Posts by silentmaker17

Christian Castillo60 said:I'll try to give you an answer if you can write out more detail about what exactly you're struggling with.
Best,

Just from doing my own research, I’ve picked up on the main traits and characteristics of this disorder—basically all the different ways it shows up—as well as some self-help strategies. But thanks anyway, 🙂 .. basically, .. it's hard to pin down specific symptoms, but mostly it involves obsessions with perfectionism, health anxieties regarding physical illnesses, endless overanalyzing even the tiniest details, rhetorical questions, intellectual dilemmas, anticipating future events, comparing myself to others ... it all just depends on the situation, or rather, what the "trigger" for those thoughts is 🙂

What worries me more is actually the medication itself .. even though a dose of one and a half Paxil tablets (30 mg) isn't huge, I'm still dealing with certain side effects that led me to decide on my own to stop the treatment .. I'm tapering off gradually, of course, because there are so many potential withdrawal issues if you quit cold turkey, especially with SSRIs .. while the paroxetine definitely helped, the significant drop in libido and that general feeling of being "emotionally numb" pushed me to slowly scale back the dose until I finally stopped altogether ..

However, .. I've noticed I've been incredibly irritable lately, prone to aggressive outbursts .. clearly verbal ones, and I'm agitated by practically everything .. honestly, everything is pissing me off, so forgive me .. since I can't function normally like this, I'm back on Paxil + Xanax 0.25mg .. my current goal is to develop a detailed strategy to get off antidepressants using CBT and other alternative treatments for OCD ..

And how are you feeling?

Wanna wash my hands too, haha? 😁 😉

analognomad81 said:I have just returned from my trip to the coast, and I must say, the experience was utterly exhausting. I find that my compulsive behaviors and intrusive thoughts intensify significantly when I am in environments that trigger strong emotional responses or involve specific activities that stir up deep-seated feelings. Being by the ocean is quite an emotional experience for me, especially since I only make this trip once a year, which serves as a constant reminder of past years. Consequently, I am hit with an overwhelming surge of compulsions. For instance, while at the beach, I will find myself lingering for an extra five minutes under the guise of checking if I have forgotten anything. Even after meticulously inspecting everything, I will turn around, take a single step, and immediately be seized by the conviction that I have dropped something. This leads to a repetitive cycle where I re-examine everything I brought to the beach a hundred times over; I take one step forward, only to turn back and re-verify everything once more. Similarly, during a recent trip to the grocery store, I struggled immensely just to reach the entrance because I felt an uncontrollable urge to scan my entire surroundings. I spent several minutes turning around repeatedly, checking every corner, while my mind raced with memories from last year. Whenever a thought triggers an emotional response, I simply freeze; I stop walking entirely and cannot move forward until I have mentally rehearsed every detail several times until a sense of adequacy is reached. It made the simple task of walking to the store an ordeal. The situation worsened upon returning home; I stood paralyzed in front of my door, unable to enter because my thoughts were spinning so violently and I had to complete a series of mental and physical rituals. I ended up standing there for twenty minutes, unable to step inside. Furthermore, my struggles with symmetry and alignment have become increasingly severe lately; I can no longer tolerate stepping on lines or dots. There are moments when I cannot even walk straight because I find myself staring at the ground, trying to avoid stepping on a line, only to end up stopping and retreating to step on that same line repeatedly until I have struck it in the exact same manner as the first time. It is a harrowing sensation, leaving me feeling profoundly strange and anxious; these past few days have been truly debilitating. I have even reached a point where I cannot read anything at all; I cannot process a single word without spelling it out ten times, breaking it down into syllables and reading each one individually. At this juncture, I am in desperate need of a solid recommendation for a psychiatrist who might help me stabilize.

I believe this is incredibly tough for you, and I truly understand because I’ve been diagnosed with "Pure O" OCD myself. There are moments where it gets so frustrating that I completely lose myself... basically, I live in that "inner world." The goal is to make yourself less sensitive to thoughts of that nature, which eventually leads to a significantly lower sense of anxiety and restlessness. You have to realize that no matter how strange or bizarre these thoughts seem ("out of this world"), they don't reflect anything about who you actually are. They are simply a byproduct of OCD. Thoughts don't have their own "weight," unlike actions. Thinking does not mean doing. A person isn't an omnipotent being.

It’s really good that you decided to speak up about your problem and work on it. That’s step one. To start, surround yourself with people going through the same struggles and educate yourself on the nature of the disorder and different types of therapy. First off, look into CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention), and medication. Of course, I definitely recommend seeing a psychiatrist; it personally helped me a ton. OCD is treated quite successfully with SSRIs. For instance, I'm prescribed 1.5 tablets of Paxil daily, and I've seen actual progress. Since I'm based in Chicago, I can't give you a specific local recommendation, but I'm sure someone on this forum will chime in with some solid advice.🙂 .. man, good luck with that. let me know how it goes 🙂

Let’s breathe some life back into this subforum 🙂. I was recently diagnosed with OCD and started on medication... Paxil... I don't have any obvious physical compulsions, "just" those intrusive thoughts that make it incredibly hard to function normally during the day
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How are you all dealing with this disorder? How much do the meds actually help? Sometimes these thoughts get so infuriating—and I mean, honestly, I don't know what to do with myself—that I just lose it. I get scattered, I forget things, and most of the time I'm just stuck living inside my own head
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It's like looking into a mirror where nothing exists outside of that headspace. I somehow manage to push through, but the crises definitely happen... Mornings are the absolute worst for me. Getting out of bed is such a struggle because the thoughts just come flooding in like a dam breaking—a million per hour, associations, fantasies... OCD is brutal. It gets better later in the day, though
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Does anyone have any techniques they’d recommend? Autogenic training, or something similar? Relaxation methods? What has actually worked for you? Thanks
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I’m looking for some advice here. Any and all feedback is more than welcome!

Basically, I suspect I might be dealing with OCD. It doesn't look like the textbook version most people think of—you know, those physical rituals where you have to wash your hands ten times or double-check if the stove is off just to stop the anxiety. For me, it's almost entirely "in my head." It's more about mental fixations...

For instance, I find myself constantly re-analyzing specific events or certain people over and over again. It's like I'm somehow addicted to these negative emotions, which is absolutely exhausting, not to mention how much it trashes my self-esteem 👎 . On top of that, depression has started creeping in, so things are definitely not okay. When these thoughts hit, I try not to completely suppress them because I know that just makes them explode even harder later... instead, I try to "filter" them, basically telling myself, "Okay, this is just an OCD thought, don't let it get to you."

But the real issue is that during stressful times or when life gets heavy, these thoughts come flooding in like a damn tidal wave and they just won't stop. Between the depression and my shattered confidence, I honestly feel like I'm falling apart inside 👎 . There are periods where I think I'm finally getting better—that it was just a temporary rough patch—but then reality hits and I realize this is something much deeper. I need to change. It’s long overdue, because this self-destructive cycle isn't going anywhere good.

Final exams are coming up, and I know I should be studying, but I just can't. I have zero energy. I start, I stall, I spiral into self-pity, and it just repeats in a loop. I honestly don't know what the next step is... thanks for listening.