Pure O

Does anyone else have pure O Ocd?

[PureOGirl]

Me!

[Hidden in reply to PureOGirl]

Hello, nice to meet you! Im sorry that you have pure o as well! But I’m happy to have found someone like me! It’s sometimes hard to relate to others who have other types of ocd! What has helped you? It’s so difficult to fight off this monster when i have so many intrusive thoughts and I just go in circles all the time! Sometimes I have awful thoughts and I don’t know whether that is really what I think or if it’s just ocd! And if I try to rationalize it and tell myself it’s not true to my character and just my ocd then I feel like I am lying to myself, and that really am an awful person! Can you relate?

[PureOGirl in reply to Hidden]

Yes its good to feel we are not alone in this struggle. What help me in this journey are medication, psychotherapy and psychoeducation. I recommend you to read freedom from ocd by dr jonathan grayson and drstevenseay.com

My unsolved problem now is to concentrate during my presentation and driving . The intrusive images really sticky in my mind.

Hope both of us are strong to face this everyday!

[Hidden in reply to PureOGirl]

I’m so sorry to hear about the sticky images! Those are not fun, and I try to force them out but that just makes them more vivid! I hope you can find something to help! I’m not much help with presentations but for driving, does music, audiobooks or audio guided meditations help? I will check out those reads! Thank you!

We got this! We have OCD, OCD does not have us!! (Even if it feels like it does)

[bulldog71 in reply to Hidden]

I know exactly how you feel

[HELLNOCD]

I do... the CBT/ERP you have to do is quite intense, but it works. I just got done with 2 months of partial hospitalization and it did a lot to help me... I still have a lot to work on, but yeah the intrusive thoughts can be down right brutal and disturbing... you’re not alone!

[Hidden in reply to HELLNOCD]

Glad I’m not alone! I

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

My response got cut off, what I was trying to say is I’m glad I’m not alone! I did not feel ERP was the therapy for me, but CBT is more helpful in my case! Glad your program was helpful though!!!

[BookwormMo in reply to Hidden]

Again, I hope I'm not intruding. I haven't read much about CBT for OCD. Everyone seems to feel ERP is the gold standard. Did this therapy involve having you "talk back" to your intrusive thoughts?

[HELLNOCD in reply to Hidden]

What do you do in CBT that isn’t exposure? I am curious, thanks!

[BookwormMo in reply to HELLNOCD]

I hope I'm not intruding. (Since I don't have OCD myself, I'm trying not to butt in where I don't belong. :-)) I'm interested in your experience with ERP. My daughter has "Pure O," and her one experience with ERP was not helpful. The therapist basically just told her to start agreeing with the intrusive thoughts that were directed at her. (e.g. "Yes, I am a vile pervert.") Hmm...yeah. I don't know how ERP is done with "Pure O," but I can imagine it would be a very intense experience. Was it the partial hospitalization that made it possible for you to accomplish that? Thanks.

[HELLNOCD in reply to BookwormMo]

Yes the partial hospitalization helped me accomplish this by doing gradual repeated exposures. ERP works, it is extremely difficult... for instance, I had to work my way up to telling staff at the hospital “I am really lying to you, I am really a pedophile, and I am going to go home and rape my daughters”... that was devastating to me, and that was one of my last big exposures I did... I never would have thought I could even type something like that here, but now I can because I understand and accept that those thoughts are ego-dystonic and are not me. My thoughts haven’t gone away, but my reaction to them has and they don’t bother me anymore. You focus on changing the behavior and not the thought... changing the thought is futile.

[BookwormMo in reply to HELLNOCD]

Thank you for sharing this, and I admire the courage it took for you to go through that. It sounds like the version of ERP recommended to my daughter was not too far off the track, but she didn't get enough structure and support. I will start inquiring about partial hospitalization. Is this like an intensive day program where clients go home every night?

[Hidden in reply to BookwormMo]

Your not intruding at all!! Yes, My erp was partial hospitalization. I was not told what your daughter was I’m regards to agreeing with it however, that’s sounds awful! They tried to put in situations where I would have my thoughts and just sit with them and be ok, but i wasn’t the same as having the real thoughts that come in whenever! But yes, a lot of the cbt was finding evidence for and against the thought! I have been in 3 in patient programs and two partial hospitalization programs and to be honest just finding the right therapist after those programs is what helped me most! I hope my response is helpful! Please feel free to message me if you would like to talk more!

[BookwormMo in reply to Hidden]

Thank you so much! I am so glad you found the right therapist. That makes all the difference.

[HELLNOCD in reply to BookwormMo]

Yes, my partial hospitalization was every day for 8 hours with homework and it was tailored to my life and it was with Rogers Behavioral Health and it was the best thing I did... they have many satellite branches across the US and their residential in Wisconsin is also amazing... there are three that are the best, (1) Rogers and they have 1 residential sight and many partial hospitalization programs across the us, (2) Houston OCD, and (3) MacLean in Boston...

[HELLNOCD in reply to HELLNOCD]

...anyways, a good hierarchy building is important to address the obsessions and it is common to have some resistance, but it’s important to keep trying. There are multiple types of exposures and ways to execute them. If the exposures don’t work as I described then they can try a disconfirmation route which is doing a difficult task and seeing if the feared outcome happens (which it doesn’t) and using that to continually to disprove the fear quantitatively... I was taught that good exposures should be (1) prolonged, (2) repeated, and (3) gradual... also finding what your compulsions are is key (even if they are purely mental) and then trying to resist them... we tracked them in a van book and marked our submits and resists in order to help strengthen awareness and better tackle our problems...

[HELLNOCD in reply to HELLNOCD]

...I know I just rambled off a bunch, but just want to help... so let me know if you ever have any more questions... lastly, I am a big fan of support groups and most are free, but just finding others that have OCD is incredibly helpful!

[BookwormMo in reply to HELLNOCD]

Thank you so much. This is extremely helpful. I will look into Rogers.

[Max40yearsOCD]

I do. As a boy I would say my hands with alcohol. Wrote on walls every thought. Never walk over a crack in the floor. Skip back and forth until a certain amount of times. Disturbing taboo thoughts etc.

[bulldog71]

I know how you feel. You have the obsessions but cannot have compulsions to at least relieve some anxiety. I’m sorry, this is a cruel disease which preys on some of the best people. Keep fighting.