OCD Hope

I can be much too hard on myself and too serious about ocd and how I treat it.  It's easy to forget that ocd is a medical condition, a mental illness, one that I doubt anyone with ocd chooses to have.  I sometimes get too caught up in treating myself that I forget to laugh at myself.  When ocd is picking on me I initially get anxious and if the anxiety level does not drop to a "tolerable" level in some amount of time then my mood goes from content to sad or depressed or slightly depressed.  During this whole process it's easy to forget that my mood will go back up and my anxiety level will disipate and I'll bounce back.  I have to laugh at the things that go through my head for they are not real and often times very strange.  They may cause me a great deal of distress but they are also just thoughts and when I step back and look at them without becoming emotionally attached, I can see them as strange yet part of the normal human experience.  People wit...

You may notice that I don't capitalize ocd; there's a reason for that.  I don't believe it deserves the respect of being typed grammatically correct.  A therapist once told me that it's OK to get mad at ocd.  I have mixed feelings about using anger as a motivating factor but there may be some truth to what the therapist said. One of the great traps of ocd is to get you to think and think about what's bothering you; ocd is damn good at that.  My dad recently said to me, "you cannot rationally reason with ocd for it's not rational".  A good comparison is expecting a toddler to drive you to work and getting really upset at the child when they are not able to.  You could talk and talk to that toddler but nothing would change and you'd end up getting yourself even more worked up. I woke up this morning with an ocd obsession and started to try to think my way out of it.  We are thinking creatures so it's only natural that I'd do this.  I had ...

NAC stands for N-Acetyl Cysteine.  It's an amino acid that may help with ocd.  There's not a lot of quality information regarding NAC and ocd, however it seems to be an emerging area of study.  I ran across a wonderful article about NAC on the blog "Healthy Fellow".  The link to the article is http://www.healthyfellow.com/401/nac-for-mental-health/ .  The article references a research study that's being done at Yale.  Information about the study can be found on the U.S. National Institutes of Health's website.  The link to the specific study is http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00539513?term=n+acetylcysteine&rank=33 . I'd really like to participate in the study but don't live close enough to Yale to be able to.  As of right now as I type this they are still looking for study participants. 

I am not a doctor or any other type of certified medical professional.  What I am is a person that has ocd and I've done my best to live with it day in and day out. I've had ocd for approximately 16 years and I've learned a lot about it over the years.  I hope that I can share some of the things that I've learned to make your life easier, whether you have ocd or know someone that has ocd.  There are some great resources that exist for learning about ocd and how to treat it.  I have a lot of respect for the International OCD Foundation and regularly reference and explore their website when I have questions or need to research something that I've heard elsewhere.  Their website is www.ocfoundation.com. I have no doubt that there are many of you out there that have valuable information and experiences to share and contribute and I encourage you to do so.  I was inspired to create this blog because of a quote that I came across a few days ago.  It rea...