OCD – The Truth

Posted byFractured Faith BlogPosted inA Fractured FaithTags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

No words required….

Published by Fractured Faith Blog

We are Stephen and Fionnuala and this is our story. We live in Northern Ireland, have been married for 17 years and have three kids - Adam, Hannah and Rebecca. We hope that our story will inspire and encourage others. We have walked a rocky road yet here we are today, together and stronger than ever. We are far from perfect and our faith has been battered and bruised. But an untested faith is a pointless faith. Just as a fractured faith is better than none at all. We hope you enjoy the blog.

24 thoughts on “OCD – The Truth”

  3. This really interests me. It gets me thinking about the spectrum that I spoke of on your previous post about OCD.

    Because of the list, I can personally relate to a few of the traits of the OCD mind.

    I feel I have an Obsessive Fixation on the content of my thoughts. The Fixation often distracts me from reality where the things are going on that are actually affecting my thoughts. But I don’t feel as though the Obsessive Fixation is too much though it does cause difficulties.

    I feel I have Compulsive Behavior but not repetitive compulsion. More of I feel I lack the ability to Control my Compulsions. So therefore I am often acting out or doing something that goes against what I know to be good for myself or right in the moment. But because of the lack of Compulsion Control, I feel like it is beyond my control to stop doing what it is I am doing. But again, I recognize the lack of Compulsion Control and not necessarily that I have regular Compulsions that control my life.

    I know I have Intrusive Thoughts but these I relate more to my ability to disconnect from reality because of the Bipolar. I’d be interested to know how these Intrusive Thoughts manifest for your OCD mind so I might be better able to understand the difference between your intrusions and my own.

    I feel I have an Excessive Focus on God (not necessarily religion). I am extreme as extremists go when it comes to my Faith. The crazy believes in being the Chosen One to Usher in World Peace and all my thoughts revolve around God and his presence in my life. In my every moment I feel I am communicating with him and helping him influence my life as I need it. This is the one that I feel would most classify me as being obsessed. But again, the God thoughts aren’t hurting me or worrying me so I don’t necessarily feela as I’m OCD because of them.

    I feel I may struggle with this but only slightly. Because there are a couple spots on my head that when I get into the ‘skin picking’ phase I can’t help but pick at them. I dig and I pull and I keep opening up the scab and rough skin that comes because of it. Over and over. And I couldn’t even tell you why I do it or why it is a regular thing I do. It just feels like what I should be doing in that moment.

    So seeing this list and knowing I have traits that parallel the symptoms, I still don’t feel that I am OCD. Because OCD feels like it consumes you and takes over and my traits haven’t taken over my life. Side thought could be that my bipolar traits took over my life and pushed any other mental illness to the background.

    Basically, after this exercise in relating your illness to my being, I feel even more strongly about the spectrum idea of us all having some level of these traits but with differing levels of functionality and distractability.

    I hope that thought isn’t offensive in nature. I like it because it means we are all more connected than we realize and we are all fighting the same battles just with differing levels of difficulty.

    I hope you are well today and light has found your path!

    Like

    Reply

      1. I think the only way you would know that I was bipolar in an initial meeting would be if I came into the situation under duress. My bipolar colors flash when negativity and violence and hurtful attacks on personhood manifest. But that doesn’t happen often and so on any given day, I’m just like the next average Jane. But knowing I’m not an average Jane, I’m very forthright in dropping the bipolar diagnosis. Part of it is because I am in such a good place I want to show others who may have a negative stigma of the illness that not all sufferers are your worst nightmare. I like to open the dialogue to mental health issues (which are usually the reason people aren’t happy and I just want to help people be happy). So by laying it out there that I have an extreme diagnosis, it makes it easier for the other parties to open up about themselves. An ice breaker, if you will.

        I enjoy making others feel comfortable discussing those things that are ailing them that often society asks us to pretend aren’t real or are a sign of weakness. I like to dig deep when I talk and my BPD seems to help with that.

        So maybe that’s an outward sign I show – the depth of discussion I dive into the moment I meet a person.

        Sane people don’t tend to do that.

        Like

        Reply

  4. Reblogged this on Under my skin and commented:
    There’s information here that… Well, I don’t know how to process. Keep educating yourselves; be the compassionate friend, or say “I think I have a problem” – but son’t let OCD win.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

      1. hmmmm, so I guess it comes down to the definition of “excessive”. Is that something we can determine for ourselves? My guess is we wouldn’t be able to properly recognize the boundary… so who would make the call for us, a therapist? Faith in Christ requires exclusivity, Him above all else. We are called to an excessive fascination by the world’s definition. I’m not sure psychology has the ability to properly define this.

        What a fun place to ruminate excessively haha.

        Like

        Reply

Leave a Reply

Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: