Posts by Paul King8

So, have you actually noticed if this whole thing is tied to your cycle, like maybe it hits way harder on certain days? You know, specifically right before your period starts!

David Nelson74 thanks for the rundown! Honestly though, what kind of damage am I looking at if I go through a private clinic instead?

So I finally tackled that assessment, though let me tell you, my English isn't exactly my strongest suit, so I ended up pulling something close to a hundred percent which isn't exactly stellar—though honestly, there's a good chance I just completely misread the questions and gave them the wrong answers anyway!

Gotcha, thanks David Nelson74, but hey, tell me this—do they actually offer any kind of talk therapy over there, and if so, what's the deal with how that works? Sorry, I know I'm hitting you with a million questions here! My bad!

David Nelson74 said:Are you living in a small town or a major city? And are you looking to see a private specialist or go through the public healthcare system?

If you decide on a private practice: -- you could check local listings in something like the Sunday edition of the New York Times or even just look at local business directories,

Ask your primary care physician to give you a referral for a psychiatrist,

You can browse this forum’s thread on "recommendations and experiences with psychologists and psychiatrists,"

Or just Google "private psychiatric clinic" or "specialized mental health practice."...

You don't need a referral for private care; you just call them up, book an appointment, and wait a few days—maybe a week or two at most. Rates are usually around $200 $83 per hour, though I heard about one guy who charges by the minute....

If you go through insurance/public health: -- you visit your family doctor first and ask for a referral to see a psychiatrist. They'll likely be in the same medical center or community clinic. Once you have that paper, you take it to the psychiatrist and wait about a month. I don't think there's any co-pay involved, but the wait times are brutal, and you'll probably be waiting a month just to get in the door. It’s also possible you’ll only spend five or ten minutes in the office, but that's life. There are only a few hundred psychiatrists in the whole country... I don't know what else to tell you. This is just based on my own experience, so it might not be the case for everyone......

Thanks!
I already knew most of that, but what I really want to dig into is the actual difference between that 5-10 minute rush with a public doctor versus spending a full hour with a private specialist—like, what are they actually going to ask me, how does the conversation go, and what's the vibe?

brightsailor9 said:"Also, apparently hypericin-based supplements can cause hair loss..." 🙂 Beautiful. Just my luck with the banana diet too. From what I've gathered, OCD falls under personality disorders. I've been running a bunch of online tests for PD and I'm mostly "failing" them... For the most part, I hit about 90% of the symptoms for obsessive-compulsive and avoidance behaviors. Has anyone else here taken similar tests? What were your results like? As for the OCD itself, I’m actually back to how I was when I was ten... like, I used to have to flip the light switch off-on-off three times just for good luck. Eventually, that turned into doing it nine times. Then there were all those superstitious rituals, washing my face three times, just spending the whole day acting like a robot performing mindless math equations... 😵🙈

If I can ask, what exactly is PD, what kind of tests are we talking about, and where can I find them?
And do they have these tests available in American English, and which specific website should I look on to find them?

Rebecca Roberts2 said:Try teaching yourself to just say "screw it" whenever those FBI compulsions start acting up.
For example:
An OCD thought: "Did I leave the stove on?" 😱
Shutting down the thought 🙂: "Screw it, worst case scenario, the stove uses a little extra $0.67electricity, and I can handle the bill. "

As you can see, besides rationalizing the potential damage, the real key to the whole process is that specific moment when you tell yourself: screw it. 😁

Look, even now, before I walk out the door, I absolutely have to go check the stove to make sure it's off, but honestly, I don't give a damn if you excuse these constant intrusive thoughts about whether I turned it off, locked the front door, or where my keys went—it happens a million times a day, it's freaking exhausting, but I'm telling you, I just say, f*** it, did I turn it off or not, who cares! Once we went away for a weekend and I didn't check the stove, and I spent two whole days praying and eating myself alive wondering what was happening! And I should mention once I actually drove all the way back home because the stove anxiety was killing me, only to find it was actually left on, so at least there was one silver lining to the OCD!
But for me, it feels somewhat normal because I've been dealing with this nonsense since high school, like having to check the doorknob five times in a row or stuff like that, but only now that I've read more about it do I realize just how often these situations and behaviors happen to me!

If anyone wouldn't mind telling me what I should actually do, and when someone with OCD finally goes to see a doctor, what does that treatment process actually look like? I'd really appreciate some detail!

Thanks!

David Nelson74 I can't even begin to process this nonsense because honestly, it’s just another day in this chaotic mess we call life, and frankly, I'm exhausted by how much people try to sugarcoat things that are clearly broken from the ground up.
Just give it a shot. But what are we actually talking about here? Are you trying to pull this off entirely on your own, or are you planning on leaning on some pills to get you through it?

Hypnotherapy can actually fix this whole mess if you'd just listen, but honestly, Ena and Sacreus wouldn't know the first thing about explaining how that works even if it hit them in the face.

So, what, am I supposed to pop pills just to make this happen? Is it really all about willpower alone, like some kind of mental toughness thing? Because honestly, I don’t have the luxury of time to mess around with anything else.

IIIIIIIIIII??? Is there any way to actually beat this thing just by being stubborn and powering through on my own, without having to drag myself to some doctor's office?

It’s honestly just a million little stupid things, and what really burns me is how totally normal it all felt at first, you know? Like, I wasn't even paying attention to the pattern, I was just doing it on autopilot! We're talking about stuff like double or triple-checking if the front door is locked, or obsessively checking the stove, or repeating certain phrases over and over again... it's constant. There's so much of it, and once I started digging around online, I realized there's actually a name for this madness, and now I'm trying to fight back by forcing myself to only check the lock once before I leave—even if I have this nagging feeling everything is wide open, I refuse to turn around and go back in! But man, the mental loop never stops, I'm constantly patting my pockets to make sure my keys haven't vanished into thin air... it's a total disaster because I had absolutely no clue these tiny compulsions were tied to OCD! So now I'm wondering, can I actually beat this through sheer willpower? Because looking back at something that used to drive me insane ten years ago, I managed to crush it just by being stubborn—it was a massive struggle, but I did it!

Can someone please help me out with a quick question? Look, I know most people deal with some kind of mental tic or OCD-style loop, just usually way milder and barely even noticeable, but I’m trying to figure out where the actual line is when it comes to these "glitches" in your head. Like, at what point does having too many of them—to the point where they actually start messing with your day—mean you need to go see a doctor? And honestly, can you even fix this stuff just by trying to control yourself?
Thanks!