Do you think I could have OCD?

[lsw86]

I have this irrational fear of tsunamis. I think about them every day, most often at night-time while I am trying to go to sleep. Sometimes I can lie in bed for hours without realising it, obsessing over every detail, eg. What would I do if I had warning, how would I save the kids, how horrible and painful of a death it would be for my kids. I get to a point where I wish I had never had kids because I cannot bear the thought of them dying a painful death in a tsunami. Sometimes if I am very depressed or stressed about something is when these nights occur, sometimes just thinking about tsunamis for an hour or so can lead me into a depression that have lasted up to 3 weeks. One night I thought about it for so long and became so panicked about it that I felt like I was suffocating and I could feel and hear my heart pounding in my chest. This fear of tsunamis has lasted for about a year and a half now, I think about them every day, and have probably at least one night week where i cant sleep because I cant stop thinking about them. Sometimes its every night for weeks on end. The other thing I do that I have read could be a symptom of OCD is the counting. When I was 16 years old I suddenly started this thing where I would pick out random words from conversation, tv or a book, and I would imagine that I was texting on my mobile phone. In my head I count how many times I would have to press each button with each thumb to spell out the word. I know it sounds ridiculous, and I don’t even text anymore! I do this a lot when I am lying there thinking about tsunamis, or when I am stressed about anything in particular. Sometimes I can miss big chunks of tv shows without realising it because I have been counting out so many of the words. I also get this tight anxious sort of feeling in my chest whenever the words I am imagining don’t add up to the same amount of times each thumb presses the buttons to get the word out, and I have to quickly think of a new word or do one that I know adds up to the same. I feel really silly typing this out, I have never spoken in such detail to ANYONE about this, but have been considering for awhile now going to the doctors. Thankyou for reading.

 

[lsw86]

sorry just wanted to correct this line ""probably at least one night week where i cant sleep because I cant stop thinking about them" i meant that it can take me hours and hours to be able to fall asleep, not that I dont get any sleep at all!

 

[Hellhound]

That sounds like OCD. Have you thought about going to a psychiatrist? It could be helpful, I know these things have a treatment.

 

[chained]

yeah, i agree with Hellhound..

 

[TheStatue]

Sounds like me up until about a year ago. My thoughts constantly kept involuntarily drifting into the most unthinkable of horrors. At any moment I could imagine myself being forced into doing certain things or being tortured. I could not stop the thoughts coming at me.

Neither could I stand the number 3 or anything divisible by it. When I was younger and saw any number or word, my mind would start to look for patterns, rearrangements, conversions, etc of it just in order to make sure I wasn't looking at anything that could possibly be associated with 3.

I also felt I had to close doors in a certain way, repeat a certain phrase every night before falling asleep and so on. But somehow all that has mostly gone away now. (I even managed to type the number 3 three times in this post!) Instead my anxiety about meeting other people has increased. But that is another story.

 

[Lea]

I think I have compulsions a lot, but I've got used to it so much that I don't have a clue what it would be like to be normal. It's as if my brain activity wasn't coherent and fluent, but pieces of my brain tied together with a string.... not being able to connect with each other. If I do something it's not because I want to, but because I have to... As if I was haunted from within myself.