Is this General anxiety disorder or OCD?

[Lovey90]

I want to give you some background information. If I look closely I have been too worried about things throughout my life, atleast after the age of 16 (now Im 19). First because I had a dream of becoming a pro soccer player, which did not work because I had a severe problem with my muscles. So I was worried about what happens if I don't become a pro soccer player, my life will be boring I thought. But I realised I have to let go of this dream and so I did. It was a saturday, and me and a good friend had a little dispute (but now when I look back, this was a catastrophe for me because I did not want anybody to be mad at me). But anyways, that day passed and it was sunday. I stayed up very late and decided to watch a movie, a horror movie. And that was the trigger.

After the movie I had a thought that popped up in my head which was about me hurting my loved ones, which I would never do, so I kept pushing the thought away the whole night. The days after this continued, I felt depressive and a constant fear and worry. But after reading an advice on the net, I let the thought that I was scared of flow through my head and I this was a huge relief because I do not get panic attacks anymore. But now I still feel a constant worry (at some periods it disappears), and I do not know exactly why? I think it is because I am scared of the possibility of doing something that I really do not want, doing something that would ruin my life, like hurting people I love or hurting myself. And the crazy thing is that I love myself and I am nice to everyone, but still I get this uncontrolled feeling. But I read that when you have OCD, you avoid situations and have obsessions. This is not my case, I go on with life as I did before but I feel this constant worry.

[alankay]

Yep. Anxiety for sure. You'll never hurt anyone as you fear but it sure kinda makes one feel uncomfortable. I'd talk with your fam. doc and see about Buspar or an SSRI for a while. I bet it would help but it sure sounds like a classic case of GAD. Alankay.

[jessed03]

It's general anxiety disorder, with a slight touch of OCD. 95% of anxiety cases are like that anyway. It makes treatment no different. It's like you're driving around California, and you've just touched the border of neighbouring Arizona, but not by very much, and you're most certainly not going across state.

In short, don't feed these thoughts, as the more you try to convince yourself you are a good person, the more you'll be sucked into it, and get tangled up with your thinking. That's where the OCD eliment comes in, it's not a big part as you can see, but rumination classes as compulsions in an OCD context. You're performing a mental ritual, or satisfying a compulsion, to check vividly every aspect of your life and thinking, to determine whether your obsession will come true. Perhaps just reassure yourself once or twice a day or during a bad spell, and then leave it at that, try not to get involved, label them as anxiety, and realize, like anxiety is, it's trickery. The more you try to convince yourself, or make a decision, the more you feed the compulsion. You can get away with some, to talk yourself down from a spike, but try not to do it all day. It may feel quite weird at first, but it's normal.

It isn't always that easy though, some get on top of it, some don't. If they persist, it would be best to see a therapist. The mind gets twisted, and the more time you've suffered, the more time it can take to untwist. SSRI's, like Alan said, can really help, but they aren't always necassary, lot's get better with some therapy, it all depends on what you respond best to. Don't leave it long though. The forum stuckinadoorway.org deals with these kinds of intrusive thoughts too. A quick read may give some knowledge.

People get better from this. I had it horrifically, every waking moment. Within 6 months of treatment I was living a normal life. A year later I totally forgot my life was like this, until this thread reminded me. You'll beat this easy!

All the best :)

[Lovey90]

Thanks alot for the answers, what I am beginning to do now is labeling the thoughts as anxiety and I think it works. But it still bugs me that I get anxious when these thoughts pop up, because they can pop up at any time and they pop up everyday, and then I get anxious because I know this. Right now I feel anxious about driving a car because I am scared of driving off the road for example, it just feels as if it is easy to do it (Even if I know I do not want this)... When I am talking to a good friend, I can get the thought of saying something bad that I do not want to and so on. The ''easier'' it looks to do the thing that would ruin my life the more anxiety it brings. I am going to see a therapist today, and probably ask for therapy, I am thankful for your answers, they brought strength.

[jessed03]

LV90, it actually sounds like you're ahead of the curve. You're able to label these thoughts as anxiety, and able to keep a certain degree of rationality. For a lot of people, they fall so deep in thought that they can literally doubt every apect of their life, and their social moral fibre. For me, I got so deep I began to wonder if I'd been possessed by something. It was so bizarre to me, to be fine, then to suddenly have this inside of me. I obviously knew I hadn't been possessed, but thats where the OCD begins to develop. We realize we can't prove anything in life. I mean, even if I asked you to prove to me the sun would rise tomorrow, you could assure me with 99.999999% certainty, but there is always that way of spinning it, or that 0.000001% that maybe this is all just dream, and in 24 hours everything will evaporate. There's always that "What if", no matter how unrealistic it is. We begin to focus so much on that strange uncertainty, that to cure ourselves, first we have to let everything die off by not feeding it, then plant the seeds of rationality and calm. The mind is so much like a field.

The anxiety to the thoughts will go, it's a process that takes time, and only time. There is no fast forward sadly. Try to stay Zen about it, and realize that you are indeed going through the required stages. Don't be too hard on yourself. The last of the anxiety goes when you tackle what the thoughts mean to you. My intrusive violent thoughts affected me because I always saw myself as a carer. I was also terrified of being 'crazy' and therefore would get the same thoughts as you, about blurting out something stupid, or going nuts in an empty building. It's much easier to do this with a therapist, as it does involve a little digging, and usually does spike your thoughts and anxiety for a short period. Once the anxiety is removed completely (which sadly can't be rushed), the thoughts disappear into obscurity, and are never noticed, until they become so irrelevant they disappear.

How is your health physically? Certain things like diet and stress levels really affect this. They don't cause it, but you may begin to notice certain things worsen it. Or, if you're healthy, you may not!

I have every faith your therapist and you will really get on top of this thing pretty swiftly. Give your body and mind some discretion to sort themselves out, don't worry too much about the outcome of things just yet, simply keep practising the right methods of living (of which you'll learn more) and things will eventually resolve themselves.

Take care :)

[Lovey90]

The thing that bothes me most is that even right now I can get intrusive thoughts about sticking something into my eyes or using a knife for something bad, and then like you said you start to ask yourself questions. Have I became evil? Is this really what I want to do? I even try to find ''reasons'' to do something like this and see there are absolutely no reasons, still the thought seems real. But when I tell myself, this is how my brain works, sometimes it gets stuck on a thought and the more I analyze it and care for it the longer it will take for it to let go. And because the thought is not something you want to stay, you try to push it away, and this is the wrong thing I did/still do sometimes. In the beginning I did not want to accept that my brain worked like this, I wanted it to read a thought and then move on to another, unless I wanted to think about the thought. Now instead when I get the thought about hurting someone or myself, I let it flow through my brain, think of it as only an intrusive thought and let it stay until I start thinking about something else. What I need help with is, sometimes I force myself to think about the thought of maybe hurting someone, just to see if I still get anxious about it, right now I feel the urge to hold this thing im scared of hurting my eyes with just to show myself I won't do it. I am scared of it becoming a compulsive thing then, like if I get scared of different items I will maybe have to hold on to them to show myself nothing will happen? Another thing is, when I am in the kitchen there are lots of knifes that appear in my thoughts, so the kitchen is like a ''critical'' place for me, sometimes I walk in there and await the thought to automaticlly pop up, but it does not, but I force it. So basiclly I never get a free moment, because there are some thoughts that brought alot of anxiety before but not anymore, so when I think, '' Wow, I am free of the intrusive thoughts'' then I think of them, and this makes me SO anxious right now, because it feels like I want to have intrusive thoughts and therefore am a bad person and maybe even (like you said) possesed by something evil. It is like I won the worst war, my mind does not randomly pop up these thoughts anymore but now I do it myself, and now I have to win that war too. The funny thing is that I just realised how to win the second ''war'', I just go on with the same strategy, because this is just what OCD is about, a thought being stuck, so if I notice that a thought is being stuck and makes me anxious then I label them as only anxiety thoughts and let them stay until they become boring? But what do you think about if I need exposure therapy? Because staying at a high spot with low fence still brings ALOT anxiety, because I have always been afraid of heights and now I am afraid of losing my mind and just jumping down. And I am very afraid of holding some things that seem ''easy'' to stick into my eyes, (this comes from a story of someone in the local city doing it with two pencils). Should I hold these things for a while till the anxiety disappears, and should I go to a high spot and just show myself that there is no chance I will jump (which I know, atleast now when I do not feel any anxiety)?. In general I sleep well, sometimes when having a day where I think too much about this, I ''forget'' to eat, but I am working on it. I go out and practice at the gym and I study, I am still happy around friends and my family but right now it feels like I have not fully got the grip of this, so of course it affects my daily routines a bit.

Thanks alot for your help, it is really weird that people like me and you can get these thoughts, because in everyday we show ourselves and others that we are caring people (just like you are doing now). But if you think about it maybe that is why the percentage of people that have suffered from this is low, the intrusive thoughts are just the opposite of what we really feel and are, and therefore they hit us so hard. I am going to revisit the therapist in 2 days, and see what she says too. Really thanks again and best wishes from me :).

[jessed03]

I was actually told by my therapist that the condition comes from a compassionate, caring intellegent and creative mind. I think it's true, as there aren't many out there that could worry so profusely about an 0.00001% chance of causing someone pain.

I think that's why the condition is tough to beat alone, or at least without knowledge of it. Those that don't understand it, seek to find reassurance that their fear won't come true, and occassionally they find it. Perhaps they lock every sharp object away, and toss the key in the river. For a short while, they feel relief, 'Thank God I can't possibly do it'. This relief then goes when the thought pops into their head 'Well, what if I just go and buy another knife?".... So they hide all their money. Again, some short relief until the thought comes in... 'Well what if I MAKE a weapon'... this can go on indefinetly, until the person can reach such an extreme that some much reassurance has been gained, it's almost impossible to thoughts such as 'What if I'm the only person is real, everyone else is just in my mind, and since my mind is broken, begin to flip out and cause immesurable pain'.

As you can see, the only place to stop it is right at the beginning. So few people are able to see this though, so it's a real positive that you can. I remember seeking so much reassurance, that I picked up a knife, held it to my wrist, and asked myself 'Is this actually what you want?'. I was in total control, it wasn't a blackout, but I had gone so deep in the web, I doubted every aspect of physical and mental existance. I was just completely exhausted. To answer your question about doing the things you fear, I wouldn't just yet. Simply because the desire is more of a mental compulsion to 'check'. Check if you would, check how you feel etc. I think the exposure therapy, if it's needed (which actually isn't too frequently) can come in once you actually know what it is the thoughts mean to you, and once you can find out what the underlying fear really is, you can confront it. At the moment it just manifests itself in things like fears of actions, when it actually goes a little deeper.

I was told that the only difference between an OCD sufferer, and a so-called 'normal' person, is we stick at the thought, and attach meaning to it. I remember reading a survery once that said 92% of people have admitted imagined at some stage what it would be like to jump in front of a train, or off of a high building. Does it mean 92% of people are suicidal, or crazy? Not at all. The mind is very creative, and very analytical. We just stay with thoughts that others can dismiss instantly. Over time though, we learn to be able to take the focus off of them, and allow our mind to file them away.

Keep us informed how it goes with the therapist. I always take an interest in this topic, having suffered so badly, and theres always those who are looking in without commenting.

All the best :)

[Lovey90]

Ok, so I have been on meds, medicine that reduces anxiety for about 3-4 days now. The therapist told me that I should try this for a while and if needed we would put in some CBT sessions too. Now I barely have any anxiety at all but I am still fighting these thoughts! They are driving me crazy, I let all thoughts pass through my brain and I get thoughts like ''Do I look at the world with different eyes than the other people around me?'' I can get a thought like ''Now would be a perfect moment to do something tragic'' and then I think of how the other people who care lots and who I love would react... When I get thoughts like this then I can't focus on positive things until I am ''away from danger'' and danger for me is knifes, other sharp items and heights. I do not want to harm myself or anyone else, I can clearly tell myself this now when I am away from the items. I want to live a happy life and enjoy the most simple things. But as soon as I get closer to those items, it feels like an urge to show myself what I really want to do. When I am there in the moment and showing myself I wont do anything bad then the thoughts lose meaning, but before and after this moment I begin to doubt again. Did you experience this too? Did you doubt if you are a good person or if you are someone who would do those things? I also doubt if I want to live or not ( just when these thoughts appear) because they involve harming myself. Did you doubt this too? But the ''funny'' thing is that I know I do not have any reasons at all to hurt myself, and the thoughts about harming someone else usually appear when I am around someone I love or who has not done me anything bad at all. Try to help me out with this because I feel like a really bad person when the thoughts come. As I said I will be on meds until they call on a revisit, how should I battle the situation with these thoughs at the moment?

[alankay]

Love, yeah I had that and too a certain degree still do but much less. I know it to be just ....anxiety. A negative, troubling thought. Nothing more. In all my years with this as my therapist used to say, I would have to get good at recognizing these for what they are and disregarding them. Easier said than done but still you will get better at it. Anxiety is just a little bully that likes to remind you occasionally he's there. He does so by anxious/troubling/scary thoughts and they are nonsense. I have never, ever acted on any one of these and as the years pass with this I have accepted what my docs said. This was allllll anxiety and nothing more. It's how it works and what it does. For millions of folks it's part of what we must learn to deal with and try and pay little attention too. It's bull. It's anxiety.
We are all nice folks. Anxious folks are usually kind, creative, sensitive, intelligent and energetic. Anxious too. That's all it adds. Nothing more. Like me you are............ready?? A bit anxious. Just anxious in addition to all you are. Not all you are..just part of who and what you are. So what? Learn all you can by reading the many self help books and you be relieved to see that this is common and these thoughts are just anxiety. It happens and means nothing. Just anxious thoughts you have to learn to ignore. Don't analyze them. It will only waste energy. You will never act out any anxious thought. It never happens. It's just damned irritating. An SSRI med helped me as well but learning it's part of the process of anxiety helped as much. PM me any time. Alankay

[abductodude]

It's anxiety. Try not to dwell on it to much. Don't worry man, it'll be alright!

[chilliconcarnage]

The thing that bothes me most is that even right now I can get intrusive thoughts about sticking something into my eyes or using a knife for something bad, and then like you said you start to ask yourself questions. Have I became evil? Is this really what I want to do? I even try to find ''reasons'' to do something like this and see there are absolutely no reasons, still the thought seems real. But when I tell myself, this is how my brain works, sometimes it gets stuck on a thought and the more I analyze it and care for it the longer it will take for it to let go. And because the thought is not something you want to stay, you try to push it away, and this is the wrong thing I did/still do sometimes. In the beginning I did not want to accept that my brain worked like this, I wanted it to read a thought and then move on to another, unless I wanted to think about the thought. Now instead when I get the thought about hurting someone or myself, I let it flow through my brain, think of it as only an intrusive thought and let it stay until I start thinking about something else. What I need help with is, sometimes I force myself to think about the thought of maybe hurting someone, just to see if I still get anxious about it, right now I feel the urge to hold this thing im scared of hurting my eyes with just to show myself I won't do it. I am scared of it becoming a compulsive thing then, like if I get scared of different items I will maybe have to hold on to them to show myself nothing will happen? Another thing is, when I am in the kitchen there are lots of knifes that appear in my thoughts, so the kitchen is like a ''critical'' place for me, sometimes I walk in there and await the thought to automaticlly pop up, but it does not, but I force it. So basiclly I never get a free moment, because there are some thoughts that brought alot of anxiety before but not anymore, so when I think, '' Wow, I am free of the intrusive thoughts'' then I think of them, and this makes me SO anxious right now, because it feels like I want to have intrusive thoughts and therefore am a bad person and maybe even (like you said) possesed by something evil. It is like I won the worst war, my mind does not randomly pop up these thoughts anymore but now I do it myself, and now I have to win that war too. The funny thing is that I just realised how to win the second ''war'', I just go on with the same strategy, because this is just what OCD is about, a thought being stuck, so if I notice that a thought is being stuck and makes me anxious then I label them as only anxiety thoughts and let them stay until they become boring? But what do you think about if I need exposure therapy? Because staying at a high spot with low fence still brings ALOT anxiety, because I have always been afraid of heights and now I am afraid of losing my mind and just jumping down. And I am very afraid of holding some things that seem ''easy'' to stick into my eyes, (this comes from a story of someone in the local city doing it with two pencils). Should I hold these things for a while till the anxiety disappears, and should I go to a high spot and just show myself that there is no chance I will jump (which I know, atleast now when I do not feel any anxiety)?. In general I sleep well, sometimes when having a day where I think too much about this, I ''forget'' to eat, but I am working on it. I go out and practice at the gym and I study, I am still happy around friends and my family but right now it feels like I have not fully got the grip of this, so of course it affects my daily routines a bit.

Thanks alot for your help, it is really weird that people like me and you can get these thoughts, because in everyday we show ourselves and others that we are caring people (just like you are doing now). But if you think about it maybe that is why the percentage of people that have suffered from this is low, the intrusive thoughts are just the opposite of what we really feel and are, and therefore they hit us so hard. I am going to revisit the therapist in 2 days, and see what she says too. Really thanks again and best wishes from me :).

Your pretty much identical to me thoughts wise. Ive had GAD for a long time (since i was 14, im 34 now..). But only recently after waking up in the night feeling "odd", have these thoughts got out of control. I have therapy booked for next friday so I hope that helps me out. I have had Depression and anxiety and the single thing that I find hardest to cope with is Intrusive thoughts. Ive got kids and some of the thoughts are just horrendous. I would never carry any of them out but they have got me close to thinking about suicide. I just cant bare them. Im holding in there and forums like this where I can read that Im not alone, help me out, loads.

[ledzepp817]

Like many others have already posted, you and I are very similar. I've had GAD my whole life (now 31) but in the last year or so I've had more Pure-O OCD thoughts. I was quick to recognize what my issues were , so I could talk with my therapist about it and was able to cope with it. The OCD thoughts were tough because they would severely affect my day-to-day life. I would have thoughts that my dad was a pedophile (I knew wasn't true) but I couldn't stop thinking about it. Then I would have thoughts that I would get depressed and suicidal. Then I would have thoughts that I would kill someone I loved. These were all horrible things I knew I would never do, but I couldn't stop fearing and obsessing over them. But what I learned was that, if you are OCD like this, you are LESS likely to ever do these things than anyone else.

Now-a-days, I still have anxiety, but its gotten easier. I never took any medications but I'm sure they can help some people. I believe the only cure is time. Every day you conquer this, you will build the confidence to know that you are not going crazy. In the beginning of all this, I thought I was going crazy..... but remember, if you were actually crazy, you wouldn't know it ;).

Hang in there.

[Lovey90]

Like many others have already posted, you and I are very similar. I've had GAD my whole life (now 31) but in the last year or so I've had more Pure-O OCD thoughts. I was quick to recognize what my issues were , so I could talk with my therapist about it and was able to cope with it. The OCD thoughts were tough because they would severely affect my day-to-day life. I would have thoughts that my dad was a pedophile (I knew wasn't true) but I couldn't stop thinking about it. Then I would have thoughts that I would get depressed and suicidal. Then I would have thoughts that I would kill someone I loved. These were all horrible things I knew I would never do, but I couldn't stop fearing and obsessing over them. But what I learned was that, if you are OCD like this, you are LESS likely to ever do these things than anyone else.

Now-a-days, I still have anxiety, but its gotten easier. I never took any medications but I'm sure they can help some people. I believe the only cure is time. Every day you conquer this, you will build the confidence to know that you are not going crazy. In the beginning of all this, I thought I was going crazy..... but remember, if you were actually crazy, you wouldn't know it ;).

Hang in there.

Hey, it helps to know that someone else had the same thoughts like me. You said you still have anxiety but how are you coping with the OCD thoughts right now? Do you still get these thoughts and fear of becoming depressed and suicidal or harming someone you love? If you do then how often do you get those thoughts and do they still make you anxious?