and I wouldn't - but the feeling remains. I can understand people who are violent and do lash out, those who have mental problems but simply aren't equipped or able to understand them and have to release somehow. The funny thing is that, in some ways, I envy them - ignorance can be bliss sometimes I guess.

Wonderful World of OCD - Weekly Update

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 13:13:31 GMT

Hi ho!

Well, fair to say (as you've read) it's been an up-and-down week OCDwise. Took a few days to get the obsessing under control after Mr Abusive Poster, and that's been followed up by my OCD going through a particularly image/visual-based period. Obsessive thinking and OCD isn't just thoguhts in word form but also an image-focused entity, so you may get a mental picture keep recurring over and over. Not too much fun. Still, appears to be slowly fading off.

medwise it's also been a less positive week - couldn't cope on the upped fluoxetine disage of 40mg after 6 days of feeling terrible - tired, headaches, inability to concentrate, tense - so dropped back down to 20mg and feel better. This isn't good as it mirrors what happened when I tried sertraline, another of the SSRI family. The low dosage had some effect but not a huge one and, as soon as we raised it above a certain level, it flip-reversed in effect. Looks like this one is doing the same. Still, perhaps used alongside diazepam, it has some potential - and maybe I just need longer on 20mg before going up. So will stick with it - just wish I could rediscover non-interrupted sleep again.

Mentally, as said earlier this week, Mr AP's attack actually had some benefits. OCD sufferers tend to avoid self-examination too much as it's so easy to find yourself heading down a dark mental path and obsessing w/o even realising. It makes reflection difficult unless you know exactly what kind of mental state you're in at the time and whether you're safe to do it or not. His post (I'm guessing it was a 'he' and an adolescent one at that) forced a spell of that But, as a plus, it did make me reassess from a stronger mental position and make some progress in really understanding past OCD behaviour. Ok, so having someone calling you a nonce isn't the ideal way to do it - and I'm sure it wasn't the effect he was looking for - but it's made me realise all the more that there's not a hint of that in me at all, nor a hint of it in the problems I had re: p*rnography over 3-4 years ago. Like I've said before, all the experts and friends in the world can tell you that, but its believing it yourself which is the hard part - especially after OCD has tried its best to make you wonder otherwise.

Having a few worries about work again at the mo (yep, as one obsession takes a backseat another tries to step into the void) and what I'll be able to do and when etc. Is taking time to accept that there are going to be limitations now - perhaps I'll never have the mental capacity to work FT with the concentration problems I now get, nor be able to have a wide scope of employment types to pick from, not just due to the OCD triggers but also the simple amount of bad association there. Still wake up at 6am occasionally and lie there in a state of near-panic until I realise I don't have to go to work and it's not 3 years ago anymore. Guess the scars will remain for a bit.

Anyway, that's it for the mo. Still not going to re-enable replies just yet, as I could do w/o someone else trying to be funny again (however accidentally therapeutic it proved). The hits suggest there are people reading and, if not, then - f*ck it. I need to type this.

Abusive posters and silver linings

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 11:59:49 GMT

Temporarily disabling leaving comments after yesterday's charmer my have been a good idea....but it doesn't change the fact that the damage has already been done and I'm now officially 'having a bit of a bad OCD spell' as a result.

Combination of things, I guess - the tiredness from the medication increase is making me fairly fragile mentally (especially combined with not sleeping properly again - go figure) and my OCD always seems to be stronger when that happens and. of course, the abusive poster on T2D from well over a year ago upset me enough to build in a few triggers which got pressed again by this person (could be the same one - who knows?).

Frustrating really - not saying I'd have been too happy with being called a hypersensitive nonce (or words to that effect) at ANY time but am generally far enough along to ignore such rubbish and not let my OCD start turning it over & over and start messing with me. After all, considering how sensitive some of the things are that have been discussed here (and the reasonable amount of hits the place gets), only having 2-3 people leaving crap like that in a few years is pretty good going. The amount of people who've read about this form of OCD and understood it (and those with similar problems its helped) far outweighs them, and the friends I've made as a result of such open discussion have helped me realise just how far away I am from such an abusive description.

But welcome to the world of obsessive thinking and OCD self-doubt/anxiety - you may know it, but it doesn't stop you worrying about it.

Still, it operates as a good example of why people who suffer with sexual forms of OCD find it difficult to talk about, as they're often afraid that people will think they are a deviant in some way (and wonder whether they are themselves), despite the fact that they loathe the very ideas/images that they may be having, and often made it worse by seeking out such things or focusing on them even more in order to 'test' themselves - and ending up simply more upset and confused and anxious about fears that aren't real but become more entrenched the more you try and dispel them.

All I can say to other sufferers (and the blog seems to be getting more and more hits from people searching for OCD stuff acc to the stat page lately) is this - the above attitude, apart from in a small minority of people often unable to process what OCD is and how it works, is not the norm. Most people are incredibly understanding and know you better then you know yourself - and are far more capable of deciding what you are/aren't capable of then you or any sufferer is. Whatever my personal problems with psychologists have been, their ability to discuss and identify sexual OCD AS sexual OCD has been excellent, understanding, sympathetic and reassuring - it's not something that's uncommon, just something not commonly discussed because of the fear we discussed above.

The bitter irony that such thoughts/behaviour/testing is caused by anxiety/dislike rather then any kind of desire or attraction (and so the polar opposite of being homosexual (or hetrosexual if you're a gay OCD sufferer), a paedophile or anything else of that nature) and the distress it causes us in KNOWING that on some level is understood by them - and by seeing them, you can start sorting it out yourself, realise it, control it and then start explaining it to others. And then start to stop punishing yourselves for things out of your control that have hurt no-one but yourselves. Trust me - it's a slow process but it's worth it.

Anyway, I guess that means in some weird way I should be thanking Mr Abusive Poster for allowing such a point to be made - amazing how enlightenment can come from ignorance.

Wonderful World of OCD - Weekly Update

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 11:43:42 GMT

Interesting week...

...well, not really. Main happenings have been that I'm now on 40mg of Fluoxetine (the new SSRI medication) and am feeling absolutely shattered as a result of the sleep problem side effect.

Aside from that though, it still looks promising. Am still seeing the difference between OCD symptoms and other things caused by the OCD that I talked about a few days ago which (though unlikely given their track record) might be of use to the psychs, I guess. Plus am just feeling a little better and a little more stable in terms of mood - still having a few 'moments' but they've not been too prevalent over the past 7 days.

I guess generally its fair to say that the worst of the hardcore obsessive mental behaviour has now either been defused, lessened in strength and/or lessened in frequency. I'll tend to 'lock in' (via a trigger) to an old memory at times and it can take a while to snap out of the obsessive thinking - and then mentally get myself together as a result - but, on the whole, that area seems to have improved. The hope is that respite from that behaviour will finally allow all the built-up anxiety from the countless triggers to subside a little and become more tolerable and less mentally exhausting (and less frequent, hopefully). And the more I recover, the more I'm able to look back over the past number of years and see how much the OCD clouded my recollections, behaviour and attitudes and (as friends, family and experts have all told me) really does lie at the bottom of it all. Think about it and you'll realise why that's important.

Slow going though, not helped by having one of those charmingly abusive replies left on the site earlier - then again, all blogs get that at some point and it took me far less time to delete it then it did for them to read it, type it and post it. And it's another hit for the site :-). *shrug* Best they hope karma doesn't really exist though...for the moment, have suspended the ability to leave comments to stop me getting all jumpily obsessive about it for days like I did last time.

Wonderful World of OCD - Weekly Update

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 12:40:38 GMT

Thought it might be an idea to do a weekly update on how things are going OCD-wise, rather then the ragtag 'as and when' approach. So, in theory, will try and make an update every Monday.

Fair to say that it hasn't been a bad week. Early part of last week was a struggle - the hours spent with the car before being picked up by the breakdown people seemed ok at the time but, as ever, suffered the kickback effects afterwards with the mental tiredness of keeping it together during that spell really kicking in.

Yet, as discussed before, starting to make a distinction between the OCD symptoms and the anxiety symptoms and the OCD behaviour seems fairly well controlled - I may only be in my 4th week of Fluoxetine (and with a dosage rise imminent) but it does seem to have curbed the worst excesses I was suffering from during most of January. I suppose the hope is that the medication impacts on helping the OCD behaviour and making it easier to deal with AND also having some effect on the severity of the anxiety memories/triggers, which then subsequently will allow me to regain a bit more mental strength in dealing with the stuff the meds don't help and so on, hopefully snowballing.

I think it's finally sinking in that it'll be a long process as well - never really has. Have realised recently that, even with recovery to a point, i'm still going to be fairly restricted workwise for a long time, possibly always, and must accept that its just one of those things rather then perceive it as a failure on my part. let's be honest - if i can eventually get back to even working just 20-25 hours per week subsidised by WTC then it'll be an achievement. All part of readjusting your goals I guess.

Also feel strangely encouraged this morning. Will be honest and admit that things have been let slip for a while to the point where it was even a struggle to be bothered to do anything - exercise, personal hygiene etc was all slipping badly (maybe a bit of the depression element I guess). Having a good shower and working out for 30 minutes on the bike may sound like nothing to many but, for me, it's a good start - and a change of approach.

Update over.

Guilt

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 12:59:36 GMT

Just playing about with a few things on my mind at the mo and felt like jotting it down here, as I'm sure there are many other sufferers who suffer similar stuff.

As anyone whose read enough of T2D probably know by now, purely mental OCD is most horrendous because it twists your thought patterns so much - like depression, schizophrenia and other disorders, you get confused between what's 'real' and what isn't and get tied up in knots about it. It blurs your ability to recollect exact events and tends to colour them with whatever state of mind you're in at the time, leave you in an agony of indecision and self-doubt and drive you to test yourself against the very things that upset you in an attempt to redicover who you are - often simply re-enforcing the damage and leaving you worse.

But stopping that cycle is only part of the battle.

I guess I'm nearing 3 years clear of the worst of my OCD - next month is the 3 year anniversary of me finally snapping and leaving work, getting medical help and starting to learn more about the disorder I suffer from. It's also 3 years of recuperation, changing my obsessive and compulsive thought/behavoural patterns and (if not making huge strides forward) stopping things from getting any worse.

Yet that throws up new issues - one of the main ones, which I suspect is one that'll take a long time to get past, being guilt. It's no secret that I ended up in a pretty bad mental place back then and, as I've shared here, saw some pretty nasty sh*t during the process which I wish I hadn't. Coming to terms with that is difficult and forgiving myself, even partially, for it even more so.

Much of that is because I HAVE recovered to where I am now, and to where I was before the p*rnography obsession/addiction (and whatever OCD demons were driving it) started to dominate things. Just the thought of even venturing into such areas where I could end up seeing something of dubious legality in a p*rnography sense is upsetting enough - actually doing so is now as unthinkable to me as it was before I lost the plot.

It's like there's this chunk of time in my life of, what, 12-18 months or so that I can't relate to at all now - and the problem is that now my moral compass has been reset to more-or-less normal I don't find it easy to look at that period, write it off simply as OCD, forgive myself and move on. That becomes an OCD issue in itself - when I feel low/down/upset about it then it normally leads to me thinking about it, running through the explanation in my head of how it happened ("OCD=anxiety/stress=sexual insecurity=using p*rn for anxiety relief + reassurance=overuse=desensitisation=looking for new stuff in ambiguous places (both as a new source and the danger element)=seeing unpleasant images repeatedly=upset/panic/testing=more stress=more p*rn=eventual meltdown"). Doing that in itself is OCD behaviour, the mental compulsion being to ritualistically go through that until it eases the stress.

*shrug* Ok, I guess the difference between people who've suffered sexual OCD and the aforementioned behaviour and those people who are actual perverts and the like actually IS that level of disgust and upset we feel about it - they don't, I guess. Much the same as those OCD sufferers who suffer blasphemous thoughts, or harm thoughts and the like - there's no enjoyment about them (though sexual OCD due to the simple nature OF it being sexual is a bit more ambiguous I guess). But that simply leads to a possibility of gripping onto that upset/disgust so tightly that it simply becomes yet another problem.

I guess, ultimately, it will simply take time and patience. I think somewhere I understand that the driving force that led to me ending up where I did, and seeing some of the things I did, was just part of my OCD as I spiralled out of control whilst trying to keep a lid on my stress and anxiety levels - the result of a chain of causal events rather then any hidden twistedness, which bears little-to-no relation to the reasons behind why those people into that kinda stuff end up going there. Just wish I had a big mental eraser sometimes to delete memories and images, that's all.

After all that...

Sat, 03 Feb 2007 12:15:45 GMT

...I woke up Friday morning and felt more-or-less fine, thinking normally, and all the stuff from the past week made sense: I realised I was going OTT and just wound myself up about something I didn't like whilst in an OCD spell and stupidly testing. Feel fine again today as well 9though a little wary, naturally).

Still, at least this weeks entries give you an idea of how warped you get mentally whilst having an OCD attack.

OCD Simpsons - Pt 2

Thu, 01 Feb 2007 11:58:11 GMT

Ok, despite trying to get my head round it a few nights ago, still have a brain lock about the whole thing - and, even though what I SHOULD be doing is not thinking about anything until the OCD spell passes, that just isn't practical or possible. So have been trying to figure it out, just so I can find a place in my mind where I can actually leave it and know that once this OCD spell passes, I have a sane area to come back to...

...and what I hypothesised the other night wasn't strictly correct.

Of course, when you're an OCD sufferer on an analysis trip, you can come up with lots of theories about stuff so this one may well sound like rubbish to me in a few days anyway.

The thing that's made this particular spike so confusing is that it isn't solely an OCD issue - and me trying to make it one has just confused me even more.

Bottom line is that, even without OCD, such images aren't the kind of thing I'd go for at all and I'd still have a bit of a moral issue with them. Yes, fair enough, they're simply dirty cartoon drawings and probably would turn me on a little (as they probably would anyone else) upon seeing them (especially if already a little worked up by looking at other p*rn pics anyway). BUT I'd normally also think that they're still not particularly attractive or appealing despite that effect and that, stupid or not because they're cartoon drawings and not real, they're still a little bit too close to abusive pics for me to feel comfortable with - and so would disregard them and move on without dwelling on them, and not feel any guilt about them having an initial effect just because they were dirty, kinky pics and not real - end of.

The thing with OCD though, is that it'll take something sane, rational and normal and explode it to being a thousand times bigger then it is (when its not making something up entirely just to wind you up, of course). When I saw the picture a few nights ago, my response wasn't the normal one I'd have. I guess because my OCD has been really bad of late, it massively inflated the negative angle of the pics and what any reaction to them might mean. In turn, I got annoyed, knowing that such a reaction was massively excessive, OTT and simply not true at all. I realised the above was true and that my OCD was just exploding it way too much.

Problem was, at that point I should have just said 'fair enough, my OCD has an issue with these type of pictures and it's completely blowing it out of proportion - but I'm not keen on them anyway' and just moved on. Instead, I got angry with my OCD and made myself carry on looking at them to try and make some kind of point I guess, about not letting myself be controlled by it - and somehow thinking it would prove that these are simply naughty cartoon pics and my OCD was just being dumb. Ultimately, I guess I was just trying to assert some kind of control over it: deliberately making myself get aroused by them just to prove that my arousal was nothing to do with the stuff the OCD was throwing up, and simply because these were dirty pics.

It's fair to say that, when you're in a bad OCD place, logic tends to get a bit fuzzy.

End result? Just making my OCD worse because the pictures I looked at in order to make a point to my OCD (trust me, live with it long enough and it almost seems like an individual entity) were pictures I wasn't that keen on anyway.

Doh indeed.

The Medical Appointments Double-Header: Part 2

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 00:13:26 GMT

Or 'on my signal - unleash hell. On your psychiatrist'.

After a bad spell, there's always a gap between the end of the peak and the start of the comedown where god help anyone who crosses me. Thanks to Cher, my bad spell got defused about 30 mins before todays psych appointment - and meant the appt fell in that gap.

The results were predictable.

Rather then me putting on my Tony Blair acting face whilst in the appointment and joking/bantering a bit like I normally do (I managed it for around 7 years before i cracked up in jobs and Uni so is easy to do), today he saw me whilst in a bad place. Am sure by now the ringing in his ears has stopped and the air has reverted from blue back to its normal colour.

The first two lines:

Psych: How has the past 3 months been?

Me: F*cking sh*t.

...pretty much set the tone.was brutally honest about how bad it was, the intense depression, the lack of control over my OCD, semi-suicidal thoughts etc.

He then made the mistake of bringing up the subject of CBT again (which, he said later, he was simply obliged to do on occasions as a psych) which led me in loud tones and filthy language to denounce all his colleagues as incompetents whose confusing diagnosis, pop psychology attempts and misleading reports has led to me not trusting any of them and, even if they could agree on whether CBT would be any good (which they can't) for me, that the part of me that thinks maybe it'd be worth a try hasn't enough faith in them at all to do it w/o the fear of being made 100s of times worse. And they've simply confused me so much with their conflicting opinions that I've now accepted I'm on my own (apart from you lot) and simply wouldn't have the mental ability or strength to attempt it anyway.

I then pretty much told him to stop asking me stupid questions and read his f*cking notes from previous meetings to get the answers to stuff we've covered before, stop asking me what i think we should do next and try acting like a f*cking doctor, how neither me or him often sound like we have a clue what we're talking about with all these crappy theories and just do the job i've been asking someone to do for years - give me the meds to help me do the rest of the work myself as I know there's no magic cure, I just want something that helps.

Then apologised as it wasn't meant personally. he took it rather well in truth and it probably helped for him to see me in not-too-good a mood.

Anyway, tomorrow I start SSRIs (again), this time one beginning with 'F' - possibly Fluoxicine but it's late so can't remember - and this one will take near 12 weeks to determine whether it is working. If it doesn't then the fun really starts as that's the two frontline treatments attempted and we're into the likes of Lithium and anti-pychotics alongside anti-deps. Funfunfun.

Very cathartic.

OC-Doh! The Simpsons and sexual OCD (explicit)

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 23:57:47 GMT

One of those quite open explicit content posts folks, so be warned...

It's been a very bad 3 days in OCDland. Ultimately I again fell victim to the bane of all OCDers - testing. This time, whilst purveying naughty adult sites (I know, I know, not a good idea when I'm wound up as that in itself is an old behavoural pattern but ultimately I was stressed and needed to relax - trust me, the addiction element is not going to come back) I stumbled across an old trigger point...

...cartoon p*rnography featuring The Simpsons.

Yeah I know how dumb that sounds. But allow me to apply an OCD perspective to it. Mr or Mrs 'ormal person' comes across said pictures whilst looking at p*rn, probably finds them a mixture of funny and a bit arousing (it is, after all, sexually dirty pics after all), and strolls away without a second thought from them, possibly after using them to serve their purpose *ahem*.

For someone with the type of OCD I have it doesn't quite work that way. I freaked out about having a reaction to them in the past when I was really bad, making comparisons with r-l sexual abuse pics and underage abuse etc. The fact that they're simply just dirtily drawn pics with no real resemblance to real-life and that if they were I wouldn't even be near them to start with? Didn't register.

Anyway, then stumbled across them again (nearly said 'came across them' but that'd be a bad chocie of words) on Saturday - and rather then do what i would normally do upon seeing a hint of them and simply ignoring them on the basis of knowing they upset and trigger me (despite the stupidity of such a reaction) due to my OCD, I decided to say 'f*ck it - they're just cartoon images, not real, a bit naughty and kinky, they shouldn't be a problem' and force myself to ignore the OCD-triggering elements.

The result - 3 days of being in brain-lock about it, wondering if being aroused by them had some hidden subtext despite my repugnance at any vaguely real-life counterparts, and trying to put some 'deeper meaning' on it rather then the normal one of 'dirty pics, no semblance of reality, you were horny, saw them, turned you on, end of story'.

Luckily, after a few days of diazepam and a useful talk with Cher, that finally managed to seep through to me this afternoon and so am now in that place where the ritualistic thinking about it has eased and, if I'm careful, I should be ok again in a day or two - just mentally shattered.

Moral of the story? A few, really:

a) OCD really can pick on stupid things and make them hellish. If a sufferer spins out about an inocuous remark in your eyes about something or something you've sent them on email etc, it may seem nothing to you but could be to them. If you know the nature of their obsessions, think about them before doing anything like that. They'll thank you.

b) Sufferers - you can't force your mind to repair quicker then it will. Exposure therapy and pushing boundaries is ok, but there is a limit - learn your limitations before pushing them and don't try to do so when you're not in a stable state of mind to begin with. Not just that - some scars from when your OCD may have been really bad may never heal properly and its worth identifying those areas which are now just going to be there and accepting that. Sometimes a normal attitude just isn't going to be possible and trying to get one is liable to backfire.

c) Humans are weird and human sexuality even weirder. There's millions of reactions we each have every day that we probably don't understand, often simply down to something being 'naughty' and regardless of whether it's personally or morally attractive or not. Don't look into them too much as you'll just tie yourself up in knots.

Here endeth the lesson.

P.S. I wonder of people who suffer from OCD problems in regards to b*stiality struggle to watch 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?'

Brief OCD moan

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 10:49:51 GMT

Its my blog, I'm entitled to!

Fed up with feeling crap at the mo - constantly anxious mentally which is transferring itself physically as well, lots of little OCD poking going on through the day. Seems the up-and-down periods of the past have now changed to one constant low-grade mental drain (*lol* sounds like T2D really) leaving me permanently feeling low and tired. The latest paedophile jail scandal in the press yesterday/today, coupled with the gay adoption issue has been enough to kick in both the main strands of my OCD angst and touch off some obsessive thinking again as well (the normal stuff - despite knowing it's all sorted, settled and not what I ever feared my fears, reactionsor behaviours were, an OCD spell means that such conclusions go temporarily out of the window).

So today is a diazepam day as we count off the days 'til the psych appt and the new drugs on Tuesday.

Brief moan over.

Argh

Mon, 15 Jan 2007 12:09:41 GMT

After a solidly wound-up weekend, had an amazingly cathertic rant about things in general to Mum this morning after being violently stabbed in the arm by the blood nurse at the GP surgery for a sample an hour before.

My 'positive, optimistic' frame of mind sometimes ISN'T really one that involves much positivity, it just involves not thinking about all the negative stuff (which is actually the most realistic and regular stuff). So when you're being 'positive' you're really only bottling things up, when you're being 'negative' it's because all that bottling up has hit breaking point - which then of course makes you rant and normally feel crappy afterwards.

So you can't win, really.

Anyway, after ranting about:

how this year will be my 10th anniversary of OCD shiteness, how 3 years of NHS 'help' has effectively achieved f*ck all, how I'm running out of drug groups to try and that every new one equals another 3 months doing f*ck all while we see if it works, how the NHS pschologists have been clueless in all senses of the word, how the psychiatrist is a nice guy but has little idea beyond a textbook whilst not remembering anything about me whatsoever and having to start almost from scratch at every meeting while he desperately searches through his notes for a relevant point and seemingly needing me to try and hang myself from the office light fitting whilst in an appointment with him for him to realise that just because I seem in a good mood at that second, that doesn't mean I am, how everything I do is about battling the effects of my OCD and so is all aout delaying the inevitable mental exhaustion and subsequent intensely bad spell and nothing seems to treat the cause at all, how I'm sick and f*cking fed up of never being able to make any realistic plans or decisions, incapable of even figuring out how I'm feeling at any given time, constantly on edge, only see people for a small amount of the time because I know when I'm in a certain place (95% of the time) there's no point as I'll just end up feeling worse and then, when I do hit that 5% doing too much and making myself worse anyway, having no concept of a neutral response to anything, having a frequent inability to define between a sexual response and an anxiety one (and often they're the same thing so that's all f*cked as well), being impossible material for any lady to willingly take on in a relationship, probably being mentally incapable of having one, being a certainty for not having kids 'cos of my OCD and taking it out on them, being incapable of sorting myself out when I'm in an OCD attack despite understanding it completely, having a Dad who just can't wrap his head around it at all and so approaches it with a total lack of understanding and clumsy incomprehension, taking it out on other people with an immensely volatile temper and moodswings when i can't help it, feeling intensely depressed and low for no apparent reasons at times, spending life just waiting for the next innocent thing to set me off, being stuck in this f*cking bungalow for nearly 3 years, having no mental stability whatsoever, not being able to smoke or eat (pleasures I enjoy) because of my diabetes and because it could kill me unless I stop and lose weight, not being able to stop smoking because it sends my OCD nuts, not being able to go to the gym because my OCD goes nuts, resorting to 'comfort eating' because of things sometimes and thinking 'f*ck it' about the bad habits as I may as well enjoy SOMETHING while I'm here, having the occasional suicidal thought patterns when I know damn well i'd never do anything like it but can't shake them as its down to feeling low, seeming to have totally relapsed over the past 3 months after trying to take a drug-induced short cut thru my illness, not being able to drink because I know how well it works and how easy it'd be to drink a lot, losing any career I did have in the ents business, not having much hope of getting one back in any meaningful area to the a-levels and degree i took after fighting so hard for them, having no money, not being able to contribute at home in the way I'd want and help Mum out at all, not having a great deal of self-esteem and worth on the whole job area, having people say 'we know someone who does work from home - we'll speak to them about it' and then disappearing for weeks and weeks with no contact, being haunted by often-meaningless events from the past which i won't have thought about for years and then spend a few hours f*cking with my head in vivid detail before f*cking off again, remembering normality before all this started, watching life pass by as I get older and achieve nothing...

...I now feel much better.

Job done.

The Summer '06 Red Herring

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 11:40:10 GMT

Ok, this is just a bit of surmising and guesswork, mostly motivated by the current spell of obsessive thinking - but I wonder whether this so-called good spell I had for a few months last summer actually wasn't a bit of a red herring as a result of other things, and perhaps not the improvement I thought it to be.

Let me explain...

As I've exhaustively talked about here, my main weapon of OCD choice when it comes to obsessions has been the inappropriate sexual reaction one. But, because that dominated the horizon for so long, it sometimes blots out the fact that I am an obsessive thinker about lots of other things as well - is just that the SR one is the most disturbing and so the most obvious one.

One of those areas is work.

Again, was a chain-reaction type of thing. Began with wanting to work despite my issues and forcing myself to do it for 'x' amount of years. That then wore me down so I started missing days here and there because of really bad heads and not being able to think properly and the constant battle with my obsessions - would then feel immensely guilty about having a day or 2 days out and obsess about that.

Bear in mind then that I didn't know these were classic OCD symptoms I was suffering from and was driving myself insane. Also, as someone who'd always worked and wanted the whoel career thing, it was a driving force with me and, having left one job through a stress breakdown back in '95 (before all the OCD stuff happened) there was a lot of guilt and stigma tied up with it, quite a 'failure' complex on my behalf I guess. Also, because I could never ever tell people the REAL things that were messing my head up so much, i was aware of how lame or poor my excuses for absences were - more guilt - whilst also still believing I could eventually just pull myself together and not surrender to it.

Accepting the extent of my disorder since I wiped out totally nearly 3 years ago and the limitations it has led to has been hard as a result - and I'm still not used to not setting myself deadlines and timetables for when to get back to work. Not only that but I worked for a long time alongside my OCD, forcing myself through it until it got too much. As a result, it's impossible for me to judge how well is well enough to get working - sometimes I'll think 'well I worked when it was this bad before' without realising that it was doing that which caused me to eventually mentally implode to start with.

What I'm now realising is that it's really another strong obsessive area of thinking for me that follows the standard OCD pattern. The thought/guilt/anxiety will pop in ('maybe you could work and all this would go away and take your mind off of it') and I'll run around with it endlessly in my head for a while, eventually hitting on the compulsive thought ritual side of things to calm it down, the 'when you're fine its not a problem - find stability first and work from there' line.

Both Mum and my psych had already picked up on there being some kind of problem area there for me so this is more like realisation after the fact - but it's not great. I mean, it's another bloody area now where I can't even judge my own state of mind because I often can't trust the conclusions because of my OCD!

Coming back to the point, it puts last summer in perspective. Christmas made me look at it more, as I'd had a random 12 day good spell over it that mirrored the summer one, and I started to wonder whether there was a connection - and I think there might be. If I do suffer from OCD re: working (or the not doing of), then last summer it was pretty much nullified by the diabetes hospitalisation and recovery/adaptation period and then the looking after my sisters for 3 weeks. You can't feel guilty for not working in those circs. Same with Xmas and New Year - its a holidday period. Perhaps then it wasn't a genuine clear spell after all - simply a period where my OCD couldn't use that particular route to attack.

Or maybe not - hard to tell.

Ho hum.

Don't run...

Wed, 10 Jan 2007 17:31:01 GMT

...before you can walk.

Probably the best lesson anyone trying to get to grips with an anxiety disorder can learn, and the one we're most prone to forgetting.

Yet again, appears I'm guilty as charged of that one at the moment. Another shaky, semi-depressed bad spell has kicked in over the past 3-4 days after a 12-day clear spell.

Retrospectively, I was a little foolish in starting to believe that I'd came out of that terrible post-clomipramine period and returned to a completely unscathed state again. What I'd forgotten was a conversation with Mum I'd had 2-3 weeks ago, where we discussed that the withdrawl period was too long to just be that and was (most likely) a relapse - and, as a result, the likelier outlook would be a return to the up-and-down state for a while once that initial period broke (as it used to be) and having to go back through the process and time of getting myself back to the calm spell of last summer.

On the plus side - even though I've gone backwards a little bit, I've progressed from this place before so guess I just have to do do again. Annoying but that's what happens when you forget the 'walk-run' rule.

It was Christmas Eve, babe...

Sun, 24 Dec 2006 08:48:52 GMT

Well, can't say I haven't tried. After visiting some friends last night after 1 1/2 okish days (then leaving as an old panic set it - tend to have problems being around too many people I don't really know), this morning am about to pop down my sister's and see her and the kids. So, early this morning, thought I'd put on some Christmas songs (Pogues, Jona Lema, that kinda thing) to get in the mood...

Yeah, that went well.

Things is, my OCD always tends to be fairly bad in the mornings and so its hard to know whether to take a diazepam to curb it until its had a chance to settle one way or the other. That will not be the case this morning - not taking any risks this close to Christmas with my mood.

Even so - the chances of it holding out to get me through the Xmas period the way I am this morning aren't too good. Its really trying to kick off again this morning and even just a small 90 minutes out last night was enough strain, it seems, to mentally tire me again - which, in turn, tends to knock your willpower re: obsession control somewhat. And am about to go and spend some time with the kids....not great timing. Can't put it off either, as Mum isn't too well and needs someone to drive it for her.

*sigh* With tomorrow having things I HAVE to do - visiting Dad, picking up Nana and then having her with us all afternoon (don't get me wrong, I love Nana dearly and she does crack me up, but she's also 76 and a mild depression sufferer herself, and kinda a lot to deal with) - the normal little reunion our old group tend to have tonight looks pretty unlikely for me. I'll WANT to go most likely, but just daren't risk it in case it's just too much.

Thing is, Rob mentioned something the other day which pretty much sums up how things have deteriorated the last few months. 4 months ago the diazepam were ther but I would adamantly not touch them unless I had to and I had no intention of becoming reliant on them. Now, any such thoughts are rapidly going out of the window and things are at the point where that attitude now seems ludicrous. Today's will make it 4 in 8 days and, truth be known, I could have had one every day - we're simply approaching the point where whatever it take to get through the day will have to do it.

Ah well. Anyway, will keep you all posted.

Made glorious summer by this selection of anti-depressants

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 08:52:46 GMT

Well it made me laugh.

Needless to say, my bad spell randomly lifted on Sunday evening - go figure.

Now its only MSN that are annoying me, as it seems the facility to edit lists and the like on the blog is broken. As a result, ignore 'Pop A Cap' (as always) and the like for the moment as the info is out of date and I can't actually access it to change it. Grrr!

keep an eye out on here for my countdown of (in my humble op) the best tunes of the year. Starting soon - possibly with musical accompaniment...

Now is the Winter of our discontent...

Sat, 09 Dec 2006 07:34:10 GMT

And people accuse me of being over-dramatic sometimes.

*lol*

Ok, advance warning folks - if you're not in the mood to hear me bitch and moan about my OCD etc, move along. This is one of those less-then-inspiring entries about how everything seems sh*t at the moment. The bit where, if it was TV, you'd tell thekids to leave the room and go and put the kettle on.

Still there? Right...

I'm on the verge of declaring the past 6 weeks since coming off of Clomipramine ("the only drug now listed as an official one for OCD-treatment"...ha!) as the worst spell I've had since diagnosis 18 motnsh ago at the least, if not since struggling back from the breakdown a few years back.

Symptoms: my mood is wildly imbalanced and fluctuating from one extreme to the other, be it happiness-despair or calm-anger. Takes a tiny event to flip me from one to the other of late. Am starting to get the frequently frustrated, tearful feelings back as well alongside the faint stirrings of desperation about everything. I'm becoming increasingly isolated again and don't really want to go out to places at all, with it never helping when I do anyway. Ok, from what I know, they're all pretty heavy depression symptoms - this time they're starting to seem like a problem in their own right though, where as before it seemed I'd get depressed because of my OCD.

Speaking of which, that isn't helping matters. I now am struggling to sleep at night and approach it with wariness after a second sexual anxiety/OCD-triggering dream 2 nights ago. That's two in a week and, when you can't escape it in your sleep, you really start freaking out. Haven't had that happen in quite a while. More disturbing is that the overall effect is that the 'balance' I'd found during the summer, where my understanding of it all was seeming to calm and control it, is being severely affected - this is all so widespread and pervasive during this spell that I'm finding it very hard to keep a mental grip on that bit of me that atches everything else and reminds me that "it will pass eventually - it's just a spell and when it fades, you'll think normally again and all your summations in this period will become meaningless". I even found myself teetering on the verge of a spell in my original 'am I gay' obsession yesterday, and that';s not one that's been revisitied for quite some time.

In short - things feel fairly f*cked right around now. The diazepam door was opened this morning and had one of them, but am now at the point where my reluctance to touch them more then twice in 1 week (if even that) has faded away. Now starting to just need something that'll do the job.

AND am still concerned about something I've mentioned before - what the hell have clomipramine done to me? Was balanced(ish) before them, balnced(ish) mentally whilst on them (though did have some additional feelings of depression now I think of it) which is why I came off them due to no noticeable plus effect - and now am progressively worse since coming off them. I can't help thinking that we're messing about with brain chemistry here in an area which the psychs admit is experimental and that they don't know what chemical is playing up. Can taking one thats meant to have on effect, actually cause some kind of imbalance somewhere else or aggravate one already there - and do so in a permanent or long-term fashion? this is too long for withdrawl to still be in effect...

Anyway, as John lennon would say (and all respect to him on the anniv of his death), 'Merry Christmas, Rant Is Over'.

OCD + Randominity

Sat, 18 Nov 2006 09:29:06 GMT

I've invented a word! May well just get back into bed for the rest of the day now as am never gonna top it.

Having said that, pretty bl**dy tempted to do so anyway as I suspect this isn't going to be one of my better ones. Yep, after lulling me into a false sense of security 2 days ago, another OCD spell started kicking off yesterday evening out of nowhere. Had a few warning signs very late on, but actually felt my mood drop out last night at the same time as I just went edgy and started getting hypersensitive to my triggers mentally.

One odd thing that OCD seems to do (bear in mind this is just from my own POV - whether this is universal to all OCD I'm not sure, but I see inspiring panic as a worthy cause) is, when a 'spell' is starting to kick in, to pluck a random memory out of the ether to try and press the anxiety/obsessing buttons. It can be something you may not have thought of for months, even years. Certainly something which, when in a clear period, seems settled: often to the point where you don't even think on it consciously anymore. I guess it's something that must still bother/upset on a deep level.

Thing is though, I'm sure some experts would say these are unresolved issues - and that is actually not necessarily true! Indeed, with OCD, you've often turned over a matter a billion times, found the answer, taken it to bed, made it breakfast in the morning and had children with it - you're already aware of the 'answer' but that won't let you mentally leave it alone (one of the defining characteristics of the illness).

Perhaps the simple answer is that once something has been a trigger thought/image/idea/incident that it always has the potential to be, depending on how strongly it has affected you before you start getting a grip on your disorder. Like the OCD itself, you never cure it - you learn to control it. Some stuff will affect you so deeply or strongly that it will never be fully defused.

Of course, they're also the thoughts that seem to get the psychs confused as to how some OCD works. Quite simply, what comes first - the mood/imbalance affect or the thinking - which causes the other? The answer is: both/neither (there's ambiguity). As a long-time sufferer now, it seems that the mood/imbalance will first find and use a thought/idea etc to channel itself through. That then becomes so bad that, when you're not in a bad spell, you can then trigger one by touching on that thought/idea a little too much and touching off your obsessive behaviour. Which then leads to that whole link being constantly fuelled.

So the first thing to break as a sufferer is the thinking/obsessing about something during those times that you're not actually in a dangerous place mentally, which only comes from accepting that the focal point isn't a real problem but one created/heightened/exaggerated by the OCD - it's not solvable as there's nothing there to solve. Basically, it's an acceptance that you're ill, not just in denial or something. That becomes harder when the behaviour/incident you obsess about is one that itself happened as the result of an obsessional spell, because you're trying to sort out something that you have an unclear memory of because ofyour state of mind at the time and put some kind of rationale upon it - but the principle is the same.

Does managing the above solve it? No, not remotely. But it does stop it getting any worse and does stop it sneaking up on you quite so much. But it does still happen sometimes.

Randominity.

Jumpy jumpy jumpy

Tue, 14 Nov 2006 14:52:48 GMT

Ok, so I'm not at the meltdown anxiety/stress/depressed point that i hit Friday but things still aren't levelling out too well, as I continue to be fantastically edgy and jumpy with my obsessions flexing at the smallest thing at the mo. Did try seeing my sister yesterday but was on edge around my nephew for the whole time , which is normally a sign that my OCD anxiety is really bad as it seldom affects my relationship with him.

*sigh* Ah well, just put the barriers up at home and wait for it to subside I guess - not hit the 'diazepam' point yet so it isn't horrfically bad, just frustrating and depressing.

Still, look on the bright side....

...done that? Good.

Maybe I should add some OCD stuff...

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 13:06:40 GMT

...as it seems I've got so wrapped up in playing with the blog that I've forgotten to add some of the most important info!

Anyway, an update.

Am now about 11 days into Clomipramine withdrawal and, while it's not the hell of Lofepramine, it's still not plain sailing. Thankfully the sweating has stopped now, the blood pressure is ok, the blood/sugar levels are consistently lower (meds are meant to drop your blood/sugar - not mine) and the depression effects seem to have fallen.

On the minus side, my sleep patterns are still not good but appear to be improving - am just starting to sleep a little more solidly over the past 2 days or so. I have a higher base rate of anxiety which is prodding my OCD areas consistently as well. in truth, that's one of the drawbacks of dropping Clomipramine as it did have a slight sedatory effect on my anxiety - unfortunately, the side-fx were too major to make them beneficial. Also, compared to my rpe-clomipramine phase, they weren't beneficial at all 9so much is based on how I feel now). have also started to get slight disorientation spells over past week or so. Not enough to be really bad, just uncomfortable. Had similar with the Lofepramine, so am attributing it to that.

Overall I guess it means that the short term effects cleared quickly but there are other after-effects that are taking longer to reverse, but are doing so slowly.As for the obsessions, same old same old ones really - standard testing patterns re: H-OCD and P-OCD, now more frustrating because I know what they are, how they were caused and how inaccurate my assumptions and understanding of them were when compared to know and so keep falling into the occasional trap of trying to mentally stop it happening.

Should have learnt by now that you can't actually do that - understand the cause for sure, understand that the physical and mental responses I have are a result of excessive anxiety to the fear of inappropriate sexual thoughts/imagery (and that those responses or either a) anxiety and not arousal, or b) a mixture of the two as a result of mental testing and impulse confusion on the brains behalf due to the ocd process) - BUT trying to mentally force them to stop isn't possible and actually makes OCD worse. Just understand it and try to let it burn itself out of its spell without giving it more credit then it deserves.

Still, is very hard to educate your mind that this is the real reason it's doing what it is doing, after a block of years worrying there was some dark reason behind it (and so feeding the anxiety and making it worse) - especially as, let's face it, even the sanest being amongst us suffers the odd random mental/physical twinge at things in vaguely sexual areas that make little sense. They just don't pay them any attention or respect.

Fun.