ANONYMOUS-24

JUN 27, 2010

I found a solution to this painful disorder!
I've had this problem for 7 years now. Finally figured out what the problem is.

We have OCD, it is life cripplinmg and painful, it ruins your life and relationships. I want everyone to
find help.

The rest of this message is cut and pasted from this site:

http://www.crufad.com/index.php/compulsions

Sexual outrage and associated rituals

Sexual obsessions in OCD are unwanted thoughts, images or impulses which make you anxious or
distressed every time they come into your mind. The are completely inconsistent with a person's true
values and desires, and as a result they are often associated with high levels of shame and
embarrassment in addition to anxiety or fear. Common examples include thoughts of molesting
children, unwanted homosexual images, and impulses to inappropriately touch or stare at breasts or
genital areas. Most people with this type of OCD respond to their thoughts by reminding themselves
that they would never do such a thing, and by trying to avoid situations where the thoughts are likely
to occur.

How common is OCD?

OCD can occur in both adults and children, with most people developing their first symptoms before
the age of thirty. Boys usually show their first symptoms at a younger age than girls, so OCD is twice
as common in boy children than girls. In adults the number of men and women with OCD is equal.
Since mild obsessional symptoms are common in the general population, you don't get a diagnosis
of OCD unless your obsessions and compulsions interfere with your life or stop you from doing some
of the things you want to do. Population surveys have shown that approximately one in two hundred
adult person with OCD each year. Once you have OCD it is rare for it to go away without proper
treatment, so if the symptoms described above sound familiar you should seek help from a
professional who is familiar with the treatment of OCD.

What treatments have proven benefits?

Two treatments have been proven to help people with OCD. One is Behaviour Therapy and the
other is medication with one of the serotonin selective re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs).

What is behaviour therapy?

Behaviour therapy for OCD consists of graded exposure and response prevention. This means
learning to confront your fears without washing, checking, reassuring yourself, or doing any other
compulsions that temporarily take away your fear and make you feel better. The first step involves
recognising the link between obsessions, compulsions and anxiety. Most people feel anxious,
scared or uncomfortable whenever they have an obsessional thought, and reassured or relieved
after they perform their compulsion (even if they also feel frustrated because they're tired of
performing compulsions). Human beings don't like to feel anxious, scared, or uncomfortable, and so
when something is making you anxious it makes sense to try and do something to take that feeling
away. In this context it is easy to see why you wash your hands if you doubt they are dirty, or why
you keep checking the stove if you doubt it might be on. But when you have OCD these behaviours
help to keep your fears alive, because the doubts always come back again, bringing more anxiety,
and so you have to keep repeating your compulsions in order to get any relief. A good general rule is
that when you have OCD the doubts gets stronger the more you give in to them, and weaker the
more you resist them.
The next step is to understand what happens when you resist your compulsions. Most people have
tried to resist their compulsions at some stage, but they usually try to resist too many compulsions all
at once, or a compulsion which is too strong to start with, and so they feel overwhelmed very quickly
and end up giving in. However, when you continue to resist a compulsion over a period of hours, you
will notice that the strong anxiety you have at the start does not last, nor does the strong urge you
have at first to give in to your compulsion. If you are truly confronting your fear, then these feelings
will gradually weaken and fade away. After two or three hours you might still feel a little
uncomfortable, but you will be nowhere near as anxious as you were immediately after you resisted
the compulsion.
For instance, if you are afraid of contamination and you decide to confront your fears by touching
money or doorhandles without washing your hands, you will initially feel anxious and have a strong
urge to wash. But after a while it will get easier and your anxiety will fade. Then next time you touch
the same thing and you resist washing your hands it will not be so scary, and the time after that it will
be easier still. Repeating exposure tasks in this way is very important because doing something
once will not get you better. You have to do it over and over again until there is no more anxiety
associated with that activity.

Planning Graded Exposure and Response Prevention

For most people, some compulsions will be easier to resist than others. Below is a list of steps for
developing a graded exposure plan that allows you to gradually start confronting your fears in a
structured and systematic way. However, exposure can be scary and difficult to do on your own, so if
you need help don't hesitate to seek advice from a professional Clinical Psychologist or Psychiatrist
who is experienced in the use of behaviour therapy for OCD.

1. Make a list of situations where your symptoms occur. (e.g. when leaving the house, or after
touching an item you think is "dirty").
2. Next list all the thoughts, images or impulses which come in to your mind in each situation
(obsessions) (e.g. "the stove might be on", "my hands are dirty").
3. Write down all the things you do in these situations to avoid danger or to take away the thoughts
(compulsions) (e.g. checking the stove, washing your hands).
4. Finally, list any activities or situations you avoid because of your obsessions.
5. Go through these lists and rate how anxious you think you would be if you tried to resist each of
the compulsions in each different situation. Use a rating scale of 0 to 10, where 10 means you would
be extremely anxious, 8 means highly anxious, 5 means moderately anxious, and 3 means mildly
anxious.
6. Choose one thing on the list which you think you could resist with only mild to moderate anxiety.
Next time you are in that situation try as hard as you can to resist that compulsion without giving in.
Pay attention to how anxious you feel at the start and to the way this anxiety fades over time.
7. Repeat this same activity, resisting the compulsion, every time you are in that situation (at least
once every day). You should notice that with practice it gets easier and easier to resist because your
anxiety is fading.
8. Once you are comfortable with this activity, choose another, slightly harder compulsion and repeat
step 7. Continue in this way until you've worked though all compulsions on your list. Be careful that
you don't start giving in to new compulsions once you've stopped the old ones.
Remember that when you have OCD the doubts gets stronger the more you give in to them, and
weaker the more you resist them.
Medication
Although medication using Serotonin Specific Re-uptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) may be of great benefit
to some people, the amount of improvement varies from person to person. Most people who benefit
from medication usually find that the obsessions and compulsions are still there but they are less
frequent and distressing. In general the SSRIs help people to manage the symptoms of OCD, but
they are not a cure, so the symptoms worsen again after a few weeks of stopping drug therapy. On
average medication is not as effective as combining medication with behaviour therapy, or doing
behaviour therapy on its own.
Examples of medications that have been proven to help with OCD include Fluoxetine (also called
Prozac or Lovan), Sertraline (Zoloft), and Clomipramine (Anafranil). These drugs may be marketed
under different names outside of Australia.

How successful are the standard treatments?

Treatment studies have consistently shown that about 70% of people with OCD respond very well to
Behaviour Therapy and say that their symptoms are greatly improved. The average reduction in
severity of symptoms with medication is about 50%.