I FINALLY got back in with my therapist at Mazzoni (which I recommend for you) and recently realized how much my OCD had been effecting me. I'm mostly obsessive; I did exposure therapy years ago for some of the compulsions and had been pretty good about keeping that up and not taking on any new ones. But my mental rituals have always been plenty and lately are waaaay out of control, so that there is constant chatter in my head allll the time.
I know that much of this is probably because of the divorce, but still. It's making it hard to function normally. Thank gods that I have control over what comes out of my mouth, because if everyone heard what was going through my head, I would be instantly committed. My intrusive thoughts have also increased too. For shits and giggles, my therapist and I decided to give me an OCD assessment, just to see where abouts I was in type and severity. We both guessed that my score would be pretty low, especially since I'd had prior treatment. My score ended up pretty much higher than we anticipated.
So, I decided to see what the Mazzoni med shrink would say about my situation, who by the way, is pretty hot, in a older, professor, yet laid back and casual sort of way. He also has some sort of a pleasing accent. Anyway, we talked about how long I'd realized that I had rituals and what they were and he also mentioned how much mine were tactile in nature. Long story short, I now have a script for a drug called Luvox (sp?) that is supposed to be extra good for OCD, obsessive tendencies in particular. I'll let you know how this goes. He's starting me on a super low dose because I haven't tolerated other meds so well in the past. He understands how desperate I am to even attempt this. So, here we go.
Oh, my therapist told me that folks that have OCD should NOT join support groups, talk about their compulsions to others with OCD, etc because we are very impressionable, for whatever reason. It's very common to hear of a ritual and then take that ritual on or have our regular ones flare up something fierce. So, watching that show probably wasn't the best idea. Hopefully, the trich will settle down again soon.
Also, I think that exposure therapy (at penn) would work really, really well for you, especially with the checking, magic numbers, and dealing with the anxiety of not performing the rituals. The fact that you try to not do them is a good sign. They teach you how to get through the anxiety. I think, but I'm not sure, that they do it on a sliding scale.
We should talk in person, about this, and well, life in general.
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I FINALLY got back in with my therapist at Mazzoni (which I recommend for you) and recently realized how much my OCD had been effecting me. I'm mostly obsessive; I did exposure therapy years ago for some of the compulsions and had been pretty good about keeping that up and not taking on any new ones. But my mental rituals have always been plenty and lately are waaaay out of control, so that there is constant chatter in my head allll the time.
I know that much of this is probably because of the divorce, but still. It's making it hard to function normally. Thank gods that I have control over what comes out of my mouth, because if everyone heard what was going through my head, I would be instantly committed. My intrusive thoughts have also increased too. For shits and giggles, my therapist and I decided to give me an OCD assessment, just to see where abouts I was in type and severity. We both guessed that my score would be pretty low, especially since I'd had prior treatment. My score ended up pretty much higher than we anticipated.
So, I decided to see what the Mazzoni med shrink would say about my situation, who by the way, is pretty hot, in a older, professor, yet laid back and casual sort of way. He also has some sort of a pleasing accent. Anyway, we talked about how long I'd realized that I had rituals and what they were and he also mentioned how much mine were tactile in nature. Long story short, I now have a script for a drug called Luvox (sp?) that is supposed to be extra good for OCD, obsessive tendencies in particular. I'll let you know how this goes. He's starting me on a super low dose because I haven't tolerated other meds so well in the past. He understands how desperate I am to even attempt this. So, here we go.
Oh, my therapist told me that folks that have OCD should NOT join support groups, talk about their compulsions to others with OCD, etc because we are very impressionable, for whatever reason. It's very common to hear of a ritual and then take that ritual on or have our regular ones flare up something fierce. So, watching that show probably wasn't the best idea. Hopefully, the trich will settle down again soon.
Also, I think that exposure therapy (at penn) would work really, really well for you, especially with the checking, magic numbers, and dealing with the anxiety of not performing the rituals. The fact that you try to not do them is a good sign. They teach you how to get through the anxiety. I think, but I'm not sure, that they do it on a sliding scale.
We should talk in person, about this, and well, life in general.
Hang in there. xoxox