I'm new to this site; I found this place while searching for OCD forums & this was the 1st link & seems pretty active compared to some of the other forums. I'm not sure what all may be worth mentioning here so I'll post all I think may be & I apologize for the long length of this post. I'll begin now.
I've had OCD issues with lots of different things most all my life. I've always loved routines, schedules & order. I'm very picky about the way I do certain things & I'm very dependent partly because of that. I avoid trying to learn to do certain things because I know it will take me an extremely long time to do it compared to the average person. I sometimes obsessively count or check things repeatedly. I sometimes get thoughts stuck in my head where I think about something over & over again for a while. I've gone through phases where dangerous thoughts would pop in my head & I'd obsess on it & it really scared me sometimes. I would also start having urges due to my obsessive thoughts some of which would of got me in a quite a lot of trouble if I would not of been able to resist them. I have not had those dangerous thoughts & urges in a long time thankfully. I have lots of compulsions like touching things when I walk by them, obsessively checking email & watched post on forums on my droid when I go out, I sometimes reread post I've made over & over again days after I've made them. Some of this causes me a lot of anxiety sometimes.
I've gone through phases where I had bad porn addiction due to my OCD. I used to moderate some groups for it & I spent over half the day involved with looking for stuff to download, sharing it on the groups & organizing/labeling it. I didn't use or enjoy most of it but I felt I had to do it. I broke free of the groups & sharing a long time ago but it changed. I started getting obsessive thoughts in my head to see certain things(those things change) & then I would start looking for it & spend waaay to much time downloading a bunch of stuff & I would not get around to viewing most of it. I would delete it after a while of having no desire to view it but I would get the thought stuck in my head to download it again shortly after I deleted it & the cycle would continue. I got on a medication to decrease my sex drive for a bit because I could resist my vicious cycle with porn if I completely avoided it & not having a sexual drive helped me resist.
I got in my 1st relationship 9 years ago. It was mostly an online thing; we met on a forum & I became extremely obsessed with her. I felt completely lost when we weren't chatting. She had some problems with alcohol & drugs. I was extremely protective of her & tried to get her to quit because I kept having these thoughts that something bad was going to happen to her & it caused me to have lots of anxiety. She had her own life & when she was busy with it; I would keep obsessing that something bad happened & after a while I wasn't sure what was really going on or not. It caused me to have lots of panic attacks & I became very contorting with her. Things eventually fell apart between us because of it & I fell into an extremely bad depression. I kept obsessing about her & fallowing her post on the forums I knew she used & I would get very nervous whenever I read a new post by her. I read a post by her where she was bragging about how she drank so much she had to get her stomach pumped & I had an extremely bad panic attack & I slashed my arm 9x. I went to the ER & they suspected I was bipolar but it was really a psychotic depression.
I spent the next 5 years seeing psychs & taking meds. I was diagnosed with lots of things; I'm not going get into all that but I was diagnosed with OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Personality & Codependency. I think the Codependency diagnoses was due to the problems I had with my ex & the problems I had with still being obsessed with her which was all related to my OCD. I felt depressed the entire time I was taking meds & none of them has ever helped my OCD unless it was by making me really tired or zoned out. I weaned myself off of all the meds after 5 years & my depression lifted & I haven't seen a psych sense.
I got in my 2nd relationship 7 months ago which was also a mostly online thing & I became extremely obsessed with her like I did with my 1st girl. I started having problems sleeping shortly after it started because I wanted to be sleeping with her instead of sleeping by myself & I wanted to be up incase she was up. I had a bad panic attack after a month or so because she got very withdrawn with me due to me being very clingy. I researched anxiety medication a bit & I went to my GP & got him to write me a prescription for Buspar; I'm taking 10mg 2wice a day. I haven't really had a panic attack since & my anxiety in general is a lot better. My girl said I seemed a lot more relaxed after being on it a couple weeks. I still have my OCD but I'm not having the anxiety with it that I used to have. I thought my main problem was anxiety but now that I don't have the anxiety I realize it's OCD. The anxiety was only maybe half my problem. I'm still having obsessive thoughts & lots of compulsions. My girl broke up with me 2 months ago because I'm very clingy & needy & she's too independent, withdrawn & distant to handle a relationship with anyone. I handled this break-up quite a lot better than I did with my 1st girl & I'm not depressed or anything. My thoughts don't dwell on her that much but I keep obsessively viewing her post thou & trying to stop it causes me to feel anxious & I'm afraid that trying to force myself to stop will cause me to have panic attacks. My OCD is gradually getting worse with lots of things now especially with my porn addcition. I'm still having major problems sleeping too.
I don't want to try therapy because I've spent 5 years talking to therapist/counselors & I find posting about things online is aLOT more helpful than seeing them ever was. I doubt therapy can help because my OCD is so highly integrated into most every aspect of my life instead of only being a couple issues that have causes that could be addressed. I tried lots of psych meds including Lexapro, Prozac, Abilify, Klonopin, Lithium, Pristiq, Geodon, Risperidone, Zyprexa, Remeron, & Anafranil; that I remember off the top of my head. None of them has ever helped at all with my OCD except for Anafranil. Anafranil helped after a couple days; I was taking 10mg at night but it quit working after a week on that dose & I had to quit it then because it mad my whole body extremely shaky. I have Essential Tremors; my hands & arms shake when I'm doing things with fine motor-skills or nervous or stressed & psych meds aggravate it a lot which is why I could not stay on some of the meds for more than a couple weeks. I had problems with stuttering/slurring, ticks/twitches in addition to being very shaky. I haven't noticed any side-effects with Buspar thou except for bruising more easily but I bruised easily before. Side-effects were really bad with anti-psychotics so I'd like to avoid taking those & I'd like to avoid anti-depressants because I was depressed the entire 5 years I was on them & I did not start feeling better till I started weaning myself off of them so I think they caused me to stay depressed.
There was a recent study on Essential Tremors & the study showed that those people had a decrease in the concentration of GABA receptors. Benzodiazepines help with GABA & they are sometimes used to treat those tremors. I didn't notice any improvement when I was on Klonopin but I was on other psych meds at the time. I mentioned that study to my GP & he wrote me out a prescription for Ativan; he thinks it may help with my problems sleeping too. I haven't gotten to fill it yet but I'm hoping it will help with my OCD too because I do not know what to try if it doesn't. My OCD causes me a lot of distress sometimes & I feel like I'm dysfunctional because of it. I'm extremely lonely & I'm obsessing about wanting another girlfriend but I'm worried that my OCD will screw a future relationship up unless I get more help with it. Do any of you guys have any ideas, advice, opinions, thoughts?
I've had OCD issues with lots of different things most all my life. I've always loved routines, schedules & order. I'm very picky about the way I do certain things & I'm very dependent partly because of that. I avoid trying to learn to do certain things because I know it will take me an extremely long time to do it compared to the average person. I sometimes obsessively count or check things repeatedly. I sometimes get thoughts stuck in my head where I think about something over & over again for a while. I've gone through phases where dangerous thoughts would pop in my head & I'd obsess on it & it really scared me sometimes. I would also start having urges due to my obsessive thoughts some of which would of got me in a quite a lot of trouble if I would not of been able to resist them. I have not had those dangerous thoughts & urges in a long time thankfully. I have lots of compulsions like touching things when I walk by them, obsessively checking email & watched post on forums on my droid when I go out, I sometimes reread post I've made over & over again days after I've made them. Some of this causes me a lot of anxiety sometimes.
I've gone through phases where I had bad porn addiction due to my OCD. I used to moderate some groups for it & I spent over half the day involved with looking for stuff to download, sharing it on the groups & organizing/labeling it. I didn't use or enjoy most of it but I felt I had to do it. I broke free of the groups & sharing a long time ago but it changed. I started getting obsessive thoughts in my head to see certain things(those things change) & then I would start looking for it & spend waaay to much time downloading a bunch of stuff & I would not get around to viewing most of it. I would delete it after a while of having no desire to view it but I would get the thought stuck in my head to download it again shortly after I deleted it & the cycle would continue. I got on a medication to decrease my sex drive for a bit because I could resist my vicious cycle with porn if I completely avoided it & not having a sexual drive helped me resist.
I got in my 1st relationship 9 years ago. It was mostly an online thing; we met on a forum & I became extremely obsessed with her. I felt completely lost when we weren't chatting. She had some problems with alcohol & drugs. I was extremely protective of her & tried to get her to quit because I kept having these thoughts that something bad was going to happen to her & it caused me to have lots of anxiety. She had her own life & when she was busy with it; I would keep obsessing that something bad happened & after a while I wasn't sure what was really going on or not. It caused me to have lots of panic attacks & I became very contorting with her. Things eventually fell apart between us because of it & I fell into an extremely bad depression. I kept obsessing about her & fallowing her post on the forums I knew she used & I would get very nervous whenever I read a new post by her. I read a post by her where she was bragging about how she drank so much she had to get her stomach pumped & I had an extremely bad panic attack & I slashed my arm 9x. I went to the ER & they suspected I was bipolar but it was really a psychotic depression.
I spent the next 5 years seeing psychs & taking meds. I was diagnosed with lots of things; I'm not going get into all that but I was diagnosed with OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Personality & Codependency. I think the Codependency diagnoses was due to the problems I had with my ex & the problems I had with still being obsessed with her which was all related to my OCD. I felt depressed the entire time I was taking meds & none of them has ever helped my OCD unless it was by making me really tired or zoned out. I weaned myself off of all the meds after 5 years & my depression lifted & I haven't seen a psych sense.
I got in my 2nd relationship 7 months ago which was also a mostly online thing & I became extremely obsessed with her like I did with my 1st girl. I started having problems sleeping shortly after it started because I wanted to be sleeping with her instead of sleeping by myself & I wanted to be up incase she was up. I had a bad panic attack after a month or so because she got very withdrawn with me due to me being very clingy. I researched anxiety medication a bit & I went to my GP & got him to write me a prescription for Buspar; I'm taking 10mg 2wice a day. I haven't really had a panic attack since & my anxiety in general is a lot better. My girl said I seemed a lot more relaxed after being on it a couple weeks. I still have my OCD but I'm not having the anxiety with it that I used to have. I thought my main problem was anxiety but now that I don't have the anxiety I realize it's OCD. The anxiety was only maybe half my problem. I'm still having obsessive thoughts & lots of compulsions. My girl broke up with me 2 months ago because I'm very clingy & needy & she's too independent, withdrawn & distant to handle a relationship with anyone. I handled this break-up quite a lot better than I did with my 1st girl & I'm not depressed or anything. My thoughts don't dwell on her that much but I keep obsessively viewing her post thou & trying to stop it causes me to feel anxious & I'm afraid that trying to force myself to stop will cause me to have panic attacks. My OCD is gradually getting worse with lots of things now especially with my porn addcition. I'm still having major problems sleeping too.
I don't want to try therapy because I've spent 5 years talking to therapist/counselors & I find posting about things online is aLOT more helpful than seeing them ever was. I doubt therapy can help because my OCD is so highly integrated into most every aspect of my life instead of only being a couple issues that have causes that could be addressed. I tried lots of psych meds including Lexapro, Prozac, Abilify, Klonopin, Lithium, Pristiq, Geodon, Risperidone, Zyprexa, Remeron, & Anafranil; that I remember off the top of my head. None of them has ever helped at all with my OCD except for Anafranil. Anafranil helped after a couple days; I was taking 10mg at night but it quit working after a week on that dose & I had to quit it then because it mad my whole body extremely shaky. I have Essential Tremors; my hands & arms shake when I'm doing things with fine motor-skills or nervous or stressed & psych meds aggravate it a lot which is why I could not stay on some of the meds for more than a couple weeks. I had problems with stuttering/slurring, ticks/twitches in addition to being very shaky. I haven't noticed any side-effects with Buspar thou except for bruising more easily but I bruised easily before. Side-effects were really bad with anti-psychotics so I'd like to avoid taking those & I'd like to avoid anti-depressants because I was depressed the entire 5 years I was on them & I did not start feeling better till I started weaning myself off of them so I think they caused me to stay depressed.
There was a recent study on Essential Tremors & the study showed that those people had a decrease in the concentration of GABA receptors. Benzodiazepines help with GABA & they are sometimes used to treat those tremors. I didn't notice any improvement when I was on Klonopin but I was on other psych meds at the time. I mentioned that study to my GP & he wrote me out a prescription for Ativan; he thinks it may help with my problems sleeping too. I haven't gotten to fill it yet but I'm hoping it will help with my OCD too because I do not know what to try if it doesn't. My OCD causes me a lot of distress sometimes & I feel like I'm dysfunctional because of it. I'm extremely lonely & I'm obsessing about wanting another girlfriend but I'm worried that my OCD will screw a future relationship up unless I get more help with it. Do any of you guys have any ideas, advice, opinions, thoughts?
