Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Support Group
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a psychiatric disorder, more specifically, an anxiety disorder. OCD is manifested in a variety of forms, but is most commonly characterized by a subject's obsessive (repetitive, distressing, intrusive) thoughts and related compulsions (tasks or rituals) which attempt to neutralize the obsessions.
when people think of OCD, they usually picture the stereotypical neat person. the form of OCD I have is obsessive honesty and confess and tell OCD. this would give me horrible insomnia, and tonight and recently it's been flaring back off now that I'm basically off most medication. right now i'm obsessing over something i said to my dad because i'm not sure if i was lying or not. i gave him reasons as to why i was going to the mall today and although they were true, i feel like they were also excuses. im away this may sound ridiculous, but once something is said that bothers me, i can't drop it. it's times like this i wish i had my klonopin or another anti anxiety drug to calm me down or so i'd feel nothing at all.
I hope you're feeling a little better today. What I have found is that with a lot (not all, but many) of my obsessions, the anxiety fades over time. You just have to sit with the anxiety. Don't try to fight it. Instead, acknowledge it. Acknowledge that it is only your OCD, that the obsession will eventually fade. You can try thinking logically about it, too. For example, your intent was not to mislead or lie to your dad, so therefore, you did not do anything wrong. But sometimes, there is just no rationalizing out of OCD. No matter what we tell ourselves, OCD will always have some kind of smart-ass comeback.
It's important to find effective ways to deal with anxiety when you're feeling like this. Unfortunately, I am still trying to do this myself, so I am not the best person to offer advice. But for me, I know it's important to keep busy! When I am busy, I am much less likely to obsess. The thoughts are still in my mind, but not at the front. Keep busy with a hobby, hang out with friends/family, read, listen to music, exercise...anything that keeps your mind occupied, really.
I hope it helps to know that you're not alone. I think that as we get better and better at just sitting with our anxieties and accepting them for what they are, they will become less and less of an issue. OCD sucks, but things will get better. Hang in there!
Glad Claiborne was able to help you.
You wrote this: "I've heard that some Ocders have felt compelled to confess to crimes that they didn't actually commit, but I'm not sure if this is true."
It is 100% true. I have done it myself. In my case, it was half confessing and half checking to see if I hurt someone. It involved driving fears and I called the police and a state/county records dept a few times. NOT fun!
But when I was much younger (my teens), I did confess to real things I did like stealing a $3 T-shirt from a store (both in confession and went back to the store years later to confess) and confessing to a college professor that I and a couple of other kids had copies of old tests of his that we studied off of. We were shocked when we found out he used the same tests so I got a perfect 4.0 in that class. I think the professor was either too dumb to understand what I was saying or not used to someone being that honest because he kept thinking I was complaining that others cheated. I let it go after that.
But in Rapopports book 'The boy who could not stop washing" she has a story about a patient who believes that when he walked over a bridge one day that he threw or pushed someone over into the water below and killed them. When he got home he obsessed over it, tried to reassure himself he did not do it and tried to medicate his OCD by drinking almost a whole bottle of some kind of booze. It did not help so early in the morning he walked into the local police station and "confessed" to killing someone. The cops held him, called his family, checked for any missing persons reports and might have dragged that river/lake/pond. When they realized he was under the care of a shrink, found no one and no one was reported missing they let him go.
I also have thought, having grown up just outside of NYC and hearing from time to time about the "nutjobs" who call in or walk in to confess to high profile crimes, that how many of them are OCDers and how many have something else wrong with them? I never thought about that growing up but many years later when I began to understand OCD, I thought about it and believed a certain percentage of confessors to crimes in big cities might be OCDers.
Sometimes it seem that there is no end to the types or symptoms of OCD.
I actually asked myself "What would so and so do?" for years when interacting in situations that had me over-sharing my truth about stuff like, oh, I don't know, why I didn't eat my entire dinner at a restaurant (I told myself I didn't want to insult the chef).
Much luck with this one. It can be really socially debilitating.
Xx.