Reply To: Struggling to cope

[FoxesandPenguinsParticipant]

First off, your inpatient therapist sounds like he knows nothing about OCD. It seems your current therapist doesn’t understand it either. I really commiserate with you because I know just how damaging it can be to have a therapist that actually doesn’t get where your problems stem from and thus actually makes things worse.

From personal experience, and from all the research I’ve done on websites about OCD, your (and my) intrusive thoughts are so distressing and hard to dismiss purely because they are what you fear doing the most. You clearly care a lot about people, and therefore, despite how overwhelming the fear is, I can tell that there is no way you would ever hurt someone like that.

Your current therapist doesn’t understand OCD at all, this is why she thinks these thoughts are brought up because she assumes you are angry and want to hurt him. From my perspective, the perspective of someone whose had OCD since she was 8, it is very clear that the reason these thoughts have come back full-force is because he has accused you of actually wanting to hurt people. Because this thought it so distressing to you, the antithesis to who you really are, your OCD has reared its head again.

My advice would be to start interacting with people again slowly, don’t push yourself too fast. You won’t hurt anyone – please carry with you that one stranger on the internet knows this with absolute certainty and believes in you.

In your current therapy group, the only thing I can think of is to not discuss your fear of hurting people and instead try to discuss other things. It seems counter-intuitive, but might be your only option because clearly the advice given for your OCD is not helpful.

My partner used to have awful OCD and is now okay thanks to joining an OCD counselling group at his work (he worked with heavy machinery and was terrified that he would hurt someone with it). This group was really useful as it stressed that your OCD thoughts are just thoughts that remain with you because they are so distressing, they are not your actions, and they are not who you really are. I am wondering if one of the telephone groups with OCD action might be similarly useful, so if possible maybe you should join one? I am thinking I will do the same as the reason I am on here is because my OCD is completely overwhelming me!

If you need to talk/reassurance, genuinely I am here for you. Also, I will stress to keep going, to not give up hope and to be kind to yourself. I have had appalling OCD flareups in the past, and these have eventually gone (I am also reminding myself of this, given that my OCD is going haywire rn due to lots of irl stress and lack of sleep!). It may seem as if there is no way forward from this, but things will change – they got better for you before and they will again. If possible, try to distract yourself as much as possible, perhaps listen to music or an audiobook when you are out and about to stop yourself getting caught up in your fear.

In any case, I hope you are doing better than you were when you wrote this. Sending you my very best of wishes over the internet!