We’re gonna need a bigger tablet…

Over-estimated myself again and have kicked off an almighty spell.

Got over-confident yesterday and so went to the colon exam w/o any support. Was blase about it, thought I’d be fine. Let’s face it, hadn’t freaked out the past two time when I’d gone for a testes ultrasound and so had to have a surgeon gel up my groin.

Yeah I know, too much info but it is important to set the context AND to demonstrate how pure-O and, in this case, the homosexual ocd component reacts utterly randomly – is why even if exposure therapy was a valid option for it then it just wouldn’t work.

Anyway, thought as a result I’d be ok.

Aaaaaand haven’t been.

Ironically it wasn’t the (for lack of a better phrase) finger up the ass that set me off – though that is a pretty grim and invasive process. It was the examination before when the guy had to press on my groin a few times to examine it. Immediately went extremely physically anxious and tense and went into a panic ‘did i react to that?’ mode. Didn’t expect to due to being fine with previous examinations and so it stuck in there somewhere.

Came out and was fine for a bit but felt a bit TOO fine – almost like I was cracking jokes through over-compensating. A little like when you see a person after a panicky incident making jokes a little hysterically. was aware I was doing it too but tried to ignore it.

Ultimnately though it didn’t work. Started the usual OCD mental replays, imagery and involuntary mental testing and shot my anxiety levels absolutely into orbit. Pretty much mentally seized up for past 24 hours as a result. Not as visually/imaginatively freaking myself but more in terms of my mind having a massive dose of stress and now dealing with the aftermath.

Again. This is becoming a very familiar pattern of late. Due to see GP about an unrelated incident in morning and, if I’m able to actually drive, its clear I need to rotate meds back to Prozac again. Exactly the same pattern as when other meds have failed over past few months.

Not good as I don’t look forward at all to wdwl and then the side-effects of new tablets but no choice.

Bugger (excuse the pun).

A little OCD poke…

…and no, that doesn’t mean some sex action whilst cleaning my hands for 2 hours.

Not been a bad week until this afternoon. Last week’s spell appeared to hit the ‘reset’ switch finally and, combined with some much needed good sleep, have felt ok and quite active.

Thing is, I don’t realise how much my mental state affects the little things until I’m not in a spell. You become inordinately proud of small things like having a wash, cleaning teeth, going for a walk and other stuff that is meant to be a basic. It’s just that, when I’m IN a spell, all such things seem just way too much mental effort, even oddly daunting. That’s a characteistic shared with depression I know, but funnily depression is not something I tend to suffer from too much. Am pissed off because of my disorder but not depressed as a seperate issue from it.

Anyway, today’s mini-attack was out of the blue. Just led on the sofa listening to a podcast and some idle line just set me off into remembering something from around 8 years ago when I was at my lowest and in the midst of my pornography addiction (itself an obsessive thing borne of testing re: my homosexual ocd and of the ridiculous amount of stress I was suffering – that became the outlet and ultimately not a healthy one in such amounts). Remembered something dodgy I’d seen, how I near blanked it out at the time and ignored it and how much just the concept of even seeing it now is upsetting and alien to me.

Wasn’t fun. My technique of trying to defuse that is probably contrary to what you’re meant to do but the more I’ve lived with pure-o the more I realise you flex them to keep yourself sane. For me, I had to lie down quietly and mentally search for a ‘rope’. Can cope with no other input at that point. Much as you know it’s just an ocd attack and when it wears off you’ll think normally again, for me I have to compromise. I have to find something I can grip onto to guide me back, concentrate enough to find the thread of sane explanation for such upsetting shit that’s there when I’m thinking and remembering clearly. Once I can find that, I can pull back from the place I am at that second, not engage and let it burn itself out.

Is that how you SHOULD do it? No, at least not how some psychs tell you to. My reply? Try suffering from it because, when you do have a spell, you’re right back there mentally. You feel every emotion, every bit of mental distress, panic and confusion as the person you are normally (and now) suddenly conflicts with the place you were then. Basically you have to indulge the compulsive thinking element of it and desperately try and concentrate/focus enough to drown out the shit and remember the truth and hope you haven’t stretched yourself too far mentally while doing so. If you do, a spell is liable to fully trigger immediately. Mind you, if I don’t do that at all then that’s gonna happen regardless.

Thankfully I found the truth – I really was so damn desensitized at the time that I was barely paying attention to what i was downloading/glimpsing for a second or two before moving to the next thing and the upsetting stuff just got numbed out in my search for ok stuff to help relieve my tension (ironically it was just making things worse). Once I started to become aware of what was happening it scared the hell out of me – made me suddenly take notice of things and go way too far the other way in being hugely oversensitive and ultra-edgy about anything that even vaguely reminded me of anything even 1% dubious, which itself then just fed my ocd in a different way.

Took me the best part of an hour + to remember that though.

*sighs* Not gonna lie, even recounting it now disgusts and upsets me. Ok, I understand how the behaviour happened as a facet of my disorder, I understand the fact that even a hint of anything vaguely dubious now is kinda proof that it isn’t anything for/in me (tbh more of a problem that I over-react now) and understand that, at the time, I was so desensitized that I was just seeing (to be crude) t*ts & b*sh and nothing else for a second before moving onto the next image – and that the moment I realised that and stepped back to look for more than a second, I was appalled.

Feel I better clarify this (have discussed this on here in the past but worth doing so again). We’re not talking kids/PTs. The fact that what i saw HAD t & b will hopefully calm any fears that i was seeing anything REALLY dubious like that – such things have always disturbed/disgusted me and always will and I wasn’t desensitized THAT much. Purely the ‘night be/might not be, not sure’ grey area, the one where men (and women I’m sure) see someone and notice ‘cute but not sure, steer clear’ as a mental/moral decision.

Beforehand it was something I treated like every other person, is just something you automatically avoid but wouldn’t beat yourself up for thinking ‘they’re attractive’ as you know you’d never go near it with a barge pole and that’s the equivalent of a massive cold shower. Since? When OCD is bad, you constantly question any reaction of the tiniest nature to anything like that, inspect yourself mentally to make sure you meant nothing else by it and go hyper alert physically. Is it as bad now? No – but when your ocd wants to trigger, it’s another weapon it can pull.

Understanding doesn’t change the memories hurting and triggering when your ocd locks on though…just gives you a rope to cling onto. Even though I’m past such behaviour now, you don’t forget it – and the problem is, because it’s not somewhere you’d go when in your right mind, it’s hard to accept it and forgive it as a sufferer now because it’s so alien to how you behave now. Plus noticing an attractive, physically developed person in their mid-teens is probably an absolutely normal reaction but that gets mixed up with the ocd turning it into a bad one. Tough.

Hope that makes sense in some way. Am hoping a good nights sleep will help the ocd relax itself.

Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends…

Wow – deja vu.

Always had a feeling that T2D would never stay defunct for long. Much as I have a love affair with Twitter and much as my disorder seems fairly unchangeable, ultimately there’s a need there for me to unleash about my illness or in general that 140 characters just aren’t going to serve.

So where are we now in April 2011?

Well the OCD is as alive as ever folks. Though I’m becoming more and more loathe just to pigeonhole it as OCD. Ironic really as most sufferers CRAVE a diagnosis initially so we know what the hell is wrong with us and it then ends up becoming too confined a space for us and more of an inaccurate summarisation for non-sufferers to relate to then something that really nails what we suffer from.

Generally day-to-day is still difficult. No return to work and have pretty much resigned myself to accepting that is never going to be an option as mentally am just too unpredictable. I have found some form of stability through routine (ever the hiding place of the sufferer) though a lot of it means being pretty unsocial and quite a hermit most of the time. I think I sacrifice my social life a lot simply to have a peaceful mental life the rest of the time. Then again, 14 years in I’m a pretty good judge of what I can/can’t cope with and when I can/can’t cope with it so that itself says something about my general condition. often it’s more through mental tiredness and weariness.

Spellwise have just come off the back of a pretty major one that wiped me out for a solid 5-6 days. Was an innocuous image that triggered me, linked into some past bad memories/experiences from when I was really bad with my OCD and started to set off some ‘tsting’ behaviour. In reality it was harmless but it hit the old buttons from the past through association alone. Most of the 5-6 days was spent led on the bed, closing off input, maybe with a podcast on, doped up and sleeping (meds didn’t work so hit the valium) until I came back down again.

First intense spell I’d had for a while but it had been coming. Have been on Citalopram 20mgs per day since shifting from Prozac last May and it seems to have settled into a certain pattern of behaviour. I won’t hit a peak spell often but will get a constant series of mental ‘jabs’. Have had that from meds before and is particularly mentally exhausting. Did try going up in dosage but, again, was a disaster so it seems quite simply that my tolerance to the meds used on OCD is pretty low (far lower then the dosage needed for a real beneficial effect). As a result, had been waiting maybe 2 months to hit the ‘peak’ which then tends to be like hitting a reset button.

That means that, atm, I don’t feel too bad. have realised the disorder is definitely cyclical and this is the ‘calm’ point/trough of it. That’s a good way of explaining it tbh. The chemical imbalance that causes the disorder is constantly in flux, a never-ending cycle of increasing imbalance until you hit a crisis point which then corrects it and starts the cycle again. At the start of a cycle you can do a lot more mentally/physically and that ability degrades as the cycle approaches its peak. With effort you can still push yourself to do stuff later in a cycle but it will significantly increase its acceleration, length of peak and time of recovery back to the start.

Sounds a bit ‘mathy’ but pretty much follows that pattern. As for the time length? Still massively varies. Still using Diazepam in a ltd dosage when things get intense (can be up to 6mg a day in bad spells) but am VERY controlled with it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. The thing is, I could take more on a regular/daily basis and it may help but you have to remember this disorder is lifelong. Start taking diazepam like that and their effect will wear off quickly, the dosage will increase, the effectiveness die off and you’ll end up hooked on something that no longer does the job. That isn’t worth it and the only balance I can see is really putting up with the disorder until it’s incredibly bad then using diazepam to take the edge off. May not be pleasant but don’t want to be a slave to them.

The focii points for the disorder are still varied. Sexual stuff is still a biggie which, considering that H-OCD and P-OCD were my two primary areas for the first 5-6 years of the disorder, is no surprise. Can cope far better then I could but still physically tense up at innocuous things a lot and have real pesonal space issues at times. Is random though – something can not bother me for ages and then suddenly one day can pounce and set me off. My personal confidence has improved though. Better the devil you know I guess and I think knowing that the intrusive sexual thoughts are an OCD thing have helped them REALLY wind me up less and happen less. They still can/do though and can be upsetting – the legacy of really bad pure-o can be as much the memories it leaves you with from when you were bad as whatever is going on now.

Suffer from an immense amount of physical, often sexual tension too. Part of this is no doubt because I just need to get laid (!) but also am pretty sure it’s an element of the fucked-up brain stimuli and messages flying around the body.

Outside those areas there are still the normal mix of others. Loud places and crowds are difficult – just too much mental stimuli and sends me into overload tbh. depending how mentally strained I am, that can extend just to any socialising or public activity in general. Still have the same old issues of insecurity and paranoia at times. Still obsessively lock onto things that are stressful, cope incredibly badly with any form of appointment of responsibility/comittment on my schedule and stress about it.

The worst one is still the false/past memories one. Pretty much a sign of how obsessive thinking just switches to whatever it can use at the time, have had myself ‘lock’ onto memories and events from up to 20 years ago and be fixated mentally on them for days. it’s torture. half the time you come to your senses and not only is your recollection hugely faulty but often fictional when in a spell. That’s scary and pretty uncontrollable.

And of course sometimes you just feel mentally fucked without any particular focus and it sits there causing an immense mental strain and headache.

 

Lol, a cheery assessment! Have done one thing though. Started doing a weekly podcast unconnected with my disorder and focusing on another love of mine, dance/club music. That’s 21 episodes in and going really well atm. Gives me something to feel constructive and positive about and, even though it HAS contributed stresswise to a few incidents, I’ve kept it as relaxed and stress-free demandwise as i can to allow me to do it. It’s fun and, while not ideal stresswise, gives me at least something to focus on. I try not to think too far on things as there’s not much futurewise to think ON if you start doing that – day-by-day is best.

 

Anyway, sure there’s more I could and will say but that’ll do for where things are right now. Laters.

T2D

This’ll do nicely!

Ok folks, have settled on a theme that makes me feel a little more at home compared to the Spaces Live one!

Also, the post made 2 below this one has become the new ‘About T2D’ page so, if you know anyone who may be interested, may be a good thing to link them to. Page direct address is https://t2docd.wordpress.com/about/.

New entry this evening or tomorrow?

I think so :).

 

T2D

T2D Is BACK…

..and still bitching as ever!

(in the moaning way, not the good way :P)

Yep, after the protracted move from Windows Spaces I’ve finally started getting the place sorted and re-categorising stuff here for people to follow the ongoing joys of my OCD – you punishment gluttons, you!

Temporary theme for the mo ’til I settle on something (this text is damn small) but will work on it alongside giving you all an update of where the hell I am with stuff right now.

Have also created some stuff on the right of the page to help old visitors and new ones access the key posts about my OCD in the past 6 years I’ve been online talking about it. Hope they’ll help.

Anyway, a proper post and update etc when I’ve decided on the look/feel of the place. For the meantime, hope all the old folks who’ve joined me from the original T2D are doing ok and to the new ones?

Be prepared…:P

 

T2D

Welcome to T2D

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….

…lived a little blog on Windows Live Spaces called ‘Things to do in Bristol When You’re (OCD)ead’.

 

T2D (as it became known) held the story, thoughts, rants, observations and confessions of a guy who’d suffered from a form of OCD called ‘Pure-O’ (or obsessive thinking) since 1997 & started blogging in 2005 when he finally started seeking treatment. The aim? To give me a place to rant, to work through the demons in my head, to confess, to understand, to forgive myself for an illness that wasn’t my fault.

Yet as I went through years of psych treatment, medication & learning life would never be the same I realised how little was known about the illness. How little help there was for it, how little personal and professional understanding there was about it & the dark places it could take you. How me opening up might help some others do the same just by being brutally honest and upfront. So, amidst other musings on my life, the odd film review and the occasional comical rant – that’s what I did.

In 2010 I started leaving less entries & scaled T2D down due to Spaces being a bloody nightmare (!) & not knowing what I had left to say. Nothing was changing much, there were no more great revelations…but then, that’s not the point. Perhaps for someone else with Pure-O just knowing there’s someone here who IS still going after 14yrs and not quite barking at the moon yet is enough!

So T2D is back. I’ll try and update it regularly again and have re-categorised old posts in the sidebar on the right. For those new to the place and to OCD, go and have a read. Some stuff has changed from the posts 3-6 years ago, some hasn’t, but hopefully it’ll give an insight.

Strap in…

WordPress Move…

Sorry it’s been a while folks – have a new project in the shape of a podcast that’s been taking up some time! Needless to say everything is the same as ever OCD-wise and will do a new update about that, the podcast and everything else soon….

…BUT it’ll be on WordPress. Am gonna go ahead & transfer the site over. Not happy about it as I suspect much content etc might be lost but have to at some point so am gonna give it a go. Hopefully everything will go as planned. So…

…see you on the other side!

1-2-3 Spike

Ok, so that was a shaky moment.

Part of the deal of being a primary OCD sufferer is that old triggers never really leave you. Am assuming the depth of them corrolates to the time you suffer before starting to get some help getting them under control and understanding them. Once a pattern of thinking/belief locks in as intensely and as long as mine did about particular areas I don’t think it ever leaves without some significant scars. And, for OCD, those scars are just resources for it to use.

My scars all lie in the H-OCD and P-OCD fields. Anyone whose read this for a few years knows that I didn’t realise I had pure-O for 7 years or so and tortured myself with thinking I might have been homosexual or some kinda sexual deviant for a long time. Both baseless but that’s OCD for you. Anyway, was only when I got help and got those obsessional worries under more control that I realised ocd doesn’t work like that. It affects everything and it was just those 2 were more noticeable to me because they were the most disturbing.

Control doesn’t mean cured though.

You can still twinge and trigger at things you read, see, hear etc. Sometimes innocuous, sometimes overt. And in an odd way the very fact that you aren’t tormented by it on a regular basis anymore can make it harder to deal with in some ways as you’re not expecting it. The mental guards are a little more down, the techniques you use daily are rusty.

Tonight’s little surprise came whilst watching ‘Juno’. Quite simply, i find Ellen Page very cute. Was cute in ‘Inception’ and cute here. Problem was, she’s playing a 16 year old. Now that may be legal (in UK folks) but nevertheless still leaves me feeling uncomfortable after a number of years being hyper-sensitive about such things. Most guys it seems are fine with seeing a girl of 16-18 and finding them cute regardless of their own age but it’s something my OCD tends to flare up with. Yes, she’s actually 20 and isn’t really 16 but for a disorder like this that doesn’t help (maybe it’s her pretend age that attracts you, maybe she looks young and that’s the thing etcetc). Plus how much of your interpretation is actually fuelled by the very anxiety spike you’re suffering from at that instant as, tbh, all bets are off when one happens and trying to figure out anything will never produce a stable conclusion.

Hugely frustrating as now it appears that I’m starting to even get uptight about things I’ve no need to be uptight about. Christ, even if she HAD been 16 I’m aware that finding a 16 year old girl cute isn’t exactly an abnormal thing at any damn age.

Bah, I don’t know. I’m a little keyed up but I don’t THINK this feels like a spike that triggers a spell – most likely just a one-off. But it is tiring.

Thought I’d share a little insight. Hope it helps.

M

Move along, nothing to see here

To quote War Of the Worlds: "Abruptly, the sound ceased".

Yes, as is the want of this unpredictable disorder, it’s been a relatively ocd-free week or so.

Had a disasterous meeting with the diabetic nurse last Friday where I found my weight loss for the past 6 months was somehow exactly zero (everything else is fine – cholestoral , blood/sugar, liver/kidney function, BP) and having 2-3 days obsessing about food this week has been calm. Changed diet again & hoping to start walks again on Monday but, aside from that, nothing to report OCD-wise.

Making the most of it as this is a pretty rare thing. The knowledge that it WILL return can sometimes be enough to prompt its return sooner then it normally would – the joy of having an incurable disorder I guess. Sometimes makes it hard to accept the good spells for what they are but you have to try and live in the moment when you’re in one.

Family stuff has been tough this week though. Mums birthday went pretty well (loved her presents, especially the microwaveable Bagpuss warmer) but concern about my sister’s health and state of mind made things tough on her and me too I guess. Have found myself cast in the odd role of handing out parentlike advice and patronising teacheresque verbal discipline to my sis lately which is really strange when she’s 6 yrs older then me. Furthermore, I seem to be good at it! respect my authority!! *grins*.

Had the joy of my google acc being hacked for the first time too, promptly screwing up my Android phone and leading to me creating a plethora of diff accounts and passwords yesterday. Am now in far more danger of forgetting them myself then anyone else cracking them. Saw that my defunct WOW account had some activity attempted on it so am guessing the acc was brute forced by hackers. Now has its own dedicated acc so that added to the authenticator should solve it and, if not, at least stop the impact on anything else. fair to say that it’s exactly what a lot feared when Battle.net took over. As for WOW itself, have read about the upcoming expansion and am pretty nonplussed as a rogue. Not seeing anything to tempt me back from my 3-4 month break.

2 things that I am playing with. First, have got streaming working again for music and been playing some music for fellow ppl on Twitter which I’ve found as satisfying as always. Would love to get involved with an Internet radio station (have the music and no fears on the mic) so may look into that again. The other thing is that I’m toying with the idea of doing some kind of regular podcast. Part-inspired by Kev Smith’s SModcast stuff, I need a topic and the ppl. reviewing the week’s new music seems a decent topic but ppl is difficult. Only 2 I can think of that’d work and one is reluctant. Will work on it.

Ok – a comment on the love of my life. I tend to avoid talking about Liverpool FC on here knowing that football is such a divisive subject for many and unloved by others…but I feel I must make an exception atm. Am genuinely worried and fearful of what is happening there atm. beaten by Man Utd and Man City, humiliated in the League Cup by Northampton, confused tactically on the pitch and being financially raped by our owners. Dark days for a club that brings me so much joy and has a huge influence on my day-to-day feelings. In 2 weeks time we’re looking at the very real chance of the club being destroyed if Tom Hicks refinances for another 2 years or possible administration. I have faith in RH on the field – he needs more time, simple as. Bt it’s horrific to see what’s happening to us off of it and even more knowing how much worse it could get. I strongly believe that if RBS do step in and take over in October then buyers will be falling over themselves to get it for £160 mill (and that’s what they’ve been waiting for) but if they don’t? 2 more years of Hicks/Gillett, no investment, crippling interest repayments, owners alienating bidders by asking for an astronomical price, losing top players, fading into mid-table or worse…I’ll never stop supporting them (too late for that, have been nailed onto the Liver bird since I was 12) but what might happen to my club genuinely scares me. This next month, on and off the pitch, is HUGE for us.

Anyway, that’s all from here atm.

M

One of those days – but blog autumn cleaned at least!

So in my 7 hours awake (following a dream about an ex-gf that left me waking up totally switched on…following dreaming about a parent having a heart-attack the night before, sleep has turned into a space filled by an OCD version of Freddie Kruegar lately) have managed to completely take a nice FB message out of context and explode angrily at a friend, half-break my computer by fiddling with router settings and realise I have a weird piece of bone underneath my right ear.

Oh, and have considered using the word ‘c*nt’ numerous times.

On the plus side I’ve updated this place a little. Tidied some old entries, added some new list links and even brought the ‘Confessions’ page up-to-date! So should anyone new have a look around, enjoy :).

M