Obsessive compulsive twist

MeganAlmighty · 18-04-2020, 10:38 AM

Hiya

Brief outIine: I made a comeback (lol) in December and made a post about how I'd come off my meds and obsessive thoughts and behaviours had come creeping back in and then came down on me like a ton of bricks after years of them being fairly managable and almost non existent some days.

So in more recent times I've been struggling with intrusive thoughts and checking and energy/aura contamination/crossover worries. I had a psychological screening and was put on a 3-4 month waiting list for 1:1 psychology (explained more on previous thread).

Well I guess the wait will be longer now and things will be much more stretched as I can only imagine the impact that the world's situation right now is having on people's mental health whether they have pre existing MH conditions or not and for me..

the obsessions have now also took a turn down the hygiene and virus contamination fears path.
On top of everything else that I was already having to check, say out loud, shield from, I now have some very time consuming cleaning rituals in my days.

I now have to wash my hands every single time I check what I have already been having to check. Baring in mind this can be upto about 10 times per minute sometimes and now with a 20 second hand wash inbetween each check....Yea. And my hands are so sore that it's hurting to check things like the door handles and taps now (things I have to grip).

Some things haven't become a habit yet to the point where i can do them automatically so they are even scarier and take longer.
Like, my carer brings my shopping and puts it in the back garden then I have to wash each item with 2 different products and try to get it into the kitchen and into the cupboards without contaminating anything but of course I could get something on myself and then get it on something in the kitchen and then i have to get to the shower without anything getting up there and euuuughhh. So because I haven't got a strict thing with that yet it's driving me mad.
Luckily I live alone so I don't have anyone else bringing stuff in.

I had a real meltdown on Tuesday whilst washing loose potatoes in a bowl of washing up liquid and I just ended up crying in a heap about how rediculous that seemed. I know that all of this does seem stupid especially when put next to scientific facts but with this stuff it's always a what if, you never know, just incase.
When I cautiously tried to tell a friend about it she joked to not be daft and that I'll be fine and that made me feel even more pathetic. I know it's not completely rational...."but you never know"

I think I'm posting to see if anyone else is having the same or similar problems because it feels a bit lonely at the moment because I can't really voice it anywhere.
I don't know.
I'm embarrassed.

I don't know how to end this.

Thank you for reading

Mx

Pi.R^2 · 22-04-2020, 10:27 AM

Hey,

Sorry to hear that you're having such a nightmare. I don't think you're alone in experiencing a big exacerbation in obsessive compulsive behaviours in light of the current situation. We're all to an extent being encouraged to be very militant about cleanliness and hygiene which is almost guaranteed to push things off the scale for people who already have OCD-type behaviours. You don't need to be embarrassed.

Do you have any phone contact with your carer or any other professional?

Maybe you could try to categorise your checking, behaviours and rituals into two columns- "things that are sensible to do right now" and "things that are logically not necessary". Someone who isn't you and so has an outside perspective could help you decide if your list is accurate and if you wanted to you could start to challenge one of the things on the second list- remind yourself why it isn't necessary, and try to reduce the frequency of it.

I realise you didn't actually ask for advice of tackling this, so apologies for the unsolicited suggestions if you weren't really looking for that!

MeganAlmighty · 24-04-2020, 10:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pi.R^2

Hey,

Sorry to hear that you're having such a nightmare. I don't think you're alone in experiencing a big exacerbation in obsessive compulsive behaviours in light of the current situation. We're all to an extent being encouraged to be very militant about cleanliness and hygiene which is almost guaranteed to push things off the scale for people who already have OCD-type behaviours. You don't need to be embarrassed.

Do you have any phone contact with your carer or any other professional?

Maybe you could try to categorise your checking, behaviours and rituals into two columns- "things that are sensible to do right now" and "things that are logically not necessary". Someone who isn't you and so has an outside perspective could help you decide if your list is accurate and if you wanted to you could start to challenge one of the things on the second list- remind yourself why it isn't necessary, and try to reduce the frequency of it.

I realise you didn't actually ask for advice of tackling this, so apologies for the unsolicited suggestions if you weren't really looking for that!

No, this is really helpful! That's actually a really good idea to send a copy of my lists to my team and to have someone go through things with me over the phone and maybe be up for some conpromisong and small changes. It's a really good idea- I'm going to do it. Thank you so much.
I hope you are managing