OCD involving the strangest riruals....and how it starts

My youngest daughter, J, suffers from OCD. Rituals..and "checking". It first manifested itself when she was 10 years old. She came to me and said that she was afraid that if she did not keep washing her feet...so many times per day..well...that she would turn into a cartoon character.

Then as a teen...she started chanting "no change..no change several times per day. I asked what was happening....& she said that if she did not repeat this "chant" that she would turn into a "fat' man"

It comes and goes with this very strange disorder.

She has a very good job as a registered nurse. I worry that at some point it will disrupt her life. She is on medication and sees a T.

Does anyone here identify with these very strange rituals? And, what are your thoughts??

~Dottie

Hi Dottie,

Yes, we should never be surprised by the nature of OCD rituals, but I think that they all have the same function, which is to try to protect ourselves from overwhelming fear and anxiety.

The type of fear that the OCD sufferer endures is very extreme, and most people wouldn't experience this unless they were in a very frightening situation. Even then, I think that the OCD anxiety is different in nature from other anxiety, and more toxic.

Normal people know that they won't experience fear and anxiety unless something very bad happens, but with the OCD sufferer the fear is spontaneous, and there is no safe place for them to go. This is why IMHO we develop 'magic' rituals as a way of tricking the brain into thinking that it is safe. It's a kind of self delusion.

I think that the only (non medication) way out of OCD is to face the fear, and the fear of the fear; we have to accept that we will have further attacks and will go through them, as we have done before. It's not an easy ride. But, the funny thing is that when we face the fear, it does lessen, and this I think is the basis of cognitive therapies.

Finally, no matter how bizarre a ritual is for an OCD sufferer, we should take it very seriously, as this person has nothing but the ritual between themselves and great distress.

Peaceful thoughts, M

hi dottie.....myzen's post is "right on".....i have ocd and would be glad to help you in any way possible

Thanks for the replies! Interesting, as well as frightening, just how stress manifests itself in our everyday lives.

In my case...you should know that I am a Roman Catholic. Our religion seems to send "mixed signals" regarding this type of occurance. On one hand...it's the "Enemy" that puts these thoughts in our head..& depending how deep our faith is...is how we will handle it.

However...lately...I have noticed the church becoming more Humanistic with regard to mental & emotional illness. This leaves me feeling eternally perplexed.

My religious beliefs...as opposed to "Science". Lots to think about here.

I hope you can understand where I am "coming from" with this post. When I think about it...I feel twisted as a pretzel.

Belief vs. Science & Logic.

Hi,

I am new but this thread seems very very interesting to me, I Personally have suffered from OCD and have been diagnosed with it. I have been in cognitive therapy which has helped me TREMENDOUSLY.
The above post hit it on the nail...Its all about accepting the fears and imperfections and learning to NOT get rid of them but accepting the risk and living with it.
Ironically, my fears and obsessions where rooted in scrupulosity.
Basically (I am presbyterian) I constanly obsessed about whether I sinned or not (sinned by causing harm to others in countless ways) and whether I prayed right..
and for many many many years I developed compulsions about praying right...then it evolved to cleaning because if I didnt clean, it would pass on disease (and harm people) and I would be a sinner..so then, since I was a sinner I would pray to ask for forgiveness...and as I prayed, I would stumble on my prayers and had to restart the prayer.....and on ...and on..
It go to the point where I prayed in a ritualistic kind of way for hours and hours and loose all my day anxious about it...
it was very bad. cognitive therapy gave me some great strategies

But back to your inquiries about science and religion....this is a sensitive subject so I will give my thoughts in the most prudent and respectfull way.
I am actually a researcher in Physics so I deal with science every day, at the same time I am presbyterian and I find that throught my life faith is so important.
and you are right ...sometimes these two ideas seem incopatible..
But in my view they realy are not. religion..., that is what (I think) we practice, ...but faith in a God that provides for us, and aknowledging that we are part of his creation, trancends to deeper levels that are not incopatible with the scientific understanding that God himself gave us!

any how, just thought I would share some thoughts

Hi Slash,

I have read a little about scrupulosity. My feeling is that we can't expect to be perfect in this world. We have to forgive ourselves for what we perceive as our failings.

It's hard to do.

Good thoughts, M

WOW - I feel like I've come home to the place where everybody GETS IT. I have OCD too, and I am also a practicing Christian, but a "brain" about sciences and such. (My degree is in the sciences.) I too have struggled with the marriage b/t faith and science and I tell you, it dont get any easier as the years go on. My OCD manifested itself viciously after my husband joined the USMC. Once I found myself in the military life, it was like I finally fit, and I was comfortable enough to "come out." Now, with the help of some good drugs, the OCD is livable. . .I no longer have to have all the cans in the cupboard facing the same way, in alphabetical order, or the same brand so the lables all match. If the towels are not all the same SHADE of blue, the ceiling won't come crashing down. If I don't check the door exactly NINE times, its still ok. When my stress cranks up, or when therapy gets really rough (I'm also a SA survivor) then the OCD tendancies tend ot manifest themself a bit more feircely, but I have learned to live with them, and manage them, as opposed to letting them control me.

I was quite surprised to learn that OCD is so closely linked with GAD and other forms of anxiety. I did not realize this until just this past year. It is amazing how it all ties in together.

{{{{{Hi you guys}}}}}. Thanks for this thread. It is so comforting to have kindred spirits out there. How would I ever have gotten the chance to hear all these stories if it wasn't for the internet and this 'godsend' of a forum? I'm feeling very grateful. Okay, so at risk of offending some of you (and please know that I am not intending offense as i respect all religions, I just had a really creepy and harmful experience with Catholicism), I am going to share my theory... I have no idea if it has any merit, it could just be my own perception of ritualistic religions.

At any rate, here's my theory: I think being raised in the Catholic church had a little something to do with my brain locking onto obsessions and compulsions and developing OCD. I realized that the Catholic religion taught me that if I didn't do this and that, or if I did do this and that, that something bad would happen. There I sat in the hard, uncomfortable pew every Sunday morning in a dark, creepy church (except for the stained glass windows), with heavy, blood red drapes behind the altar and this poor innocent murdered man hanging there nailed to the giant 10-foot cross, with blood dripping down his face and a look of pure agony in his eyes... okay, you get the picture-- utter confusion and horror for a child to have to process. So anyway, the rituals, the guilt, the fear, the shame, the confusion... my (and possibly other people's) brain chemistry... and suddenly something was telling me that something bad would happen if I didn't say my prayers when the clock numbers were OO, 15, 30 or 45. If I got in bed at 8:02, for instance, I had to force myself to stay awake until 8:15 and then I could start my prayers. They had to be in the exact same order and if I drifted off to sleep before 8:15, my brain would somehow alert me and I would wake up at, you guessed it 8:16!! Then I'd have to stay awake until 8:30 and start then. UGH!!! I can't believe all the sleep I missed and all the anxiety and all the stress I went through. And I never even thought of the possibility of telling anyone or asking my mother if this was normal. I wouldn't know where to begin... with a child's vocabulary and immaturity... oh, man, this is painful to remember... I'm literally getting a headache and a heartache wishing I could go back and hug my 9 year old self and tell her that I could help her. But I didn't learn what OCD was until I was 27 years old! I had no idea that this was a 'disorder'! Oh, the regret... sorry... I'm doing a little stream of conciousness thing here, probably cuz I'm not in therapy right now and I need to get some of this out. Thanks for being here for me, all of you who are reading this and feeling compassion right now. I am picturing it, and it's helping me.

Okay, so anyway. Wow. That was heavy. I totally just re-lived some of that stuff that I hadn't given myself permission to dwell on.

Yeah, so about the religion thing... what do you think? Could there be a link? You have probably guessed that as soon as I was able to decide for myself, I left the Catholic church and tried to get those scary images out of my head. I am terrified of so many things that I can link back to images and words I first learned as a member of the Catholic religion. I find it fascinating that my mother, along with millions of others, get such comfort from this religion...

Again, I don't mean to offend anyone. I do respect all religions. I feel that spirituality is a personal thing and that none of us have the right to judge or condemn anyone's choice of religion. We are all free to choose to worship or not to worship whoever and whatever we are drawn to.

Thanks for reading this and peace to all my fellow OCD sufferers. May we one day soon be able to get through a day without tapping, counting, checking, washing, reciting, thinking, thinking, thinking, worrying, worrying, worrying, obsessing, obsessing, obsessing, compulsing, compulsing... (Jane, stop this crazy thing-- I wanna get off!)

Love,
Kelly

great thread. My daughter has OCD and has for 10-11 years. She will be going to an residential treatment program in Nov. My thoughts are that behavioral therapy and meds work best. I am excited and scared for her. She just wants this illness to have less control in her life. She is brave and bright.

i too am a christian and I have had trouble with blasphemous and sexual thoughts that i certainly didn't want but couldn't stop. at one stage i had the thoughts almost all day and night and even in my dreams. i would constantly have to ask for forgiveness and while i was asking to be forgiven the thoughts would continue to come. it was hopeless and i felt so ashamed that i couldn't tell anyone. when i finally got the guts to tell someone they had no idea and told me to pray to stop the thoughts. it didn't do anything. i suffer alot with terrible worries and i feel like giving up everything at the moment. i don't want to see people and i dread work so much. i can barely get out of bed. i asked my mum today to please ring me up tommorrow morning so that i will not sleep in. i have to get to my job but it's unbearable. i just seem to endure everything and don't enjoy things. i just want to give up and go to bed and stay there. but i know that if i give up my responsibilities that i will only get worse. it's torture. but it's good to know that people understand.

fascinating!

I am glad people are sharing so much, it is so insightfull,

I would like to say to kelbelle65, that I could not agree with you more!!!!!I thank you for sharing your story. As we say in physics you hit the resonace frequency! at least in my book, what you said, resembled so much of what I went through..I guess I will share some of my experience too. But first I would like to say that I also respect all forms of religions and even those who choose not to believe in a God, its all good in my view.
which is why I felt similar to kelbelle65.
I do still practice my faith, because cognitive therapy has taught me how to manage inmensly my ocd but still keep my CORE values.
In a sense my therapist always said to me ..."lets investigate and see what do you want to keep, and also lets see what is NOT you and what is OCD"
Which is why i am so happy because the therappy really mached my deepest views on life.
Basically I PRACTICE a a religion which is presbyterian, but ultemately ...(I believe) religion is what we as normal human beings have created based on our cultural origins backgrounds...geographys etc..etc...
In my view the faith in a God trancends all these issues....in a sense we are all equal. But hey if I choose to be presbyterian..thats fine..or catholic.....that is great too. it is the life style that I choose and my core values about my faith that are central ..not what religion I pracice..whuich was the key for my coexistence of science faith ...and even my OCD.

Similar to kelbelle65, I grew up in a church enviornemnt, in a family of travelling missionaries. The work my parents did was incredible..and it was also quite impacting as a child since we went to some very poor and needy areas arround the world. I admire my parents for this so much!! I think the work that the church was doing to help people who are hungry and need help with basic education and health was great....
but UNFORTUNATELY because of my brain chemestry.....OCD came to my life . I think since early childhood the role of my parents and their total devotion in their job as missionaries really started to create a huge sense of guilt about how easy MY life was compared to those arround the world that I had seen with my own eyes....
of course I had not made this connection back whan I was younger..(late teens). but in retrospect, that Is wat I think now. The worst of it all was that my parents always told me ..you know you are NOT Sinfull, God already forgave you, whenever I asked them about sin.But they just did not know OCD even existed, nevermind how to help their child.
when I got ready to go to college..I started to have a greater sense of responsibilty about many things in my life...and the stress really started to mount.....I decided that I needed to pray......and figured..it is a great idea t do it every night........then.....slowly ..when i prayed it felt that I did not nclude everyone in my prayer...then I hay forgotten to pray for this .or that...
and so I felt guilty..."Oh that prayer was too easy..." .."I must start again ..fix it..make it a real prayer...."..and I would repeat....
before I knew it every day I was anxious about that moment before going to bed when I had to pray....and I prayed..made mistakes..and spend hours repeating my prayers..... and I could not let myself go to sleep untill I had done it right....
then I would wake up and say to myself...."ohh i fell asleep..." "you didn't finish your prayer" "do it AGAIN!"
so i started praying before my showers in the morning...and spend hours in the bathroom..and my parents would knock on the door and ask...hey....are you ok....
you guessed right.....It mesed my prayer up..had to start...
then I went to college.... it somehow dimished..but I had to pray every day no question....but it evolved into other aspects like..."what if I left the toilet seat unclean"....."then I will pass desease" "I will be responsible for soemone's death"...so I cleaned ritualistically......but to top it all, after I cleaned i felt it was not god enough..so I had to pray for forgiveness because I had sinned because I did not clean it right!
.....it was bad but livable....
untill i got into grad school and I had to pass some really hard exams in order to get my degree...(which thanks to God I am almost done). After I passed them, which was a huge relief i took a vacation and I visited my parents.....and My ocd just exploted......i felt so accomplished and relived that the sense was..this is too good to be true....something must be wrong...
so I stared to worsen on my praying axiety and grauallty almost every thing I did was a potential sin!

"Oh a said something not quite true..." "pray for forgiveness for lying"..."oh i left the toilet unclean..pray for forgiveness".....
I walked and kicked a stone..."...every aspect ...I was spending the WHOLE day obsessing an ritualizing the whole day endlessly...
i got back to the lab and it is full of isntruments an electronics...and evry button, knob.......keystroke I pushed was in question... it was a NIGHtMARE!
It got to the point where I had little sleep.
of course I was 26 years old and thought this was just who I am......
One day I was ritualizing in my brain with my head down..praying in the lab..and a college noticed ..."hey ...are you Ok" and I I just cried and attempted to explain what I was going through.....
I did not even know how to explain.....and I don't know how or why..but she told me....."I think this sounds like some thing I have heard called OCD"....
the rest is a cool story of healling and recovery untill now!!!

sorry for the lenght and the spelling mistakes....but I just felt i would share. I hope I can be of company and help to those who suffer this chemical inbalance that causes us to doubt so much.

and guess what: I will not check my spelling mistakes...even though they might be there.
behavioral experiment!

any comments are always welcome!

Great thread. I am in high hopes that a residential treatment program for my daughter will help dramatically.

{{{{{{{estee}}}}}}}} I am so sorry you're suffering like that.

are you on any meds? I must once again praise what Lexapro has done for me. I worry about 90% less than I used to. Good luck to you and take it one moment at a time.

I just spent ages writing a message back and it got deleted. I can't believe it. Yes I am taking zoloft. I have less rubbish going on in my head but I feel terribly depressed. Worse than before. I don't seem to care about anything much anymore. I used to be and still am the worlds biggest people pleaser. But since I've been taking the medication I don't care as much about pleasing some of the people I used to be addicted to pleasing. Today when I got out of bed the horrible thoughts were there blabbing away. Who knows why today was the day. But since I know they aren't my fault I can still trust that God isn't angry with me. But some days it's not that easy. I'm always having to check if I'm still a christian and if I'm still going to heaven. Thanks for your kind words, it was encouraging. I'm glad that you have less worrying thoughts now. I'm going to read some more of your posts. {{{{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}}}} It's good to know that I'm not alone with my annoying thoughts.

I know how it feels, some days it is harder than others,
So I send you a huge encouragement to keep on facing those disturbing thoughts. Dont be afraid of them ..challenge them, the best road to overcome these is to not try and resolve the issue...(as my therapist suggested) let your brain get used to accepting that they are only thoughts....

I know easier said that done...... I have been there..every day.......
however you have to optimistic even when it seems that there is no way out....that the beauty of faith......
faith in the unknown.