[Private journal entry written on July 17, 2009]

This week, I watched an episode of A&E’s TV show “Obsessed” that featured a woman (“Vanessa”) struggling with skin picking. She showed up on-camera with band-aids on her face – and I was watching the show with several post-picking band-aids on my face – talk about hitting close to home . . . .

The Flower by Martin Chen

In the context of therapy, she came to realize that picking was the ultimate distraction for her. Each time she gets “stuff” to pop out of a pore or a zit, it is a huge victory for her. Picking allows her to experience a multitude of clear-cut successes in a life with no other form of success. When she picks, time stops for her. Her “real world” ceases to exist, along with all of her worries.

Aaaaarrrrrrrgggggg . . . so close to home.

I was mesmerized by the episode . . . a rare occurrence, to be sure, since TV doesn’t do much for me in general.

In my case . . . when I feel overwhelmed, I can slide onto my very familiar spot on the bathroom counter and put my face within a couple of inches of the mirror – close enough that I can see every single pore – and every single white head and black head and zit that is contaminating those pores. Time stops for me. My entire world becomes the size of one pore. All I have to do is “fix” those pores . . . clean them up . . . remove the dirtiness . . . remove the badness . . .

My focus on that one imperfect bump – that one clogged pore, that one prickly hair stub – becomes so intense that there is no room in my mind for any other thought – or any emotion. I am entirely consumed with plunging the straight pin into the bulls-eye of the pimple so I can see the junk explode outward. I experience the biggest rush when the explosion is violent enough to splat the junk onto the mirror . . . . . or when I finally snag that stubborn hair stub that has been at the heart of a persistent zit – and yank it out at the root . . . congratulating myself on my expert fishing technique . . .

I’m trying to think of a comparison to which a wider audience could relate . . . I can imagine a similar escape from reality occurs when people play challenging video games for hours on end . . . I don’t know from experience since video games have never appealed to me . . . but I can imagine the similarities . . . and that method of escape is usually socially acceptable . . . not considered disgusting and abhorrent . .

Anyway, maybe . . . as I’m picking, I could ask myself what emotion or feeling or thought or situation I’m avoiding . . . I could multi-task . . . picking and feeling, at the same time . . . . I wonder if it would help anything?

I awoke last night at 2am and lay in bed awhile, staring at the blackness that might be my wall then shifting to peer at the nothingness that could be my ceiling. I allowed myself to stay awake rather than hurry back to sleep (an act that only brings about more sleeplessness). Worry set in as it often does. Thoughts swarmed in like bees around a picnic table: This, That, I Have to, I Should, I Won’t, I Wish, Something I Should Work On, Nothing I Could Do. I was once told to visualize a stop sign to ward off thinkingthinkingthinking. I did not remember this until now and when I have tried, thinking doesn’t pay attention to traffic signs.

I got up to finish some work for a crew member. I unfolded a changing bag and unloaded a film magazine, taped the can shut, labeled it, said a small prayer that all of his film comes out. My own worry, a crime with only one victim, is safe and sound enough when it lives in the soft tissue of my mind but minding someone else and their creativity introduces a whole new set of violations.

Back to bed. A couple more hours of restlessness. I wandered back into my own film in its currently incomplete state. Dropped off my footage at Colorlab on Monday and waiting for the results is more like waiting for a verdict. Will the Belles have an opportunity for a fair trial?

When I finally did fall asleep, I dreamt hard and fast. Cartoons and songs. Ghosts (part two of a dream I had over the summer). My acting teacher in a play of mine that was about to open. I missed it because I forgot to stay and instead had lunch with a friend.

I got up to my dog waiting for me to pet him. Gave him a good morning then reached over to my nightstand and opened a book of poetry to this poem:

Herring
by Kay Ryan (from “Say Uncle”)

A thousand
tiny silver
thoughtlets
play in the mind,
untarnished
as herring.

They shutter
like blinds,
then sliver,
then utterly
vanish.

Is it unkind
to hope
some will
eat others;
is it uncaring?

Guest Post

Today, I am honored to publish a guest post written by Evan Hadkins. Evan lives in Canberra, Australia, where he works in the mental health arena. He writes a fabulous blog, Wellbeing and Health, which deals with all aspects of health (physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and social), with an emphasis on psychology and personal development. His current post discusses how he is becoming comfortable in his own skin — which is a topic that is very relevant to the subject matter discussed on this blog.

Evan has written this article specifically in response to my previous post (Can’t stop talking about it). In this article, he provides us with a better understanding of why a person commonly thinks and talks obsessively about the abuse during the “emergency stage” of the healing process.

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Learning from Our Obsessions

I think we humans have a need for meaning – to draw conclusions about what we’ve experienced, to reflect on what has happened to us, to learn from past mistakes and successes. I think this is a big part of developing our sense of who we are.

We may leave a tradition that we grew up in and decide to do things differently to the way we were taught; nevertheless, we are usually shaped in some way by the tradition or our up-bringing. It often affects the meaning we attach to our history – and it can have consequences that, in some ways, can look quite funny. For example, because I decided early on that “I am unacceptable because I’m incompetent”, I wanted to do everything well.

Selflessness Forest by Martin Chen

Just like I decided I was incompetent, we all make decisions about who we are based upon the meaning we give our history. If you find that one of your decisions is a problem for you – that it seems inaccurate – you will want to re-decide. When I realized I had a problem with the idea I was incompetent, I decided again.

My temptation is to show that I have done this re-decision well – to show that I know the steps and understand them thoroughly – in short, to show that I did the re-decision competently. Likewise, a perfectionist may learn that perfectionism leads to misery and will try to undo the impact of perfectionism – systematically, thoroughly, and completely (in short, perfectly).

Sometimes we struggle to find meaning in a situation and it affects our ability to make accurate decisions about ourselves. The need to find meaning in that situation is strong. Sometimes we become frustrated with our inability to meet that need; then, our focus turns to our inability to meet the need.

For example, if we are a little thirsty, we get up and get a drink. If we are somewhere where this isn’t possible (a desert or a formal occasion, for instance), we will likely find that more and more of our attention is devoted to our inability to get a drink.

The more important it is to us to have the need met, the more our focus will be on finding a way to meet that need – and the more our focus will be on our frustration at our inability to meet the need. This is illustrated during an emergency when our attention will often focus intensely on doing just one thing – and, if we don’t know what to do during the emergency, our attention will focus on this not knowing.

However, when I am able to find meaning in a situation and my need for meaning is satisfied, a new need emerges: I may need to find ways to deal with the issue – if the issue is important enough to me to require further attention.

Let’s look at a practical application of this concept: Sometimes we struggle to find a cause for our exaggerated reactions to commonplace events. We need to understand the meaning behind the strong emotions that we feel as we are overreacting. If the meaning is not obvious to us, we can become frustrated by our inability to meet our need to understand.

For instance, sometimes I’m surprised or puzzled as to why I react so strongly to something. I have found that it can be helpful to remember what happened just before I had this feeling. It may be a stray remark from someone that I didn’t pay much attention to at the time, or it may be that what happened reminded me of some past trauma (for me, the issue triggered is usually competence).

If it was a stray remark, I may think the other person was just in a bad mood and didn’t mean to upset me – this realization may be enough to resolve the entire issue for me. If I am more upset, it may mean I need to find ways to remind myself that I don’t have to be competent to be acceptable. It may also mean finding ways to nurture myself.

It may also mean that I need to examine the decisions about who I am that I made based upon the historical events in my life. It may mean I need to revisit the meaning I have assigned to that history. Once I arrive at a better understanding of my decisions, I may find I need to re-decide.

Sometimes the process of finding the meaning in reactions, decisions or historical events can be very challenging and very frustrating. When the need for meaning is not being met and our frustration increases, then more and more of our attention may focus on this need. In psychotherapy, this is sometimes called “unfinished business”.

Unfinished business is the collection of events in our past that we find ourselves going back to again and again. We may feel we should have done or said something, anything – or we should have said or done something differently. It might also be that we don’t understand why someone did something. We turn this event over and over in our minds.

The way to finish the unfinished business is to find its meaning for us. This is usually far more than just intellectual understanding. When, through therapy with a very skilled psychotherapist, I discovered that my decision had been, “I’m unacceptable because I’m incompetent”, I went into a kind of shock or hibernation; I barely spoke for three days. (I was fortunate that the situation I was in allowed this, and the people around me were understanding enough to not try to ‘fix me’.)

Gradually, over the following weeks and months, I understood more and more what this decision had meant for me and how I lived my life. (This occurred two decades ago now; to appreciate fully what this decision had meant for me took a couple of years or so.) With this new understanding, I could begin exploring other ways to live, and to find out what interested me and how I really wanted to live. My obsession with competence decreased and rarely bothers me anymore.

The months following the discovery of my early decision were a time of suffering for me – especially the days immediately after the discovery when I was in shock. It was a difficult time. However, the suffering was worthwhile because I came out on the other side with my need for meaning having been met.

This need for meaning is important, I think, even if suffering is part of the process of finding it. Friedrich Nietzsche said that, “If we know the why, we can bear with almost any how”. Viktor Frankl explored the more positive side – noting that what helped prisoners survive prisoner of war camps wasn’t so much youth and fitness as having a meaning to live for. (Frankl wrote a wonderful book about this called “Man’s Search for Meaning”.)

When we have something very traumatic in our past, it can be very difficult to finish that unfinished business. Often, the hardest situations to bring to completeness are those situations in which people who were close to us have hurt us – especially if we were young at the time. In those instances, we often have very intense feelings all mixed up together.

Remembering these events can bring the feelings flooding back – and this is awful. (We learned how to ignore or suppress these feelings for good reason – they were so awful to feel.) We may well feel like a child again, and like a child experiencing trauma (and who wants to feel like that?!)

Because we are not able to find the meaning behind these historical events, and because we are having trouble making decisions about who we are based upon the meaning of our history, we become frustrated. Our focus on our inability to find meaning and to make decisions becomes obsessive.

However, there is hope. We can gradually understand what this child needed and meet these needs now. We can come to understand what the past trauma meant. If we don’t have supportive and understanding people around us then we may need to do this in small steps. Allowing ourselves to feel the full impact of the emotion can feel very scary. It has helped me to know that I can feel a little of the emotion, become comfortable with it, and then feel a little more of it.

Our obsessions give us good information on where our needs aren’t being met. In this sense, our obsessions are entirely healthy. Over time, our need for meaning is met and our obsessive thinking and talking about the abuse will diminish. This allows us to move on to a new way of living.

Do you feel obsessive about some things? Have obsessions been a part of your life? Has your focus been on a person or subject or some area of interest? Was it a happy time? Difficult? Mixed? I’d like to hear about your experience with obsessions.

[Book study - July 11, 2009]

The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse
(Third Edition, 1994)
by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis

Part Two: The Healing Process
A Stage of Healing: The Emergency Stage

[Table of Contents]

——————–

Green text: Quotes/Summaries from the book
Gray text: My words

This transformative work (the entire series of blog posts relating to this book) constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright law.

——————–

Many women go through a period when sexual abuse is literally all they can think about. You may find yourself talking about it obsessively with anyone who will listen. Your life may become full of practical crises, which totally overwhelm you. You may find yourself having flashbacks uncontrollably, crying all day long, or unable to go to work. You may dream about your abuser and be afraid to sleep.

Tainun County, Taiwan by Martin Chen

Total obsession with sexual abuse is more likely during this stage if you’ve forgotten your abuse [as a child] and then remembered [as an adult].

The emergency stage is not something you choose, yet it must be ridden through to the other side. It cannot be ignored. As one survivor aptly remarked, “It’s like learning a new word. Within days you start seeing it in everything you read, and you never saw it before in your life.”

The important thing to remember is that the emergency stage is a natural part of the healing process and will come to an end. The nature of the crisis is that it is all you can see. But there will be a time when you will not think, eat, and dream sexual abuse twenty-four hours a day.

Suggestions to survive the emergency stage:

- Don’t hurt or try to kill yourself
- Know that you’re not going crazy
- Find people you can talk to
- Get skilled professional support
- Get support from other survivors
- Allow yourself to obsess
- Do as many nice things for yourself as possible
- Drop what isn’t essential in your life
- Create a safe area in your home
- Watch your intake of drugs and alcohol
- Get out of abusive situations
- Sit tight and ride out the storm
- Remind yourself that you’re brave
- Remember to breath
- Develop a belief in something greater than yourself
- This too shall pass

Today has been a week of realizing and, eventually, accepting that my general anxiety level has risen to ridiculous levels over the past few weeks.  For a little while, around the time that Sondra started getting sick I started having a lot of problems with depression — lack of motivation, feelings of hopelessness, extreme sadness, problems with food/eating, extreme moodiness and irritation, so on and so on.  Of course I couldn’t just accept it as that, as some situational issues going on — I had to wallow and moan about how life was just so AWFUL. 

As that depression started to lift, my anxiety became more noticeable, at least to other people.  To Dr. Love, especially, because he’s the one who has to deal with my not-exactly-rare erratic behavior day in and day out.  I’m not proud or happy to say that I really get bossy, controlling, and mean with him when I’m anxious.  I work all day long and, if I come home and there are a couple of dishes in the sink, or some project isn’t done, I’ll go off.  If it isn’t apparent to me that he’s been busy all day doing different things, I get irrational. 

Little things set me off.  I have an obsession/compulsion about the bed being made, in EXACTLY the “right” way, all of the dishes being done and put away, the kitchen being spotless, clothes put away in closets in dressers, the living room devoid of clutter.  When I’m in my right mind, and even sometimes when I’m in the moment, I know that all of these little things aren’t super-important in the grand scheme of life, and I’m usually a little bit (sometimes a lot) embarrassed by the time I’m done throwing my temper tantrum. 

And sometimes I’ll just come home in a mood and I will sit and pick things to death.  It can get really obscene sometimes — I will sit and obsess about Dr. Love possibly leaving me or not loving me or not being attracted to me and it is a very slippery slope in my mind until it is to the point that I’m asking him ridiculous questions like, “Do you ever think about breaking up with me?”  This really pisses him off to no end and he really doesn’t like it when I go on and on about how his parents hate me, especially when I go into such detail about certain instances that I am SURE prove just how much they dislike me.  He usually ends up walking away when I start really getting into this “no one loves me, everyone is going to leave me, everyone hates me” topic matter, just because he can’t deal with how irrational I am being.  I can’t really blame him, although it really REALLY pisses me off at the time.  The problem is that, in that very moment, he can’t stop my bad behavior.  Only I can. 

Basically, my anxiety can lead to some very intense moments and I consider myself extremely lucky that Dr. Love takes these situations and generally turns them around, not getting angry or holding a grudge.  He’s really good about trying to make me laugh and get my mind off things by acting silly or distracting me with something else.  Unfortunately, there have been many days where nothing can snap me out of it.

As I said, I have been thinking a lot the past week about my ridiculous anxiety level and have decided that I really need to do something pro-active about it.  I had therapy with Goddess of Mindfulness today and we talked about what I could do to feel less anxious.  I pinpointed that my anxiety really gets ramped up after I get off work and this is when I’m most likely to go home and blow up.

During times of less anxiety, I spent a lot of time sitting on my back porch, meditating and doing mindfulness exercises.  I don’t do that anymore.  At all.  During that time, I also cooked a healthy dinner almost every night, whereas most nights now it’s just whatever I can microwave.  I’m tired of coming home from work, getting pissed off at Dr. Love, yelling at him, then eating something out of the microwave and watching TV for the rest of the night to block out (usually ineffective) how anxious I am feeling.  It’s no wonder I don’t sleep well, when I’ve been revved all evening.

As a response to fear about losing Dr. Love, I have it in my head that we have to spend every second together and I realize now that is not the case.  Dr. Love gets his “me” time while I am at work, and I come home to him every night and weekend, never having even a moment where he’s not around.  This is completely not his fault, but mine. 

I don’t take any time to meditate, practice mindfulness, cook, exercise, paint my toenails, or anything else that would make me feel good.  I’m (wrongly) driven to sit by his side, even if we’re not doing anything and are just staring at the TV together (which doesn’t usually happen because he gets tired of watching). 

I talked with him about it last night and he agrees that I need to be taking time out to do things for myself to feel better, to feel good.  When I talked with Goddess of Mindfulness about it this morning, she suggested that I need to find a way to relax at the end of the day.  When I was doing my best, I was in a routine of coming home, going for a walk, cooking dinner, and then maybe watching about an hour of TV or spending some time on the computer. 

When I come home now, my anxiety is at an unreal level and I’m so overwhelmed.  GoM suggested that, as soon as I get home, I go sit out on the porch and listen to some mindfulness exercises on CD.  She gave me a few suggestions of ones to try out and a workbook also that may be helpful.  I’m going to Amazon later tonight and will give them a try and report back, if they’re any good. 

My hope is that, with beginning to relax myself through meditation and mindfulness the moment I get home, I will have a less anxious evening and will be more amenable to cooking, exercising, blogging, LIVING.  Fingers crossed.

So this song is repetitive, but the lyrics (comments) get stuck in my head and I’m always singing it to Dr. Love.  Enjoy. 

Plain White T’s, 1 2 3 4

this article popped up on my google search this morning, it really interested me, explaining the difference of having these traits versus the full blown disorder and how it can in fact be a positive thing

For my son diagnosed with BPD, he certainly has obsessive tendancies, but then so do I………………….  Mine has helped me to run a profitable and successful business.  Two ends of the spectrum.  

Hope you find this interesting

FT.com / Weekend / Reportage – Is there a bit of OCD in all of us?.

The obsessive compulsive disorder suffered by Howard Hughes began in the 1930s when he became preoccupied with peas and used a fork to arrange them by size

History’s best-known sufferer of obsessive compulsive disorder was Howard Hughes. After inheriting a successful engineering business, the multi-millionaire playboy won fame in the 1920s and 1930s as a movie mogul and for his derring-do as an aviator. But by the 1940s, he was beginning to succumb to an obsession with dirt and germs that would gradually take over his life. So great did his fear of contamination become that he cut himself off from the world and became a recluse, retreating to the isolation of expensive hotel rooms where he lived with the windows and doors taped up to keep out bacteria and flies.

Unfortunately, instead of confronting his obsessions, Hughes was rich enough to have others indulge them. His aides were given extraordinarily detailed instructions for handing him any object using a system of “insulations” he’d devised. To take his hearing aid from the bathroom cabinet, for example, they were told to:

● use six to eight tissues to turn the knob on the bathroom door;

● use six to eight new tissues to open the bathroom cabinet and remove an unused bar of soap;

● wash their hands with the soap

● use at least 15 tissues to open the door to the cabinet containing the hearing aid; and

● remove the sealed envelope containing the hearing aid with two hands using another 15 tissues in each hand.

Towards the end, weighed down by his obsessions and addicted to codeine, Hughes became increasingly emaciated and stopped cutting the nails on his hands and feet, letting them grow to grotesque length. When he died in 1976, he was so unrecognisable as the dashing celebrity whose face was once splashed on magazine covers all over the world that he had to be identified by his fingerprints.

Hughes’s sad story is so bizarre that it makes obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD, sound equally abnormal. Yet studies have shown that 2 per cent of the general population, or one in 50 people, have full-blown OCD, meaning their symptoms meet all the accepted diagnostic criteria. The World Health Organisation ranks it among the 10 worst illnesses in the developed world in terms of its impact on income and quality of life.

But even those statistics could be only part of the picture. According to a paper appearing in last month’s American Journal of Psychiatry, an estimated 21-25 per cent of individuals could be said to have borderline OCD, meaning they have obsessions or compulsions that meet at least some of the diagnostic criteria. Admittedly, more than one-third of these people are also suffering from another anxiety disorder or depression – but according to the paper, that still leaves an estimated 13-17 per cent of otherwise “normal” people – about one in 15 of us – suffering from at least some symptoms of OCD.

So, what is this disorder? And could someone you know be at least partly afflicted?

The term “OCD” has recently displaced “anal” in contemporary slang as a way of describing people who are more than usually meticulous, pernickety or pedantic – the sort of people who are never satisfied unless things are just right. If this reflected a greater understanding of obsessive compulsive disorder, it might be no bad thing. In fact, it has simply increased the degree of misunderstanding by confusing two different conditions with almost the same name. “Anal” people do not usually have OCD at all; they simply have an obsessive compulsive personality type, meaning they’re a bit fussy. People with OCD, in contrast, are suffering from a serious anxiety disorder that greatly impinges on their lives.

While being “anal” can be an asset in some circumstances, as in a job that requires attention to detail, there are no advantages in having OCD at any level. All it does is cause distress by introducing obsessive, irrational anxieties into the sufferer’s mind, typically involving perceived dangers or appalling images of one sort or another. A defining characteristic of OCD is that sufferers believe just thinking about bad things will make them happen unless they act to prevent it; so they feel compelled to carry out little rituals which to other people look odd and unnecessary but which to them have the magical power to counteract the perceived threat. Typically, the obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviour reinforce one another in a vicious circle, causing the condition to become ever worse until it starts to interfere seriously with the sufferer’s life.

Although there are many possible obsessions, the most common of them fall into a surprisingly small number of categories. The best known is Howard Hughes syndrome – the fear of dirt and germs, commonly linked with compulsive handwashing and cleaning. Another common one is the fear of harming others or coming to harm oneself, often accompanied by compulsive safety checking – repeatedly making sure the door is locked, the cooker is turned off and the iron is unplugged. Many sufferers are obsessed with a need for symmetry, which results in compulsive rearranging of things. Others are tormented by thoughts that they will carry out some horrifying act of a violent, sexual or blasphemous nature, and often try to block out or neutralise these thoughts with mental rituals such as counting or the repetition of certain words or phrases.

. . .

“I’ve grown up with it because my dad’s also a sufferer, but his obsessions are different from mine. His are with cleaning; mine are with even numbers and things like that,” says Katie Stevens, a 20-year-old living in Redruth, south-west Cornwall. “It really started to get out of hand when I was about 16. There were some bereavements in the family and there was so much going on – so many things to be organised and so much happening so fast – that it was something I felt I could control. Now, it’s the worst it’s ever been. It affects my everyday life, my work, my driving – everything, really, because everything I do, I have to do in even numbers.

‘Everything I do, I have to do in even numbers. I have to have an even number of peas on my plate, something as silly as that’

“For example, having just an ordinary cup of tea, you might pick it up and have a sip with your left hand, then you put it down and do the same with your right hand. Even if you only have one sugar, you put one sugar in with your right hand and then just pretend to do it with your left hand so you feel symmetrical. It’s the same with food – I have to have an even number of peas on my plate, something as silly as that. If I’m driving and I wind down the window, I have to lean over and do it with my other hand too so there isn’t that feeling of oddness. When I change gears with my left hand I have to lean over and touch the gearstick with my right and pretend to do the same thing again so I get that feeling of evenness and symmetry.”

At work, Katie has everything on her desk laid out evenly and even has a matching pair of linked computer screens instead of just the one. “My colleagues know about it and they support me as much as they can. But there’s only so far they can understand because to them, they’re just thoughts that you can easily block out whereas for people who suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder, it’s much harder than that. It’s like someone screaming at you that you have to do this regardless of what anyone says. If you don’t do the rituals, there’s a sense of panic, anger and real distress and you feel like everything’s just going to fall apart.

“We’re very sheltered down here – not a lot gets past Devon into Cornwall – so not many people know about it and there are no support groups or anything like that. It’s the same with counselling. Most people treat OCD with cognitive behaviour therapy but that’s not offered in Cornwall so you have to travel a long way to get it.” Once diagnosed, Katie started on medication but it brought on intrusive thoughts: “I had urges such as, for example, you’d be driving on the motorway and all of a sudden you’d get this urge to let go of the steering wheel and see where the car takes you, or you’d be standing at the top of the stairs and start wondering what would happen if you just let yourself fall.” She is now on a different medication but still has her obsession with symmetry. “It doesn’t dissolve it, it just masks it a bit. I’m still struggling with it.” She is about to get married, “so I’m having to make sure everything at the wedding will be symmetrical and just right – the tables, the arrangements, the flowers, the decorations and so on. The way the food comes out, it will all have to look exactly the same on each plate, so it’s going to be a huge pressure on the kitchen.”

. . .

On the other side of the country, 33-year-old Chris Brotherton of King’s Lynn, Norfolk, has also been wrestling with OCD since his teens. His started with upsetting thoughts that wouldn’t go away: he was working towards a medical qualification in a hospital “and I kept imagining myself tripping patients up or hurting them or tipping them out of their wheelchairs. It was something completely out of character for me and I had no idea why it was happening. I honestly thought I was evil.”

Most people have bizarre and abhorrent thoughts that pop into their minds, only to be dismissed and forgotten. The problem for OCD sufferers is that the thoughts come and stay, torturing the victim with nightmarish visions that they will actually carry out some unspeakable act – which, all the evidence shows, they never do.

For Chris, his thoughts were so disturbing that he left his medical training – “I thought I just wasn’t supposed to be around people” – and took another job, initially in catering. Things then quietened down for a while – until he married, bought a house and had children. With the increase in family responsibilities, his OCD returned, but this time in a different form. “The violent thoughts faded into the background and I ended up worrying about security. I had to be the last one in bed because that way I could check the house and make sure it was all locked up.

“It started off very small. I’d check the door a couple of times, then go to bed. But by the time my second daughter was born, my wife would be going to bed at about 11 o’clock and I’d be up till 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning checking doors and locks. Two doors and four windows – that’s all it was. I’d shake the door handle 13 times, then check the window 13 times, then I’d get maybe five minutes’ peace until I had to start all over again, and I’d have to keep doing that until exhaustion literally forced me to bed.”

Three years ago, David Beckham admitted to repetitive behaviours, such as lining up his soft-drink cans and spending hours straightening the furniture.

Eventually, he sought help and about five years ago his OCD was diagnosed. To treat it, he was given a course of cognitive behaviour therapy, or more specifically, a form of it called exposure and ritual prevention (ERP), in which people are exposed to their fears but gradually reduce their ritualistic response to them – for example, cutting the number of times they check the doors and windows from 13 to 12, then 11 and so on. “You can’t get rid of the obsession itself. You can only reduce the way you react to it,” says Chris. “But once you’ve got that under control, the obsession itself starts to die down. It’s still there but it’s as if you’ve taken its power away, so it doesn’t distress you as much.”

So that was the end of it? If only. Chris says things went well for a while; then, of all things, his wife developed OCD, and the feeling that he was responsible for it brought his own back – this time, as in his teens, in the form of violent, intrusive thoughts. “It’s as if every time I conquer one part of it, it changes into something else, like a little demon that suddenly realises one trick’s not working and decides to try another. So now, it’s trying the thoughts again, and I’m starting to work on those.”

What sort of thoughts does he have? Chris hesitates. “That I’m going to come downstairs and find my family slaughtered.” By whom? Another long pause. “That’s swings and roundabouts as to who does it,” he says, sounding increasingly distressed. “Sometimes it’s someone else, and…” By now, he is struggling to get his words out. “Sometimes it’s me.”

Usually, Chris says, his compulsive reaction to these obsessive thoughts is to keep mentally repeating a mantra to block them out. Part of his therapy is to stop doing this and instead let the thoughts in, gradually exposing himself to them in the hope that they’ll lose their power. “Just speaking to you about the thoughts like this is part of the therapy,” he says, “because I’m having to talk about them and confront them.”

. . .

It is no consolation at all for Chris Brotherton and Katie Stevens, but they are in distinguished company. According to David Veale, a consultant psychiatrist at The Maudsley Hospital in south London and co-author of the self-help guideOvercoming Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, the English writer and lexicographer Dr Samuel Johnson is one of many famous historical figures who suffered from OCD in the days before it was known as such; his biographer James Boswell described how, among other things, Dr Johnson would perform highly ritualised movements when passing over the threshold of a door. The author John Bunyan apparently suffered from intrusive thoughts, describing how “whole floods of blasphemies, both against God, Christ and the Scriptures, were poured upon my spirit, to my great confusion and astonishment”. Charles Dickens may also have been a mild sufferer, rearranging the furniture in any room in which he stayed to get it into exactly the “right” position and touching objects three times for luck.

More recently the footballer David Beckham has spoken in a television interview about his obsession with symmetry. “I have to have everything in a straight line or everything has to be in pairs,” he said. “I’ll put my Pepsi cans in the fridge and if there’s one too many then I’ll put it in another cupboard somewhere.”

Interestingly, although researchers doubt whether OCD has changed in prevalence over the centuries, it does seem to have changed in character. In more pious times, obsessions typically involved intrusive blasphemous thoughts or the fear of committing sacrilege. Nowadays, the themes reflect modern-day concerns: worries about health and safety, for example, or the fear of becoming a paedophile.

So, what causes OCD? If only we knew. According to David Mataix-Cols, a clinical psychologist specialising in OCD research at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, “people are very polarised in this field, as they are with many mental disorders”. Opinions, he says, tend to fall into two main camps: the biological and the psychological.

Those in the biological camp think OCD is caused by an abnormality in the brain, with many fingers pointing at the possibility of an imbalance in the chemical neurotransmitter serotonin. There is no direct evidence for this but the fact that anti-depressants, which act on the brain’s serotonin levels, also alleviate OCD has led people to hypothesise that serotonin is at least part of the answer.

Those in the psychological camp, says Mataix-Cols, think OCD is a learnt behaviour. Most of us worry about hygiene to some extent and feel the need to wash and clean. But because of past experiences or the way they were brought up, people with OCD develop false beliefs that such minor concerns are real threats and over-react to them accordingly. The behaviour is perpetuated because it “works” – the compulsions appear to prevent the dreaded events occurring.

As so often, it’s the old nature-versus-nurture argument – either you’re born with OCD, or it’s a result of your environment. But another possibility, says Mataix-Cols, is that it’s both. Apparently, there is a tendency for OCD to run in families – roughly 50 per cent of cases appear to be explained by a genetic component, or “nature”. But, says Mataix-Cols: “obviously that leaves another 50 per cent not explained by genes, so there might also be some environmental, learning, nurture aspect to them.” In other words, while some sufferers may have a biological vulnerability that makes them more prone to OCD, it also appears that they need environmental factors (past experiences or a stressful event) to trigger it. And in sufferers without a known biological vulnerability, perhaps environmental factors alone, if sufficiently disturbing or traumatic, are enough to cause it.

In 2005, Paul Gascoigne said that he had become obsessed with cleanliness

Unfortunately, without knowing exactly what causes OCD, there is no sure-fire cure. Even so, it can be successfully managed. The most effective option is usually ERP, of the kind tried by Chris Brotherton, with anti-depressants as a possible alternative. Mataix-Cols says that for the 30-40 per cent of sufferers who do not fully benefit from ERP, other forms of cognitive behaviour therapy are being tested that aim not only to eliminate the rituals people perform in response to their obsessions, but also challenge the obsessions themselves. “If someone has obsessive thoughts about harming someone, the experiment might be about deliberately trying to harm someone just by thinking about it, because people with OCD sometimes believe just thinking about something will make it happen. So the experiment would be, OK, let’s think about killing this person, let’s deliberately try to kill him with our minds, which is something patients are terrified about; and then, by doing this, they gradually realise that their fears may be exaggerated.”

But what if the person really does die? The idea is absurd, but don’t be surprised if it popped into your mind. To a degree, we all believe we have magical thoughts, meaning we fear making things come true just by thinking them. Says Veale: “If I asked you to wish your loved ones dead in a road traffic accident, you’d probably be reluctant to do it. People don’t like to wish or think about bad things because they’re afraid that somehow, if they do, then they might make them happen.”

So is there a bit of OCD in all of us? It wouldn’t be surprising, says Veale. “That’s the case with many different mental disorders. When you think of depression, there’s an awful lot of sadness and depression out there but that doesn’t necessarily mean people are clinically depressed. It’s the same with anxiety disorders – there’s an awful lot of anxiety out there but that doesn’t necessarily mean that all of it is significantly distressing or handicapping in people’s lives.”

. . .

Obsessed, obsessive and obsession are over-used words. People talk about someone being obsessed with recycling or being an obsessive gambler; there is even a perfume called Obsession. But it is not enough to be preoccupied or infatuated with something to qualify as an OCD sufferer. With OCD, the obsessions have to be unwanted, unwelcome and anxiety-provoking – they can never bring satisfaction or pleasure. They also have to cause a repetitive behaviour or ritual aimed at preventing some dreaded event or situation, and this behaviour must be irrational or excessive. On top of that, the obsessions and compulsions have to interfere significantly with the sufferer’s life and/or take up at least one hour a day.

These criteria are laid down in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published in the US and used to a varying extent around the world. But as Mataix-Cols points out, “The definition’s entirely arbitrary. It’s just some blokes getting together in America and saying that if you spend more than one hour a day doing rituals, and if those rituals are distressing and interfere with your everyday life, then you’ve got it. If not, you don’t. But what we’ve found is that there’s a very large prevalence of OCD symptoms in people who don’t fit this definition.”

Mataix-Cols is one of the co-authors of the paper in last month’s American Journal of Psychiatry concluding that OCD symptoms are surprisingly common in the adult population. (It is based on a longitudinal study of the health and behaviour of 1,037 children born in New Zealand in the early 1970s.) The symptoms are the same as those with full-blown OCD – typically, obsessions with contamination, danger, symmetry or shameful thoughts – but, either because they take up less than an hour a day or are only moderately distressing, they don’t qualify for full clinical diagnosis or treatment.

We need to be careful about disease-mongering or over-medicalising people who do not want or need any help. But for those who are distressed by their symptoms, there is an argument that more should be done. Says Mataix-Cols: “One of the main findings of this study is that people who have obsessions and compulsions early in life are at greater risk of developing full-blown OCD in the future. This is important because it opens the gate to preventive work. So if these findings are confirmed by other studies, then there would be a case for trying to identify all these sub-clinical people and giving them some simple strategies or treatments that would prevent them from developing it.”

. . .

Even then, one big problem will remain: getting people to come forward. Many sufferers try to hide their symptoms, either because they’re embarrassed or because they don’t want to be thought of as mad. Incredibly, studies show that the average time elapsing between onset and treatment is 17 years – and even then, most cases come to light only when people have sought help for another anxiety order or depression and turn out to have OCD too.

Winona Ryder is another public figure who has exhibited some of the symptoms of OCD

Back in King’s Lynn, Chris Brotherton says: “I think it’s much more widespread than people would think because we’re so good at hiding it. We become experts at hiding our own tricks and traits. I work in a factory where there are only 80 people and yet I know six people there who definitely have OCD – three that are diagnosed and three that we know of but who can’t face up to the diagnosis.”

According to Joel Rose, director of the charity OCD Action: “Some people recognise they’ve got a problem but are afraid of getting it dealt with. Instead, they develop their own strategies for working around their compulsions. They live a life where they just accept that they’ve got to set out three hours earlier [to allow for repeated checking of door locks, electrical appliances and so on] or allow an extra hour or two to do such-and-such a task.

“There’s a strong message that needs to go out: first, that OCD is not uncommon and if you have it, you’re not alone, and second, that it’s relatively treatable. Between cognitive behaviour therapy and medication, there’s a good chance of being able to manage and contain it in a way that’s not detrimental to your quality of life. And the sooner you get on to that process, the less of your life you spend suffering from it.”

Richard Tomkins is the FT’s chief feature writer

OCD Action can be contacted on 0845 390 6232 or at www.ocdaction.org.uk

………………………………………………….

The 21st-century anal retentives

Someone with an obsessive compulsive personality is what Sigmund Freud called anal retentive. According to Freud, in the anal stage of pyschosexual development, children took pleasure in learning to use the toilet. Too much punishment at this stage could cause anal fixation in later life, with two possible outcomes: either an anal expulsive personality, careless and lacking in self-control, or an anal retentive one – orderly, fastidious and tight.

Says David Veale, a consultant psychiatrist at The Maudsley Hospital in south London: “I think everyone knows people who at one level have an obsessive compulsive personality. They tend to be somewhat perfectionist, very conscientious, perhaps somewhat rigid in their routines, maybe slightly unemotional, tending to collect and hoard, and maybe having high morals and standards.” None of this is abnormal, he says – unless it “gets out of hand and interferes with your life and becomes distressing enough for yourself or others”.

While an obsessive compulsive personality may have its downsides, it is not all bad. In more pronounced cases, says Veale, people may find it difficult to be creative, be open to new experiences, have fun or experience emotion; they may even be a bit miserly. On the other hand, you would not want an auditor or an airline pilot to be anything other than conscientious and meticulous, and if you were about to undergo brain surgery, you would probably prefer the surgeon to be anal retentive rather than anal expulsive, if the latter meant careless and lacking in self-control.

Shortly after I got home from church today, my husband called. This would have been a good sign to me if the conversation had been any different, but he was in a bad state today.

He refused his Seroquel last night, so he didn’t get any sleep at all he told me. He thought he heard somebody out in the hall saying, “six, six, six” last night, which got him all upset as that is Satan’s number.

When I was at the hospital yesterday, we changed the sheets on my husband’s bed. For some reason, there was a “seven” drawn on the sheet, as if somebody had been making a sign and the marker went through the paper and onto the sheet. My husband asked me if this was “God’s number”, and I told him yes. This upset him because he believes now that he has “turned his back on God” and that God has “spewed him out of His mouth”, and he is terrified because he thinks any day now will be his last and that’s he’s automatically destined for eternal damnation.

When he first went into the hospital, he was telling me that he was very scared at night because he thought “demons were coming to drag him away”.

The rest of the call today was all about the so-called “bad things” my husband believes he has done. The things he tells me are unrealistic and not true, but he believes them strongly. He believes he is a pedophile, a thief, an adulterer, and I don’t know how many other things. It is SO sad to hear him talking like this. It’s very frustrating too, because no matter how many times I tell him these things are not true, he refuses (or is unable?) to believe me.

Today is Day 19 of his hospitalization, and I haven’t seen any progress other than the fact that he’s started eating and drinking again. Other than that-nothing.

I’m at my wits’ end too, because I have no idea how to get these doctors to get on the ball and try to help him get over these untrue, obsessive thoughts.

I’m extremely discouraged.

Tetris

In a recent news article, it was revealed that people exposed to traumatic images and events could be spared the suffering of recurring, obsessive thoughts by simply… playing Tetris soon afterwards.

From arstechnica.com:

“…the brain has limited resources, and secondly, work on memory consolidation suggests that there is a six-hour window within which disruption of that consolidation is possible. Put another way, there’s only so much your brain can do at once, and if you distract it within that six-hour window, you can prevent the memory being fully formed.”

It sounds too good to be true. But then, so does the actual cure for any disorder along the anxiety spectrum, including Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Attacks, Depersonalization, Phobias, OCD, PTSD, etc etc. People who develop these types of conditions are often terrified when their initial research or trip to their doctor tells them that there is no actual specific cure for them; but that a course of SSRI anti-depressants and/or series of sessions in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy might just do the trick.

And yes, these approaches can certainly help and even cure people in some cases. But the actual structure and anxiety-related basis of these conditions means that if the patient does recover, it’s invariably a by-product of the therapy and not the therapy itself.

I’m speaking from experience; I suffered from chronic anxiety, panic attacks and depersonalization for almost two years. And I tried everything - you name it, I paid for it – Medication, meditation, Reiki, Yoga, etc etc. None of these approaches seemed to work. But in the end, I recovered, and what cured me was an intensive course of distraction. I kept my mind occupied 24/7: practicing the guitar, reading books, playing video games. I didn’t give myself one minute to accommodate the anxiety. Basically, I had to retrain my brain to not focus on obsessive, negative thoughts – and it worked like a charm. I’ve been telling people my story via an ebook, and have received almost universally positive feedback from readers. This stuff works, and it’s really as simple as it sounds. That’s not to say that it’s not hard work – it absolutely is – but it’s not complicated.

Doctor

I’m certainly not the first person to be aware of this. For example, Charles Linden’s anti-anxiety program basically says the same thing. And the fact is that anxiety research, when viewed through this lens, absolutely backs up the distraction theory. Indeed, it makes total sense that for something as purely self-perpetuating as anxiety disorders, treating them in the traditional sense is an exercise in futility. Most of these approaches just reconfirm to the individual that there is something ‘wrong’ with them, reminding their subconscious that it’s supposedly ‘ill’. But it’s not – it’s just addicted, temporarily, to one specific train of thought. And distraction can cure it.

The whole thing is basically an extension of the Tetris/PTSD phenomenon – If the events have been stuck in your thoughts for a few hours, then immediate, intensive distraction for a little while will push out them out as if they’d never been there in the first place.  If you’re unfortunate enough to have been stuck with these thoughts for months and even years, then it’s probably going to take a few months worth of constant distraction to achieve the same effect. But it always works. It works because the mind has been diverted (by trauma, drugs, grief etc) into an anxious, introspective state, and all you’re doing now is reversing that procedure. It works because it has to work.

People often fear that the trauma of the anxiety will be with them forever, or fear that their personality will be somehow different. Nothing could be further from the truth, and it’s because of a mental phenomenon known as state-specific memory. It basically means that once you are completely out of a state, or an experience, that it’s very difficult to remember the full extent or power of  your emotions while you were in it. It’s one of the most brutal things about depression, in that when you feel very down, you can actually ask yourself, “Was I ever really happy?”  Since you are not in anything resembling a happy state, it’s nearly impossible to remember when you had one. The same goes for anxiety (which is very much linked to depression). But the fact is that it works the other way too – so that when you get out of the anxious state, you actually wonder, “What the hell was I so worried about?”  So, I can clearly remember the time I spent feeling constant anxiety and panic attacks, but I can’t relate to it anymore. Which is a good thing.

I think that’s also the reason that when we have nightmares, in which we see  the most horrendous images dredged from the pits of our own subconscious, and tailored to terrify you specifically — we can still get up, have our breakfast, go to work and forget about it. Why are we not crippled by these images, why don’t they haunt us and stop us leaving the house? Because when we wake up we lose the dream state, we are immediately back in a normal, structured reality that is entirely different from the nightmare, and requires our full concentration to navigate. We don’t have time to focus on the fear, and so it disappears. (Interestingly, at the nadir of my anxiety disorder, I was actually having panic attacks in my dreams, waking up and having another panic attack. Great fun altogether…)

Unfortunately, this goes so completely against the standard medical view of anxiety disorders that it is seen by most doctors as baseless conjecture. All of these MDs who prescribe cocktails of medications to treat “separate” anxiety-related neuroses are following their training to the T, but they are missing the big picture. I’m not going to get into a rant about how so many of them are tied up in ‘sponsored dispensation‘ of medications, but the fact is that it’s far more beneficial for doctors to prescribe a long course of anti-depressants and follow-up appointments (which is all by the book) rather than tell a patient  that they might recover completely if they spend their money instead on a Nintendo with Tetris (which is definitely not by the book). It’s what happened to me; over the course of 12 months, I saw a doctor, one of the highest-paid in the country, who really had no idea how to deal with my condition and just gave me tablets and platitudes until I went away.

It just never fails to amaze me just how little doctors know about anxiety conditions in general. I have so many emails from people who, suffering from what are blatantly obvious symptoms of anxiety, are told by their doctors that they may be having a nervous breakdown, a manic-depressive episode, even a psychotic break. These poor souls, who are experiencing nothing more than an overreaction of their fight or flight response – something easily cured – are told that they may be looking at years of medication, therapy and brainscans, at the precise time when what they need most is distraction from their condition.

It’s a disgusting level of ignorance, perpetuated by both the pharmaceutical industry and avaricious, blinkered doctors, and it ruins lives. It needs to be addressed immediately.

f

1. Ghosts
2. Obsessive Thoughts / Psychological Problems
3. Multiple Personalities (This is also, to some extent, a real phenomenon that might not entirely be caused by mind control.)
4. Psychic Ability / Lucid Dreams / Astral Projection
5. Paranormal Phenomena
6. Psychiatric / Mental Illness
7. External, Human Attackers Using Weapons
8. Religious / Spiritual Experiences
9. ‘Hearing Voices’ Movement, where the voices are unexplained, but not a sign of illness

10. Electromagnetic Sensitivity / Auditory Sensitivity

Characteristics of these categories (from their point of view, not mine. I disagree with these interpretations, except #7):

1. External entities. Might be dead people. Might be demons or some other ‘energy’ creature that doesn’t have a physical body.

2. Internal. You can fix it by retraining the mind, taking drugs, or using other psychological methods to fix unhealthy thinking patterns.

3. Internal. Caused by trauma or mental illness. Treated by drugs and therapy, or just not treated at all.

4. Internal. Under one’s own control. A skill, a good thing, a blessing, with some downsides or burdens attached to it. If something happens that seems to be not under your control, then it’s caused by ’subconscious’ mystical knowledge inside you, or maybe the influence of a supernatural entity or other forces.

5. External. Unexplained. Mysterious, entertaining, exciting (if it’s happening to someone else and not you!). Something that makes life interesting. Hints at the existence of unexplained ‘other realms’ or whatever, perhaps an afterlife or energy creatures that don’t have physical bodies, or hints at aliens. May suggest it’s caused by unknown laws of physics or things that could have some scientific explanation but we don’t know it yet. Avoids suggesting that humans cause the events.

6. Internal. Negative. Treatable by drugs and therapy. Assumes that the drugs actually HELP rather than doing more harm or CAUSING you to hear EVEN MORE voices (which is what happened when I took Prozac).

7. My interpretation. Negative, a crime. Solve the problem by building shields, and tracking down perpetrators and physically stopping them. (Negotiation and voluntarily stopping seems unlikely – if they were willing to stop voluntarily, they would have already stopped long ago after seeing how terribly it affects the victims’ lives. Their behavior indicates that they don’t CARE who suffers.) Goal of getting more social support, more money for research and countermeasures. Educate people. Could be positive if it were being used ethically, with consent, to study and control your own mind and body because you chose to do so, not because some invisible stranger zapped you awake in the morning without your consent. Could be used ethically for other purposes such as putting animals to sleep before killing them for meat, so that they don’t feel pain.

8. External source. Positive. Helpful, friendly, loving guidance. Sometimes terrorizing, if God judges you negatively and wants to punish you. Voices of God and angels speak verbally to you whenever you pray, or they send you positive feelings of ‘goodness’ and ‘light’ and ‘benevolence,’ etc. They also influence your choices and actions and they tell you things you might not have otherwise known about. Similar to psychic ability, but comes from without, not within. Religious people of the modern day aren’t aware that, centuries ago, religious authors mentioned ‘The Voice of God’ in a metaphorical sense, not a literal one, and they were quite clear that it was NOT an actual voice using verbal words and talking to them when they prayed. ‘The Voice of God’ was a metaphorical voice only, an inner sense of knowing what was right and wrong in one’s life, and knowing by feeling what you needed to do in life, and being ‘called’ by God to some activity or service mission. IT WAS NOT A LITERAL VOICE!

9. The Hearing Voices Movement is on the internet and is intended to remove the stigma of mental illness. Hearing voices is said to be a normal event that happens to a very large number of people. They avoid being explicit about giving an interpretation on their website, and they accept the victim’s (or lucky, fortunate, blessed, ‘Indigo’ person’s) explanation for how and why it happens. To some extent I agree with what they’re trying to do. But I personally am interested in focusing very strongly on physical countermeasures and on physically stopping the criminals. The HV movement doesn’t tell us what to DO about it, but they have phone numbers to call for social support. I got the impression that their phones were overloaded and they weren’t able to do it anymore, last time I went to their site.

10. External. Accidental, insentient, non-directed, impersonal. May be natural or manmade. Not directed at you personally. Caused by devices of the modern world, like cell phones, radio towers, and electrical appliances. Some people more sensitive than others. (I partially agree with this interpretation, but it doesn’t account for all of the phenomena.) I think there is some combination of ’sentient/directed’ and ‘insentient/ambient/accidental’ phenomena, where maybe it’s easier to attack people who are already in a strong radio field, etc. Affected by foods, drugs, and chemicals that may worsen the sensitivity. Goal is to make more laws controlling electromagnetic fields – this is one other reason why I’m not quite comfortable with this interpretation. ‘Make more laws’ is their main approach. Although, actually, #7’s external attackers say something similar, like ‘Hold Government Accountable!’ and ‘It’s All Government’s Fault!’ etc, when I think some of it is government and some of it is caused by other criminals. This approach also focuses on ‘Electromagnetic Fields Cause Cancer,’ which I don’t really agree with – at least not yet, though I might change my mind. Claims that a wide variety of physical and mental health problems are the result. I disagree somewhat because I have other beleifs about what causes some of those things – but again, I don’t disagree entirely, and may change my mind over time as I learn.

A good way to stop ruminating over past events is to distract yourself. To break the repetitive thought cycle, experts recommend diverting your attention from ‘that’ particular thought for about 10 to 15 minutes. So, next time obsessive thoughts strike, try losing yourself in a book, playing with your dog or anything that engrosses you.

Get active
Obsessive thoughts can lead to depression as your mind can’t stop ruminating over something that you perceive as negative. Next time you feel anxious, go for a jog or just engross yourself in music. Any physical activity releases endorphins or feel-good hormones which will help uplift your mood and help you think more rationally. Besides, being active will help distract you from repetitive thoughts.

Sit still
Meditate, pray or take a long walk on the beach or just indulge in any other activity that you find calming. Largely when we obsess, we tend to dwell over events that we perceive to be negative and keep trying to set things right. But, if you’re all charged up and obsessing over it, you probably won’t be able to see a solution in sight. So calm yourself. This gets rid of that awful feeling of urgency and helps you view things from a fresh perspective.

Be positive
Cut out those negative thinking patterns. When obsessive thoughts take over, repeat the following affirmation to yourself, ‘I am a positive person’ or ‘I always think positively.’ A positive person doesn’t ruminate over past events or worry endlessly about negative outcomes. This might seem like new-age philosophy, but affirmations work at a sub-conscious level and over time you shall notice that affirmations do change your thoughts.

Phone a friend
It’s an option, use it! Because, when you’re obsessing over something, you’re definitely not thinking rationally. So, call up a friend and talk it out. Let him/her check your irrational thoughts. Over time, you will learn to check your own thoughts.

Rectify mistakes
All right, some good does come out of obsessive thoughts — you land up changing yourself. For instance, you may be dwelling over having lost your temper on your spouse and said some harsh words. And if you’re not happy about that aspect of your personality, then think about it rationally. Finally, work to alter it. The fact that you’re ready to change yourself, will break the guilt trip you’ve sent yourself on, which in turn will break the thought pattern.

Write it down
Try and maintain a log of your obsessive thoughts. For instance, ‘If I don’t fare well on the test, my classmates will think I am a fool,’ or ‘He/she didn’t greet me today, this proves they don’t like me, but why don’t they like me?’ This gives you clarity of thought and over time you may notice a pattern in your thoughts which could point to larger issues such as perhaps low self-esteem, low confidence levels etc. Try and deal with those deeper issues and chances are you’ll manage to break free of the obsessive thinking pattern.
Since this may be too much of a task to deal with on your own, don’t be afraid to ask for professional help.

A good way to stop ruminating over past events is to distract yourself. To break the repetitive thought cycle, experts recommend diverting your attention from ‘that’ particular thought for about 10 to 15 minutes. So, next time obsessive thoughts strike, try losing yourself in a book, playing with your dog or anything that engrosses you.

Get active
Obsessive thoughts can lead to depression as your mind can’t stop ruminating over something that you perceive as negative. Next time you feel anxious, go for a jog or just engross yourself in music. Any physical activity releases endorphins or feel-good hormones which will help uplift your mood and help you think more rationally. Besides, being active will help distract you from repetitive thoughts.

Sit still
Meditate, pray or take a long walk on the beach or just indulge in any other activity that you find calming. Largely when we obsess, we tend to dwell over events that we perceive to be negative and keep trying to set things right. But, if you’re all charged up and obsessing over it, you probably won’t be able to see a solution in sight. So calm yourself. This gets rid of that awful feeling of urgency and helps you view things from a fresh perspective.

Be positive
Cut out those negative thinking patterns. When obsessive thoughts take over, repeat the following affirmation to yourself, ‘I am a positive person’ or ‘I always think positively.’ A positive person doesn’t ruminate over past events or worry endlessly about negative outcomes. This might seem like new-age philosophy, but affirmations work at a sub-conscious level and over time you shall notice that affirmations do change your thoughts.

Phone a friend
It’s an option, use it! Because, when you’re obsessing over something, you’re definitely not thinking rationally. So, call up a friend and talk it out. Let him/her check your irrational thoughts. Over time, you will learn to check your own thoughts.

Rectify mistakes
All right, some good does come out of obsessive thoughts — you land up changing yourself. For instance, you may be dwelling over having lost your temper on your spouse and said some harsh words. And if you’re not happy about that aspect of your personality, then think about it rationally. Finally, work to alter it. The fact that you’re ready to change yourself, will break the guilt trip you’ve sent yourself on, which in turn will break the thought pattern.

Write it down
Try and maintain a log of your obsessive thoughts. For instance, ‘If I don’t fare well on the test, my classmates will think I am a fool,’ or ‘He/she didn’t greet me today, this proves they don’t like me, but why don’t they like me?’ This gives you clarity of thought and over time you may notice a pattern in your thoughts which could point to larger issues such as perhaps low self-esteem, low confidence levels etc. Try and deal with those deeper issues and chances are you’ll manage to break free of the obsessive thinking pattern.
Since this may be too much of a task to deal with on your own, don’t be afraid to ask for professional help.

I had a e-convo with someone a few months back about playing the “What If” game with her son.  He’s a young aspie (isn’t that redundant?), and had recently been throwing out the “what if this happens, then what if this . . .” lines.

I said something then, but I don’t remember what exactly.  All I do know is that I have had a new thought regarding that train of obsessive thinking.

It’s not so much that you need to focus on stopping the obsessive thinking, because really that’s impossible.  Rather, you need to teach your child/husband/friend/client that if whatever they are worrying about does happen, then they as a person can still get through it no matter what.

I think that those of us who play that game, in addition to worrying more about the possible thens and not the current here and nows, are ultimately at the core, just unsure of ourselves.

What if X happens?  Then I’ll handle it.  But what if Y happens?  Then I’ll handle it.  I’ll get through it.  I’ll figure something out.  I’ll ask for help.  True, shitty things may happen, but then again, they may not.  Either way, the person worrying about XYZ needs to know that they have your confidence in them to be able to handle different situations.

Likewise, especially in the case of those who are younger/less experienced, one thing that can help them is to actually show them what it’s like to be in that situation.  I mean, some things are hard to demonstrate (like gravity suddenly turning off – one of my personal ongoing What Ifs), but some things are workable.  What if you have a car wreck?  Well, always let people know where you’re going if you’re out by yourself; always have your cell charged; call 911; learn CPR . . . don’t hang around things that are full of gas when they’re on fire.

It helps me to know that at least I can recognize the situation that I’m in, even if I have no personal experience therein.

Really, if you die, then you die.  I can’t help you there.  You’ll figure it out, if there is anything left to figure out.

If something happens, have faith in yourself that you can muddle through somehow.  If you think about it, things happen all the time and we get through them.

What if it happens?  Then it does.  And someday you can look back on it and think, “boy, I’m glad that’s not me anymore;” or “that was scary, but I got through it.”  I’m okay.

You can do it.  You do it all the time and don’t even realize it.

You’ll figure something out.  And if you don’t, ask for help.  There are options.  They might not be fun, but then again, what’s life without a few stories to tell friends/family later in life?

I try not to worry as much about things in the future.  When they come up, something will happen, I’ll be there, and then I won’t.  I’ll be somewhere else.  And so it goes.

Before you know it, there’ll you be.

Dr. Phil Looking for those with Postpartum Depression

Do you believe you are suffering from post-partum depression?

Are you having obsessive thoughts, feeling a lack of attachment to your baby, or are you experiencing other symptoms you suspect could be post-partum depression?

If so, please share your story with us! We’ll be working with leading physicians to help moms who are suffering with these symptoms.

http://www.drphil.com/plugger/respond/?plugID=12527

“There’s nothing worse than taking something into your head; it turns into a revolving wheel that you can’t control.” – Ugo Betti, Italian Judge, Playwright (1892-1953)

When something really gets to me, it can easily turn into an obsession. I’ll think that one thought over and over; 24/7. I’ll worry over one particular thought like a bulldog in a meat shop.

I believe that I became obsessed by fantasies that spun around inside my head like pinwheels on a windy spring day. At times it became difficult to imagine real people, in real situations. I kept repeating images that were real only in my fantasies. Eventually, I realized these fantasies were closing me off from a world of truth.

To break free, I needed to take dramatic action with both my psychiatrist and therapist. I attended a weekly group session and found that by talking and sharing with others, I was able to learn from their experiences. I continue to walk a path that leads outward into life and away from those spinning wheels of my obsessions. I am learning to live a life away from my mad world of obsessions and I’m reaching out and getting free.

Okay, so I kind of figured the title would get your attention!  You’ll have to forgive me–it’s for a good reason. 

I want to warn you about the potentially harmful side-effects of using CHANTIX, a prescription smoking cessation drug.  I have been tobacco-free for 3 weeks now and I attribute my success to the effectiveness of CHANTIX.  But you haven’t heard the rest of the story….

At the beginning of last week I found myself distraught and in tears at work.  Every little thing that occurred–I seemed to take personally.  I thought it was just that my recovery program was lacking or that perhaps I needed to have more time with my Higher Power–a stronger focus on spirituality. 

I told myself a long list of platitudes:  “cheer up”, “don’t take things so seriously”, “relax”, “don’t sweat the small stuff”.  But no matter what “self-talk” I tried, it came up short.  I felt alone, despondent and worst of all for an analytical Virgo, I did not know why. 

I told my boss I was going home sick.  I told a friend that I needed a “mental health” day.  I cried all the way home and then cried some more. 

It wasn’t until later that evening that I remembered something my Mother had told me months before about CHANTIX.  It had been linked, in a growing number of cases, to suicide.  But you hear a lot of things about different drugs, so it went in one ear and out the other.  (I have since learned that there is a growing body of evidence to support the a correlation between CHANTIX and suicide.)

I knew that my mood had not been this low nor had I been this depressed since before going to treatment in November of 2007.  I went back and counted the length of time I had been taking the drug:  4 weeks.  Hindsight is 20-20 right?  I could directly correlate, at least for myself, the use of the prescription drug, CHANTIX, with an onset of mild depression–and if I were to continue–a greater level of depression as time progressed.

The doctor’s orders were to continue taking CHANTIX for 2 more months.  It’s astonishing to me now that even though I was reporting signs of depression, my doctor did not suggest that I stop taking CHANTIX.  In fairness to her, I don’t think she knows me well enough to judge whether I was feeling “low” or “very low”.  She could have also thought that my depressed mood was related to PAWS (Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome)–very common for people in recovery from methamphetamine addiction. 

This past Monday I stopped taking CHANTIX.  My mood began to lighten within a day or two.  Within 3 days I was starting to feel like myself again. 

CHANTIX did help me stop smoking.  But I fear that the side effects have been/will be deadly for some people.  If you decide to use CHANTIX, please use it with caution.  This is only my personal opinion and I am not a medical professional, so take this–as you would with anything you read on the Internet–with a grain of salt. 

And one last word on this:  the words FDA Approved are not a substitute for good judgment.