Is OCD curable?

[Halo]

But wait.....I am looking for a way to release some serious built up anger and would LOVE to do the honours as it would benefit me as well.........please, pretty please....can I??:bad: :bad:

 

[Cat Dancer]

I guess it's hard for someone who doesn't have a mental illness to understand it? I don't know.

Now my fear is of going back to the doctor and therapist, that I am being harmful to them. It's a really high, high, high fear and causing great anxiety. I am so weary of all of this. My brain.

 

[Cat Dancer]

I think I've gotten stuck in thinking that OCD is me, defines me. But maybe it doesn't. I just think it's ironic that I have the very thing I thought I could NOT handle being diagnosed with. Something to learn I'm sure. Some lesson. Some strength to gain.

But wouldn't the ultimate goal be to learn to deal with it in a healthy way and then give testimony to others that they too can learn to deal with it? I don't know. Reaching out, giving back, caring, loving, trying to help, listening, being there for someone. Letting go.

And if I accept it, the diagnosis, what does it really change? It doesn't change who I am. It might even help me learn about myself more and help me learn the tools I need to survive.

But does it take away from me, to have OCD? To some people it does and that is sad. I don't know. I'm not making sense.

 

[ThatLady]

No human being can be defined by a disease process, Janet. People with diabetes are not defined by their diabetes. They are defined by their humanity. It's the same for those suffering with depression, or OCD, or BPD, or any other illness. The illness is not the person; nor, is the person the illness.

While it may be difficult for a person who does not suffer from mental illness to truly understand what it's like, it's not difficult for anyone to be understanding. There's a difference between those two states of mind. One can seek to understand things, but the ability to give understanding and empathy to others is inate. It just depends on whether a person decides to use that inate ability, or prefers to denigrate, humiliate, and judge.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

I also continue to wonder why this particular diagnosis worries you as much as it does.

Perhaps it would help you ro read more and learn more about OCD - about why the obessions and compulsions exist - and about what you can do to help you manage it.

OCD is basically an anxiety disorder. The obsessive thoughts are a style (the OCD style) of worrying - everyone worries - people with OCD worry in a more extreme way. The compulsive rituals are attempts to reduce the anxiety aroused by the thoughts, although they are not entirely successful and for many people create more anxiety. Together, OCD represents the individual's attempts to impose certainty and predictability on a world which frightens her because it is inherently unpredictable and uncertain.

 

[Cat Dancer]

I also continue to wonder why this particular diagnosis worries you as much as it does.

I don't know. It just seems like the worries never stop, a lot of the anxiety is focused on the diagnosis and that I can't figure out how to deal with it or the compulsions which are mainly self-injury related.

Even reading about it seems to cause too much anxiety. I KNOW it isn't hopeless, but it IS overwhelming right now. Shouldn't the medications be helping to relieve some of the anxiety so I could deal with this? Or is that expecting too much?

 

[Nigel H]

It appears as if you have taken to 'wearing' the label of 'having OCD' since the diagnosis and as David has rightly suggested - it is simply a behaviour pattern that exists, a coping mechanism to actually help you deal with a different problem you have held within your unconscious.

All human behaviour has a positive intention, so even an outwardly negative behaviour is achieving something positive for you at an unconscious level.

So your OCD related behaviour becomes something different to who you are - instead being something you DO.

I mean - is that all you think you are?
You do know you're more than that don't you .....

So, what are you that's more than that?

Nig

 

[Cat Dancer]

I mean - is that all you think you are?
You do know you're more than that don't you .....

So, what are you that's more than that?

Nig

Before I was diagnosed I thought there was more to me than that (maybe it was lost, but inside somewhere), but now, maybe it's the stigma of OCD, I think everything about me revolves around it. Like it's the core of me.

 

[ThatLady]

Personally, I think it's wrong to think of yourself as a diagnosis. You're not a diagnosis. You're a person! You're not OCD. You're Janet! You've got some problems to deal with and you're doing everything you can to deal with them correctly.

Heck, we all have problems, but that doesn't mean we ARE our problems. We're still us! We're good people struggling to be better people. I see that as a good thing. I see what you're doing as a good thing, Janet. :hug:

 

[Halo]

Janet,

I can understand what you are saying. It is hard to think of ourselves as more than our diagnoses considering that we live it, breathe it and face it every single day. On the other hand, you were so much more before you received your diagnosis that it doesnt change anything. We are still who we were before that. You were and still are a good person and a good mother. Yes, you have issues that need to be dealt with (but then again dont most of us) but it doesnt mean that you are not still not Janet the person that you were before you received your diagnosis. OCD does not define who you are. It is part of you who you are NOT only who you are.

 

[Cat Dancer]

It does define me. Now that I know what it is, it is all of me. I don't know what thoughts are real and what thoughts are exaggerated worrying thoughts that don't make any sense. None of my thoughts make sense now. How can anyone take anything I say seriously if I can't figure out what is real and what isn't? I can't expect that.

I'm so confused.

 

[ThatLady]

Janet, you have to realize first that your illness does NOT define you. You saying it does is detrimental to you. It does NOT. You're you. The disease is the disease. The two are not the same.

 

[Cat Dancer]

I'm going to try to keep saying that to myself. Maybe if I say it a lot, I'll come to believe it. I want to be Janet whoever that is. I want what is inside my heart, the good, to come out and be me, not this other stuff that is so confusing and painful.

I just want so much to have a good heart and be a comforting person and not a burden or a hurtful person. I want to get past believing I AM OCD and try to figure out who I really am. But what scares me is what if I am really nothing and there's nothing inside me anymore? What if it's all gone?

I don't know. I want so much to figure things out. If I could drag my focus off this worrying and fear about the OCD, then I could put it on healing and get better quicker. I am really feeling stuck right now though. Overwhelmed.

 

[Into The Light]

But what scares me is what if I am really nothing and there's nothing inside me anymore? What if it's all gone?

i can relate to this feeling, janet, and as hard as it is to believe, you will not dissolve and disapear when you start to manage the OCD and it stops controlling your life so much. you are still you. i know it may feel like you don't know who you are anymore, but you're there. right now you're just overwhelmed by so much that you're kind of buried underneath all the hard stuff in your life. as the hard stuff gets lifted a little there will be more room for you to breathe, and the real janet will start to emerge again. she's there, really she is. :hug:

 

[Cat Dancer]

the real janet will start to emerge again. she's there, really she is. :hug:

I'm not sure there is a real Janet. I've always been this way. I don't think I can find a way to live with OCD. It's too hard. I can't figure out what is reality anymore.

 

[Daniel E.]

It's too hard. I can't figure out what is reality anymore.

Maybe you are focusing more on the problem than on the solution? That certainly is/was the case with me and is a feature of ruminative or negative thinking.

Conjure up an image of the Positive You.
Shut your eyes, get quiet, and conjure up a very positive image of yourself. Watch that Positive You get up in the morning, get dressed. What are her interactions with her family like? What does she do for the rest of the day? Does she go to the same job you have? Her interactions with other people? What kinds of things does she do over the course of the day? How does she feel? At the end of the day, what does she do?

http://forum.psychlinks.ca/showthread.php?t=3536

 

[Cat Dancer]

Maybe you are focusing more on the problem than on the solution? That certainly is/was the case with me and is a feature of ruminative or negative thinking.

I think you're right. I am so stuck on the problems or the diagnosis, even though at the moment I accept, that I can't see any positive things right now.

I was also wondering if being paranoid is part of OCD? Or is that something else? I've been feeling paranoid lately. It's being triggered by planning to go to the hospital. I think.