Anxiety,OCD or pure O ???!

[em1]

I have suffered from
Anxiety for 17 years and I was doing gr8,a few months ago I had that feeling of the attack coming on and I said no that's it enough I've ha this for years and years spoiling everything and it went away for a while I thought wow that really does work,untill I got intrusive thoughts now I can't remember when or how I got this I just woke up and the scary thoughts was there,they made me more ill than the Heath anxitey I always had,I was going to go for therapy and they said because I had intrusive thoughts I may have OCD I'm
Really not convinced about this as I don't have it without my anxitey,any thoughts?
Thanks
Emma

[jessed03]

It sounds like pure O for sure. Diagnosis isn't too important. OCD is just an anxiety disorder, so they're both tackled in similar ways. Many people have overlaps between Pure O, OCD, and anxiety. Sounds like maybe you do too, as I haven't seen you ever say much to suggest full blown OCD?

You'll go through 4 stages with these.

1. High intensity & High Anxiety - Where you're at now. They are rather new and upsetting

2. High intensity & Higher Anxiety - This is when you start to tackle them. You let them come full force at you in order to desensitize. You go right into the core of the fear, and become comfortable with it. Anxiety spikes here.

3. High intensity & Lower Anxiety - You've begun to desensitize to them, however it isn't yet enough to remove them.

4. Medium to Low intensity & No Anxiety - Minds getting the message. They become boring now, but they are still there to a degree.

5. They're gone, or virtually gone - They've become obsolete as a mental process, and are all but ignored by the conscious mind.

[jessed03]

I said 4 stages, I guess the fifth one where they aren't there anymore isn't really a stage? Lol

[em1]

Having OCD or a pure O is very scary more than just panic attacks tho don't you think? I don't want that :(

[jessed03]

Way more scary, yeah. I had panic attacks that were severe, but my pure O attacks were like nothing I'd ever experienced before or probably ever will again. Pure O is like anxiety on steroids.

Desensitization will be your best friend here. Your therapist will do that with you. You'll first uncover what the fear is behind these thoughts, and tackle that in the normal CBT way - this is usually easy, the fear is often that you're dangerous, or evil, or insane, or well any of those sort of things.

Then you'll begin to let these thoughts come without tackling them. Rumination is what OCD lives on. Often in your head you try and talk yourself out of the thoughts, find evidence for or against them, do compulsive things like staying away from loved ones, hiding knives, trying to find out if you can trust yourself etc etc etc... But you will be taught to let them come unchallenged, and beat the hell out of you for a little while freely. This makes anxiety skyrocket. But after a while, they've done all they can do. They can't harm you, or anyone you love, ever.

Once you're desensitized, they just reduce and reduce and reduce over time... Then pretty soon you wake up and realize you haven't had an intrusive thought for weeks.

[em1]

Way more scary, yeah. I had panic attacks that were severe, but my pure O attacks were like nothing I'd ever experienced before or probably ever will again. Pure O is like anxiety on steroids. Desensitization will be your best friend here. Your therapist will do that with you. You'll first uncover what the fear is behind these thoughts, and tackle that in the normal CBT way - this is usually easy, the fear is often that you're dangerous, or evil, or insane, or well any of those sort of things. Then you'll begin to let these thoughts come without tackling them. Rumination is what OCD lives on. Often in your head you try and talk yourself out of the thoughts, find evidence for or against them, do compulsive things like staying away from loved ones, hiding knives, trying to find out if you can trust yourself etc etc etc... But you will be taught to let them come unchallenged, and beat the hell out of you for a little while freely. This makes anxiety skyrocket. But after a while, they've done all they can do. They can't harm you, or anyone you love, ever. Once you're desensitized, they just reduce and reduce and reduce over time... Then pretty soon you wake up and realize you haven't had an intrusive thought for weeks.

Yes I've read about all this
Do you not have them anymore ever? Are you on meds?

[rhar]

How do you stop having anxiety about anxiety symptoms?? Kills me!

[em1]

Mine can come and go that fast tho,but I have to say I have a silver lining about this,I now longer don't fear that I'm going to die from a panic attack as I know that I won't,intrusive thoughts have scared the crap out of me more

[jessed03]

Yes I've read about all this
Do you not have them anymore ever? Are you on meds?

Nope, haven't had one in forever. Even when extremely stressed I don't get them. My friend on here; Janey, used to suffer badly too. In 8months she looks back and laughs at them. I don't use meds to help OCD. Janey found Zoloft helpful. We talked about it in a lot of detail on this thread. The good thing is, you've moved up an anxiety level. Once you tackle this, and eliminate it, most of your anxiety will then be gone. Taking out a higher layer often removes all the lower layers I.e. Health anxiety as you're finding.

http://anxietyforum.net/forum/showthread.php?14840-Exit-Strategy-(it-s-a-long-n)&highlight=Duck+daffy

[Darwin]

Intrusive thoughts are so debilitating. I often get to a point that I try to stop my brain from thinking altogether as to prevent these thoughts for recurring. What we have to remember is first, intrusive thoughts are just that, thoughts. Second, the more we push them away the more they will come back with a vengeance. Finally, if these thoughts were reality, we wouldn't be on a forum distressed about why we have these thoughts, they would simply just be there without too much concern. That's what I tell myself to try and cope when intrusive thoughts start haunting me again.

[em1]

Yes I'm on 50mg of setraline (Zoloft)
Wow thank you this is a massive positive step to hear :)

[jessed03]

Very true Darwin!

Does the Zoloft help or do you find it's making it worse? Some SSRIs can not only make intrusive thoughts worse, but actually cause them.

[em1]

Thank you for
The posts :)

[em1]

Yes it did help me
Last time they went altogether,I cut down my own dose and now I know I should not have done that,I've learnt the hard way tho

[ParanoidPenny]

What is pure O?

[jessed03]

What is pure O?

Intrusive thoughts, such as hurting somebody, or untrue ideas about yourself

[cdfrank]

Do anybody get panic attacks when being intimate?

[Dahila]

I probably do not have it to this extend, but I found a way years ago that was helping me. The mantra, which I was repeating continuously, of course not outlaud :)
One day I notices that they are gone:))

[em1]

Mine comes and goes so I'm not sure if it was just my anxiety and not pure O
I may try some therapy as I've never had any and I would like to see what they have to say about it