yup pretty much have it as soon as i wake. do you find it difficult drifting off to sleep cause of the thoughts at night?

It happens to me pretty much everyday, though I do sometimes get a week of relief where I can just chill. But when I do wake up with obsessive thoughts, and if I have time to lay in bed, I will lay in bed and practice letting the thoughts just be.
Basically, a friend of mine told me to find a way to observe the thoughts and then send them away. They said that they use a "train". They imagine a train chugging along and it slowly coming to a stop. And then they'll write the bad thought on the train and then the train will start up again and then the bad thought will leave with it.
It's kind of silly but it's really helpful and it's been helping me let the thoughts go easier.
I kind of imagine bubbles. When ever I have a bad thought, a bubble will surround it, and then the bad thought will float away and be gone.

Like I said, silly, but you can try it if you want. It could be helpful to you.

Mine absolutely start first thing upon waking. That's actually when they are the worst. I had a naturopathic doctor explain to me one time that the stress hormone cortisol actually peaks in the morning, not that knowing the reason actually helps much :(. I do find that sometimes if I can sleep in instead of being awoken by an alarm, I'm a little better. I think the alarm jolting you awake causes a stress response.

Yes, I do find it difficult to go to sleep at night too...i panic about it. I'll almost drift off and then this "jolt" will go through me, causing panic and I immediately attribute this to my obsession and that my obsession must be true. I've gotten some relaxation techniques- guided imagery, deep breathing, PMR, etc. that I've been using. That along with taking a melatonin and then listening to Pandora's 'sleep' station has helped a lot. I haven't taken my Lorazepam as often as I was.

And yes! I have used a technique like the train...I use more of a cloud image though. It works sometimes, but I have to do it before I start panicking. I'll let the thoughts come and drift through my conscious, but I won't give them much importance. I'll imagine it/them on a cloud and then take a deep breath and watch it float away as I breath out.

I find too that I do better when I'm on a schedule and I have set things to do. I'm a teacher, so I'm off for the summer...which means I have no schedule! I stay up as late as I want and sleep in as late as I want...and don't have much planned day-to-day. I read other people who made a list of things to do, even if it was just things like taking a shower or eating breakfast, and it helped. I think I'll try that too. Because then I have to get right out of bed and won't have time to laze around bed and allow my obsessive thoughts to overtake me!

It's frustrating, though, that the first thought when I wake up is an OCD one :/

Absolutely. Morning is a really rough time for me. I'm a teacher, too, so the summer has been hard. Wish I could find something that helps...I feel so guilty and/or so anxious so much of the day....

Yea it happens alott to me too! But I guess we just have to learn to deal with all of these things

I often wake up with obsessive thoughts. Particularly before school in the morning, when I have to do all kinds of things to get ready and I can't really ease into the day. Nowadays, I find my OCD tends to be the worst in late afternoon. If you take any medication, taking it at night rather than in the morning may help, if it doesn't interfere with your sleep.

I even believe that my obsessive thinking is actually what wakes me up sometimes.