OCD Awareness Week
This week (11-17 October 2015) is OCD Awareness week and already there have been suggestions that this emotionally painful and destructive condition is still being served up with a mild “vanilla” flavouring!
“We’re all a bit OCD”
That is the sort of phrase that is often thrown into a conversation but in truth is way off the mark. Unless we find that what we imagine are our “OCD” compulsions and repetitive thoughts are leaving us feeling anxious to the point of exhaustion, powerless, helpless and continually burdened with a feeling of guilt (and these are just a few of the debilitating symptoms sufferers experience) it is unlikely that our being “a bit OCD” has very much resemblance at all to what it really feels like to suffer OCD on a daily basis.
A recent BBC Horizon programme about OCD was titled “A Monster in my Mind” and that title really sums up the daily experience that invades the life of someone with OCD. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder “hijacks” the logical and cognitive thinking processes often virtually rendering the ability to get on with one’s everyday life almost impossible.
A list of some common symptoms of OCD
Fears that you might murder someone
Thoughts of sexual violence
Worrying you may have run someone over
Continuous checking
Worry that you may have offended God
Worries that you may have contracted a serious illness.
Fear of contamination
These are just a few of the thinking patterns that get stuck in a loop in the mind.
The choices of treatments on the NHS are mainly medication and cognitive behavioral therapy and OCD can take over someone’s thoughts and actions so powerfully that there is often a case for medication to help calm the system even to get treatment started.
According to recent research we have a primal operating system in the brain that is continually checking in the background for anything that might be dangerous to our survival. So in one sense we are all operating with the same equipment and perhaps are “a bit OCD” but if this equipment is switched on permanently at full tilt it becomes a recipe for continuous mental torture.
I use a range of techniques and strategies that are designed to help quieten these overactive messages.
If you would like more information about how Hypnosis, EFT and NLP can help you please contact me.
