It is quite difficult to describe but, has anyone an obsession of feeling possessed, but not in a religious/blasphemous manner? I have yet to find anyone with something similar, because I think the obsession is actually about control. Like being controlled by a dead person.
This intrusive thought comes along with distorted physical sensations of a twitch in the groin (not a groinal response, just a muscle twitch), as if the thought had the power to make the body twitch. It might actually be an actual sensation, because it's not in a visible location, so noone can check.
I am asking for my husband, who would love to find someone who understands, because this is all he managed to explain to me.
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MonikaAlicia
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Hello, first off I'll say that most of the people on this site totally understand what your husband is feeling and understand the hell that OCD can be.
I've had OCD thoughts about being possessed by something when I was younger. I think it was the fact that I had seen part of The Exorcist and I couldn't get the thought out of my head that, "What if something like that happened to me?". I realize now that these were just OCD thoughts and they don't bother me as often anymore.
If you look into OCD you'll see that a big theme of it is, "Fear of Losing Control". From reading your post I would hazard a guess and say that the deeper worry is that he would hurt someone he cares for, lose himself, or do something embarrassing that he'd (feels) never recover from. It's important to remember that these are all lies that OCD tells us. OCD is all about uncertainty and people with OCD try to make sure that the thing they worry about will never happen. This is where the compulsions come in; either with rituals or ruminating on the thought to try and "figure it out". This of course doesn't work and only teaches the brain that the thoughts are scary and something to avoid at all cost. A feedback loop is setup where the person with OCD will have the thought/trigger, feel intense anxiety, and perform the compulsion to try and alleviate it. This only reduces the anxiety for a short time and the person has the thought/trigger again and performs the compulsion again. Overtime, this just strengthens the anxiety and the compulsions.
The good news is that medication and therapy can really help. For me things started to change when I was just honest with my doctor. I told him what I was feeling and he prescribed some medicine and I asked him to refer me to a therapist. It took time and a lot of effort, but I'm at a much better place now. The only thing I wish I had done different was ask for a therapist who specialized in OCD. They use a technique called Exposure Response Therapy (ERP) which involves you slowly facing your fears and learning to deal with them. This breaks the feedback loop I described above.
I'm really sorry your husband is having difficulty with OCD. I really am since I know personally how it feels. It can feel so embarrassing, isolating, and terrifying. You try to describe it to people and they don't understand. It makes you feel like you're crazy. This is not true of course. The good news is that there are a ton of people out there who want to (and can) help. There are also millions of us who understand exactly what he's going through. He's not alone in this.
I'm sorry if this comes off as rambling, but I truly hope your husband finds the peace he deserves. God bless you both.
OMG! The same thing happened to me. My OCD started after I watched the devil in Emily Rose when I was 21. And the weirdest thing is that I’m not even religious, yet I was obsessed by the thought that the devil will possess my body. I also share the same understanding that OCD is much about control. Control in any aspect of our lives.
Thank you for the long and speedy response! It means a lot to be listened to and taken seriously in this way, though it is not for myself.
I don't think he himself knows where the obsession is coming from, and two different courses of therapy, one with an OCD specialist, have not helped clear it up. There are compulsions, but they seem disconnected from this, they are about hygiene and contamination, and happen in different contexts all together. There are actually no compulsions to lighten the anxiety of this intrusive thought, all he can do is ruminate. I will propose the idea of a fear of losing control to him and see if it resonates at all, thank you for the input!
Can I just try and run something by you? Because I think I have understood OCD in general, but have not been able to check back with a professional.
So everyone has intrusive thoughts from time to time. Like how it would be to jump off a cliff when you're standing there. While most people are able to accept that these are uncontrollable, and come and go in different situations, and don't attach any meaning to them, people with OCD are prone to interpret significance into them. OCD sufferers will then ruminate on the thoughts that cause them discomfort to make sense of them or disprove them, and thereby create neural pathways which lead them to the thought constantly, only increasing the anxiety. This happens to a degree where even mentions of a cliff lead to the thought and the patients then try to alleviate the anxiety with connected (or seemingly disconnected?) compulsions. Therapy can then try to expose them to triggers, like first images of cliffs, until eventually actually standing at an edge and letting the thought exist with minimal discomfort. But therapy cannot provide the ability to not have the tendency to ruminate on thoughts like these, because OCD is a lifelong condition. Only to cope better with them, similar to how a healthy person would, to the point where the symptoms are completely manageable. Did I get that right?
I'm sorry to hear that the OCD specialist didn't help. Was medication used in conjunction? Medicine with therapy has something like a 80% success rate.
The description you gave of OCD seems like a good basic understanding. There is a physiological side as well though. I forgot where I read it, but when doing brain scans of people with OCD researchers found that the part of the brain activating during obsessions was also close to the flight/fight center. They speculated that due to it's proximity, the overactivation caused activation of the flight/fight center. That is why people with OCD can have intense distress over very silly thoughts.
I also read somewhere that OCD isn't a thinking problem, it's a feeling problem. The context or theme of the thought doesn't matter. It's the associated feeling that's at issue. I say this because people with OCD can fall into a trap where they try to, "figure out" a thought to make it less scary. This doesn't work in the long run since another thought will replace it. From my experience, the medicine helps by toning down the intensity of the thoughts. That allows you to better face them in therapy.
A few weeks ago, I put together a list of things I've learned from having OCD. I wrote it for a user who was just starting therapy, but I think there might be some good things in there that might help you (or your husband) understand the challenges people with OCD face (and maybe some advice).
Thank you! I have checked out your list and read it twice now, I really love it.
Apart from the very good advice, the point "In a way we are lucky" is something that really made me think. I used to worry about how unlucky we are to be dealing with this illness, because after all, it may be manageable, but it is a psychiatric illness, and it just sucks to have something like that in our life. But then I thought about how my best friend in school suffered from a borderline personality disorder and was close to suicide, how depression firmly holds a growing percentage of people in its grasp, how PTSD ruins the lives of whole families, and how millions of people die every year from eating disorders. If I had to choose from a list of the most common psychiatric illnesses, OCD would not be my last pick.
It is treatable. It is manageable. Research has come and is coming a long way. Awareness for this condition is growing, and through that the stigma is shrinking.
Yes, OCD really really sucks, and I can only observe and imagine how much my husband suffers behind the boundaries of what he is able to explain to me. But we still have a good life, and I know that he will get better, either periodically or permanently. That is a blessing, and I cherish it every day.
Your point about historical people who had OCD and were successful still, is also very valid. It reminds me of how I was taught to deal with ADHD (I'm a teacher), which was always worded in a negative way, basically like "How can you adjust to the stresses an ADHD student will put on your class?". Then out of nowhere I saw a book in a store called "ADHD: A Blessing, not a Curse", explaining how ADHD can be a huge advantage for children, if teachers work WITH it not AGAINST it. With the example of Albert Einstein, who is believed to have had ADHD, it demonstrated how the "chaotic" and "impulsive" thinking of ADHD kids could also be called "out of the box" and "creative", and how that can lead to very positive performance outcomes, if the kids are only allowed to work differently. I know that OCD and ADHD are not directly comparable, I'm just saying that the reframing of something that is always perceived as an issue into a neutral or even good thing can make the world of a difference for everybody involved.
Oh and sorry, I forgot to write half of what I way going to say.
No, there was no medication used in his therapies. He is extremely scared of the side effects, and getting worse in the first few weeks, because he says he is at his limit as it is.
The fact that the specialised therapy didn't help has really crushed his spirits about getting better at all. Though medication is still the most valid and important step, it would have to go along with ERP, and that only made him worse last time. He tried for a long time, ten weeks or so of sessions twice a week, because he knew it had to get worse before it gets better, but he finally quit after the therapist admitted she chose the wrong way of exposure for him. That was last year, he then stabilised on his own. But that is why therapy is not really an option for him, at least not at the moment.
I actually think that a self-help group would work much better for him, because he is extremely well-read on his condition by now and knows the techiques, as he has tried many of them. The feeling of isolation is what makes him suffer a lot, the feeling that noone can understand, and that other people are "normal" and don't suffer from intrusive thoughts and sleeping problems like he does. Basically the social stigma against mental illness, but only inflicted by himself. The community here is exactly what would give him strength, because you all have so much expertise and so many vastly different, but still similar, experiences.
I find what you wrote above amazing because it almost perfectly traces my path with OCD.
I tried for about a year with just therapy alone. Another problem with OCD is that is waxes and wanes. I would have periods when I felt good and then move into periods where I felt absolutely terrible. I felt so discouraged and pathetic that I couldn't control these thoughts and I too was very scared and hesitant to take medicine. I can only speak for myself, but the medicine really helped. It took a few tries to get on the right one, but I remember about 10 days in I found that I could ignore the thoughts somewhat. This was the first time I was able to do so and I almost broke down and cried.
The first week was a hard since I was having trouble sleeping and felt loopy. I asked the doctor to prescribe some sedatives and those helped me get through it. After about day 10 the side effects started to lift and by 2 weeks I would say I felt 80% better. It slowly got better and better and after a few months I felt like I was making real progress in my therapy.
I will also say that the medicine isn't a "happy pill" and it doesn't change who you are. The best way I can describe it is that it makes the anxiety more bearable and thus you're better able to face it.
This should go without saying, but your husband has nothing to be ashamed of. He has an imbalance of neurochemicals in his brain that is causing him to feel intense anxiety. It's no different if you had a thyroid problem or a heart problem. He is not his OCD.
Anyway, I've gone on for a bit. I hope this helped you both in some way
Yes I would also like to add that you are protected by God by the power of His Son, Jesus Christ. He defeated death and the devil on the cross of Calvary, where he voluntarily died on our behalf to pay for all our sins and imperfections, and to conquer death itself by resurrecting from dead three days later to forever be our advocate and friend to answer prayers and lead us forward in life and eventually into heaven one day when it is our time.
Continue praying and seeking God and he will lead you into more peace and hope in your life. Everything else in life is fleeting, but Jesus Christ resurrected to live forever as our Lord and God. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are One and they love us with a great love!
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