How real does OCD feel to you?

[Zen108]

When mine is bad, it feels like there is a beast with his arms wrapped around my body. I read two young adult books wherein the main character described OCD thoughts as spirals that get tighter and tighter. Any one want to describe how theirs feels?

[SCC1]

My head/mind feel tight and like my thoughts are twisting together and becoming one big ball of twists. It's like a really big mess of yarn intertwining and the knot in the middle is holding the strands together, but they branch out differently. It feels like my head is full and cannot breathe. All sides of my mind are taken up with the OCD thoughts and compulsions and there is no room for anything else. Emotionally, it feels sad and like "why?"

This is a great question, btw. I hope it turns into a really interesting thread! Thank you!

[Scouns]

Mine feels like a seperate entity that wakes up enraged and takes over every ounce of will power or self control I have. It forces me to ask certain family friends pastor for reassurance that even when I get the answer I’m looking for I still don’t believe that they know wirh 100% certainty. I feel paranoid and terrified and like I literally become someone else. It has alienated me from most of my former support system so I feel very alienated from my former life. My therapist tells me the only way out is to sit in the discomfort of not being certain and ask for no reassurance which makes total sense but when ocd wakes up in me sitting in it feels impossible like I’m gonna die.

[Zen108 in reply to Scouns]

Sitting in the discomfort when my OCD is high feels unbearable.

[Scouns]

same here

[IStillHaveHope]

I've tried to describe it to people like this. Imagine that your are starting a new job. However, on your first day your told to meet someone in front of an old large warehouse. They greet you and take you through the only door in or out of this warehouse. The warehouse is full of tall boxes and other junk and they guide you, winding through it, to your desk which is pushed up against the wall furthest wall from the door. They are going to leave and turn out the lights. You're to work at this desk with a small lamp to see. Before they leave they say, "Oh by the way, there is a very large, very hungry tiger somewhere in this warehouse, but I'm sure you'll be fine". They then leave you to your work.

How many times are you going to check behind yourself? How easily are you going to be able to do your work? Are you just going to barricade yourself under your desk and keep a lookout for that tiger? That's what OCD feels like to me. It is an overwhelming sense of fear and dread that is attached to mundane things.

[Scouns in reply to IStillHaveHope]

That's a pretty interesting way to describe and I never would have thought of it but it's makes perfect sense. I'm not sure if Steven King has ocd or not but he quoted somewhere "I know there is nothing scary under my bed. I know that. But I also know that if I keep my feet under the sheets nothing will be able to grab my ankles." This is what ocd is like to me. Like I know the threat isn't real but I'm still terrified of it.

[Zen108 in reply to Scouns]

Exactly! When I was a kid, long before I knew about OCD, I would sleep with pillows behind my back so no one could stab me in the middle of the night! And I would keep my bedroom door cracked "just so" I would feel safe.

[Scouns]

ocd sucks so bad

[Joseph46]

my experience with OCD is my mind fills itself with thoughts about things that have happened in the past and what may happen in the future. I try hard to be mindful and in the moment. It can be difficult to focus because my brain is on fire with all the nonsensical stuff that runs through my mind. There seems to be no reason for my thoughts to be so scrambling at times. It is what it is.