My story is a long one, but I will try to condense it. When I was
sixteen years old I was raped by an older man at a party, while
heavily intoxicated. What makes it worse is, I was a virgin. Anyway, I
didn’t really realise that it was rape until a year later. I was
sitting in class six months later when I saw a sign about HIV. That
was when I had my first panic attack. I really thought I was going to
die because I remembered the incident and put two and two together.
Besides the guy who raped me, was into drugs and a pretty devious
character. I ran straight to the school nurse and told her my
situation. I asked her “how likely do you think it is that I
contracted HIV?” Her words resonate with me even today. She replied
“very likely.” The drive home on the bus was a total blur I was in
shock.

Long and short, I had an HIV test (my parents went with me, although
obviously in shock.) That week waiting for the test was the WORST WEEK
OF MY LIFE! I sat on the end of my bed, feeling incredibly guilty and
like I deserved what I got. I clutched onto my Bible and prayed that I
would be ok. I think that’s when OCD came into play. I kept asking and
praying “god will I be ok?” “send me a sign”. Over and over and over
and over and over again….Funny thing is my father (who is a priest)
came in right after one of my prayers, and proceeded to dance saying
“all will be well, yes all will be well….” A true God send if you
ask me

For two years after that event I had numerous HIV tests, all negative.
But then I would find myself in situations where I would think I had
contracted it. So then I would go for another test. This behavior
went on and on. I eventually stopped having tests, but it was always
in the back of my mind.

Sixteen years later I still have contamination fears. But now it has
progressed to worrying that I will get up in the middle of the night
and drink poison. So I tie up all my cleaning solutions so I can’t get
to them. I can’t stand blood also. If I see blood I start to freak
out. I can’t even handle it when my husband bleeds. I worry that he
will get HIV because he has cuts on his hands often and he might come
into contact with someone’s blood. The list of paranoid thoughts goes
on. Sometimes I think I am the only one in the world who thinks of
these things. I constantly fear needles as well. And I also have
paranoid thoughts about other people. I annoyed a nurse the other day
and I am worried she may try to harm me, she knows where I live too!

I have been to counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists and even tried
“spiritual healing.” Well, I am sad to say that neither has worked. I
am currently not on medication and haven’t been for many years. I just
live one day at a time, hoping not to get into any OCD provoking
situations. Its by no means the life I always wanted for myself. But
on the bright side, I have a husband that is very understanding and a
family that supports me and they have come to accept that I have some
weird stuff that I do sometimes.

To the outside world, I am “normal.” I have hidden this disease
incredibly well. The only people that know are my family and husband.
I am ashamed to have this. No doubt my past has a lot to do with the
progression of my OCD.

Antibodies to strep throat bacteria linked to obsessive compulsive disorder in mice
…support the view that this condition is a distinct disorder, and represent a key advance in tracing the path leading from an ordinary infection in childhood to the surfacing of a psychiatric syndrome

There is a history of sexual abuse in my family. My sister was
sexually abused by my Grandad and another sister was sexually
assaulted. From the trauma of this I have to deal with a lot of sexual
obsessions relating to abuse or anything to do with sex. As a gay man
this is very distressing and takes a lot of energy to let go of some
of the thoughts that come up. I know they are false but they
feel so real when it’s bad.

Some things that happen are when I’m walking past women I will look
at their breasts and think what if I reached up to them. Then I
will wonder why I’m even looking at breasts when I’m a gay man!

I might have a word stuck in my head like women genitals or a song.
My compulsion is too figure the thought out so I will go back over
time and try and figure out why I’m thinking such a disgusting
obscene thought.

I’ve just recently found out OCD brains are a little different to
regular ones. I’ve ordered a book from my local bookshop called
“Brain Lock” by Jeffery Schwartz which I think will help me.

My therapist puts it this way. Having these thoughts proves what a
beautiful and loving individual I am as I am so appalled by them,
especially when they relate to people I love. It proves I’m overly
responsible and kind. These thoughts are so in contrast with my own
personal values.

What’s happened with me is that love and sex have become confused
and mixed up. If I think how much I love someone dearly, sex might
come into the thought. Very distressing as you can imagine but
that’s what sexual abuse can do in a family.

My Mother and sister had/ has bad OCD so it’s definitely a gene
thing to a degree. I”m just so relieved that people talk about it
now especially sexual obsessions as to admit to them is quite painful
but the start of healing.

Some other obsessions I have had are:

Thinking I could abuse baby’s or my sisters.
Linking flower smells to sex.
Women in skirts.
Knives or pointed items. Thinking they are phallic like. (I was
involved in a knife point hold up at a hotel I worked at in my
20’s)
Feeling strange at parks with kids there. Wondering if mothers are
thinking what’s that man doing there on his own.
Hot water. Thinking I might scald someone with my cup of tea.
Bad religious thoughts.
Bodily fluids, urine and faeces mixed up in thoughts and related to
food.

I used medication when I had a bad episode when I was 30 for three
months and then went off it gradually and decided to go it alone just
with my own brain. I had to learn to relax, walking, yoga, guided
meditation time out to myself. Anything that made me feel calmer
helped long term.

This is just a small part of my story. Thanks to all the other
stories here. They have helped me to realise it’s not just me and
that was the biggest relief. I have OCD and that’s ok. Life goes on.
Good luck to you all. We are family all my OCD brothers, sisters
and me.

Eventually I could no longer drive because I became fearful that all
these thoughts about car accidents would cause it to actually happen.
I went into a state of depression and believed that these thoughts
were actually suicidal thoughts. I had no one to talk to about this
because I started thinking that perhaps I was suicidal because why
else would I think of dying this much?

Eventually I decided to tell my Dr and she referred me to a therapist
who I am still seeing. My therapist and I uncovered my history of OCD
and dated it back to when I was 11 and believed I was possessed by
the devil. Today I am relieved to know that I was not going through
a state of psychosis or schizophrenia then. Anytime I had a second
to think I was telling the devil I wouldn’t sell him my soul. For
months this was happening to me, and I’d even dreamt about the devil
(dreams which I still have today). Now I know it was my obsessive
thoughts.

The obsessive thoughts are the majority of my OCD but they are
dramatic enough to leave me feeling powerless and out of control all
the time (though people say I am a control freak). I have a tendancy
towards symmetry in my body (ie: finger tapping, kicking, scratching
on both sides of my body to make it feel ‘even’).

Now I recognize other things I do because of my OCD (usually
religious obsessions… I was raised a hardcore Catholic). For
example, making the sign of the cross when I get into my car to bless
my drive, flipping over shoes (when I was younger my mother told me
that shoes that were facing the ground meant I was stepping on God
instead of the devil… to this day I think something bad will
happen), not stepping on cracks, counting stairs, etc.

As you can see a good amount of my obsessive thoughts and some
compulsions are religious in nature.

The worst part of having OCD is hearing people say they think they
have it. This part really hurts me because they don’t understand the
real anguish that came from my obsessive thoughts. It isn’t fun for
me to spend 10 minutes thinking about stabbing my mother and which
knives would be most effective. These thoughts happen several times a
day and cause me a great deal of anxiety.

I am still in weekly therapy and recently began medication with
Zoloft.

I’m grateful for this website and wish you all the best.

Considering that obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterised by a fear that “bad things” will happen if certain rituals are not performed, it’s surprising that so little is known about the role of imagination in the condition.

I, for one, certainly have a vivid imagination. I have lived through the outcomes of my , “what if’s”, thousands of times - in painful detail. In my mind. My imagination is so vivid and the horrors it puts me through so intense (and “real”) that the few times my fears have come about it was no big deal. Kind of, “Been there, done that”, sort of experience.

It is an interesting line of research that I hope they pursue.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Linked To Brain Activity
The scientists have discovered that people with OCD and their close family members show under-activation of brain areas responsible for stopping habitual behaviour. This is the first time that scientists have associated functional changes in the brain with familial risk for the disorder.

Interesting. It could lead to earlier diagnosis-like before it gets really bad. That would be a good thing. A very good thing.

Are you crazy enough to succeed? - Behavior- msnbc.com

The medical director at the center, Michael Jenike, M.D., is both a maverick and a pioneer in the OCD community. He founded this facility, the first of its kind, to help sufferers of what he considers the most agonizing of psychiatric disorders.

“I had a 17-year-old who had kidney cancer that was going to kill him in 5 or 6 months. He also had a bad case of OCD. He said he’d rather get rid of his OCD and live only 6 months, than get rid of the cancer and live with the OCD. That’s when it first hit me: This is some serious stuff.”

The people seeking treatment at OCDI do not have the minstrel-show version of the disorder acted out by Tony Shalhoub in Monk or Jack Nicholson in As Good as It Gets. The institute’s residents are seriously impaired.

One of the things I likes about it was the point made about how people too casually use the term OCD (one of my pet peeves).

My favorite quote from the article is “I lived in an Escher print”. Heh. Been there. Uh, well still am, in fact.

Go read it.

DIRT provides hope for OCD hand washers

16 June 2008

A new treatment for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) pioneered at the University of Sydney is having great success by targeting the beliefs behind the obsessive behaviour rather than the behaviour itself.

Now this is interesting. The OCD I live with has, so far, proven to be uh, treatment resistant. So I am always looking for new forms of treatment. And this sounds promising. Besides you have to love the acronym. DIRT (Danger Ideation Reduction Therapy). A bit more info on it can be found here. http://www.commonlanguagepsychotherapy.org/index.php?id=54

I function in society, run a business, but feel pain and anguish most
of the time. I won’t even try to go through the evolution of my OCD,
as I have had probably every conceivable configuration and iteration
of the disease, since age 13. Medicine and cognitive therapy have
provided occasional relief, but it cycles in and out, affixing itself
to my most difficult times in life, as my constant companion. It
knows how to maneuver in such a way as to attach itself, as a leach
attaches to the skin on your body and sucks your blood. Instead it
attaches to and sucks your brain. It sucks out the rationality and
intelligence of reason and composure. It works its way into your
deepest desires and potential triumphs, and preys upon your fears so
as to overcome and counteract the joys that you may have. That is
the goal of this insidious disease, and it can succeed if allowed to
flourish on its own. OCD is a villain, a rapist, a murderer, a
molester, a monster of the worst kind. It selects innocent people
and distorts their sense of intellectual well-being, causing doubt
and uncertainty to pervade one’s mind, until there is nothing more
than doubt and pain. It competes with good thoughts and normal
feelings to sabotage one’s intellect and sense of being alive; it is
a fierce enemy.

I know you well, OCD. I feel your constant efforts to create havoc
with my mind. As a youth, you played with my immature brain and
attempted to destroy it, just as I was trying to create a sense of
self-value. In my most formative stages, you attacked. As an adult,
you convinced me that I was dying and didn’t have a basis to be
comfortable with each day of my life. You eroded my sense of self,
my enjoyment of life. You deprecated and depreciated the good things
that I had, by forcing a behavioral pattern of fear and defeat. There
were not even drugs or therapy for OCD for the first twenty years of
my disease, so I was left to work through it on my own, too
embarrassed to tell anyone in the world what my mind was doing to me,
all the while attempting to fight this enemy by myself.

As a mature male, I fear everything, I distort the reality of what I
have, I find faults and constant defects in myself and those near and
dear to me, and I obsess about all of these things constantly.
After ruining my marriage, now in separation, I fear having
contracted HIV from heterosexual safe sex partners, and even from
kissing women, attractive, healthy women. The fears are overwhelming.
Thanks OCD for so cleverly working your way into every crevasse of my
life, so as to make it as unbearable, even the parts that are supposed
to be good. And the sad part is that my life could be pretty good,
were I to lose this miserable partner - my OCD companion.

I will continue to fight, saddened by the length of time that this
killer has engaged me. I will attempt to be strong and beat this
thing, and I will not give up. Even on the worst of mornings when I
do not want to get out of bed, and when I want to check myself into
a hospital, I will endure the agony and I will survive; no I will
conquer, for the alternative is to allow this miserable disease to
have triumphed over me, to gloat and wallow in its defeat of good and
well-meaning people. None of us should let that happen. Fight for
your life!

POSSESSED on Vimeo
‘POSSESSED’ enters the complicated worlds of four hoarders; people whose lives are dominated by their relationship to possessions.

While on the subject of hoarding here is another article on it.

Submerged in stuff, hoarders keep collecting - Mental health- msnbc.com

“But thanks to new research, the cluttered, confusing world of the compulsive hoarder may finally be starting to sort itself out.”