mom with ocd

Hello everyone, I am new to this forum. I am a 37 year old mom of one and happily married. I have severe anxiety and ocd. This post is long and contains many trigger warnings.

My ocd started as health anxiety right before I turned 31. It knocked me off my feet and I was unable to work or leave the house for months. I was convinced I was dying or some illness even though I was told by many medical professionals that I was perfect healthy. I was able to get my anxiety under control and get back to work, eventually moving to a different state with my fiancé. We got married in 2020 and had our LO towards the end of 2021.

October 2022 I suffered a miscarriage. I was 16 weeks and it was quite traumatic. I was alone at the hospital because my spouse had to stay with our LO. We lived 5 hours away from family and friends. A couple of months after the loss I started to get anxious about my health, particularly breast cancer. I couldnt get it out of my head that the achy breast was something sinister. In January I went to get checked and was told that I was fine. That relief was extremely short lived. I started Doubting the medical professional and continued to be an anxious mess all day. At the end of January I reached out for help from w psychologist. She agreed that I had Health anxiety.

On Valentine’s Day of this year my world turned upside down. I was on the phone with my friend and she was telling me about a young mom who took her life. How she supposedly got help and it didn’t work, etc. The moment I hung up the phone I was consumed with panic. My brain was convinced that I would end up just like that poor girl. That the help that I was Getting wasn’t going to work. Needless to say that moment opened the flood gates to intrusive thoughts that I never dreamed I would be having. I’m 8 months I have gone from fears of suicide to fears to psychosis and schizophrenia . All those I can handle. The intrusive thoughts about my son have broken me. This has been my worst battle. The first time I had an intrusive thought was in April. I was scrolling Instagram and saw a post of child loss and how those babies go to heaven. I thought How sweet is that and my mind straightaway went to i must not love my son.. I became fixated on how I was Feeling when I’d look back at pictures of my lo as a baby. Was I anxious? Did I feel regret? The second time I had A thought was when i was trying to meditate. I was focusing on an object ( a plant) and thinking about how my husband and I bought It before we had a baby and in our old apartment, etc. within an instant I hate a thought that my son should die. That thought knocked my off my feet. I couldnt eat or sleep for days. I was In a constant state of panic.

Thankfully, at the end of May we moved back to our home state and things were going well enough until a couple of months ago. I became fixated on how I felt when looking back at pictures. I feared that I would become like the moms you hear about in the news. I spiraled. I was in a constant state of panic. I cry everyday. I can’t look at my son without getting teary. I’m angry that this illness has taken my beautiful memories away. The more i try not to think about the bad things they more they come up. It’s like I don’t know what is real and what isn’t. How can I go from being obsessed with my son to having these awful thoughts. Everything related to motherhood is a trigger and i am consumed by guilt. I just want to go back in time and erase this. I feel so alone and depressed. I contacted a couple of therapists but I’m afraid they’ll just confirm my worst fears. That I’m a monster

[LuvSun]

First off, Welcome Scared 122! I would definitely follow up with a therapist. You are suffering with intrusive thoughts from your OCD. You can get help with this. You are not your thoughts!

[mmmmww]

You are not a monster! And you are not alone/not the only one with such awful thoughts about loved ones.

The difference between being someone with OCD and a "monster" is, a monster would act on those thoughts and make them a reality. The fact that you are scared of the thoughts you have just confirms that you are quite the opposite to a monster.

Motherhood is difficult at the best of times, when you throw in a mental illness, it makes it so much worse. But you are most certainly not a monster just for having bad thoughts.

Are you taking any medication to help with your mental state? If you're not, I do suggest you look into getting medication. And if you're scared of taking/"being on" medication, then check out my numerous posts regarding it, because I put it off for about a year and when I finally plucked up the courage, it was the best decision ever.

Whatever you do, just always remember, you are not the monster, it's just the OCD and anxiety.

[deValentin]

It’s difficult to predict the future. If you’re optimist, you anticipate the best-case scenario; if you’re pessimist, you anticipate the worst-case scenario. And if you have OCD, you’re tormented by the possibility of the worst-case scenario and the questions like “What if I get sick, what if my intrusive thoughts mean something about myself, etc.” OCD-free people dismiss those type of questions if they’re not based on evidence. People with OCD can’t because they’re afraid to regret it if the unlikely worst-case scenario does actually happen. They need absolute certainty before setting aside OCD thoughts or urges. They’ll never get that absolute certainty, so they’re stuck: they can’t stop searching for something they’ll never find. This is time-consuming, distressing, and self-feeding. The solution that worked for me was to look as objectively as possible at reality and ask myself whether my OCD fear was based on evidence. If not, I dismissed it. I contented myself with reasonable certainty. It’s difficult for two reasons. First, emotions, like fear, sadness or anger, sometimes push you to distort reality. Second, it takes time to get used to reasonable certainty. However, I was sure of one thing: If I tried to make an honest assessment of reality without rushing to judgment, I’ll never regret it, whatever the future might hold for me.

[deValentin]

One more thought. If you seek to much reassurance from others that you're not a "monster", it'll never be enough. That's the nature of OCD. Content yourself with reasonable evidence, even if it's not easy first. It gets better with time. That's the main principle of Exposure and Response Prevention, or ERP.

[Sami703]

Welcome. Seems we both joined on the same day. I understand you. Im 39 and also a mom with similar thoughts. I have terrible thoughts of awful things happening to my kids and sometimes wonder why I became a mom. Its like i love them so much it literally scares me to death. Please message me, id love to talk to you. Youre not awful, this isnt your fault ❤️

[Sallyskins]

This is such a shame - just as you should be enjoying motherhood and family life OCD has taken over. But there is help, and you can come through this.

Miscarriage is traumatic, and you had to face it largely alone. Some form of grief counselling might help here.

I'm afraid that OCD does often focus on what matters most to you, and what is most precious in your life - in this case, your son. Many mothers with OCD have the most horrible and distressing thoughts about their children.

How about asking your doctor about medication - or perhaps a referral to a psychiatrist? Although medication isn't the whole answer, and doesn't work for some people, it can help to damp down the worst of the OCD. It does take 4 - 6 weeks on the whole to kick in.

But the real treatment is ERP (exposure response prevention) and CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy). They aren't easy to do, but they are effective in stopping the cycle of doubt-reassurance, followed by more doubt and reassurance, and help you to feel differently about the intrusive thoughts.

I know just how it feels - as though intrusive thoughts are bouncing about in your head, and besieging you from outside. Each thing you notice sets off another intrusive thought, and that leads to another and another.

Go easy on yourself - too often OCD puts an intolerable burden of guilt on us, as if it wasn't hard enough in itself. And honestly, you have nothing to feel guilty about.

Perhaps avoid meditation in the meanwhile - it can be very therapeutic in some circumstances, but it can also allow a lot of negative feelings to come to the surface and overwhelm you.

If possible, get a therapist who understands OCD and who uses CBT and ERP techniques. Progress is usually gradual, so don't expect to make great strides immediately. There are likely to be a lot of hiccups and 'failures' along the way, where you don't manage to do the CBT properly, but that's all right. It's important not to think of them as 'failures' - each attempt helps to undo the OCD.

There are also self help books - these can be a real support. Try Overcoming Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or The OCD Workbook - both really helpful. For intrusive thoughts, try Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts by Sally M Winston and Martin N Self.

My heart goes out to you - it can feel so overwhelming. But OCD can be beaten.

[Hidden]

Thank yoy everyone. I’m hoping being back in therapy will help. I was In medication and tapered off with the advice of my psychiatrist. About 5 weeks after the ocd came back with thoughts about my son. I’m afraid to go on it again as I fear I’ll have to go through this all again if I decide to taper off again. We want to eventually have another child but now that is on hold. I find some solace that I couldn’t have just turned into an awful person overnight and suddenly regret every life decision and will bad upon my son.

Ocd is truly a beast. It makes you think opposite of everything you think you won’t think about. Unfortunately, for me a majority of my intrusive thoughts come from reading about other peoples ocd experiences, YouTube comments, etc.

[beth196]

you have OCD and don't trust your judgement. You need meds Lexapro 20mg stopped working and I never thought i would'nt t stop thinking about health anxiety. I went on prozac 40mg and clonazepam .75mg and the OCD stopped. It took 5 weeks but I feel alive again. Mine got worse after each child hang in there you need meds and a OCD PSYCH. You need to feel back in control before ERP will work.