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Anyone have anxiety and stress from OCD and religion OCD?

Discussion in 'Support Subforum' started by stevow7, Sep 23, 2022.

  1. stevow7

    stevow7 Well known member

    I have a bunch of religion ocd. number like 6 is bad for my brain, 7 is good, 3 is perfect, and more. now I asked for forgiveness 6 times and repeated the process 3 + times while thinking of 6 and it turned out to be 666 and more. my mind thinks I’m doing it bad since I’m saying and repeating that number a lot of times. The thing is, I then can’t do much else, if I do something like watching a certain video my mind will think that i cant watch it or what I did (asking for forgiveness) was not valid and have to do it again.

    I’m trying to not do it and resist but its hard

    my mind is telling me to do it because i listened to part of the stream or video and I said I dont care because I dont relate it to that and im free to see what I want.

    what to do?

    I told my therapist and she said to not repeat.
     
  2. Booble

    Booble Well known member

    Do you still participate in that religion?
    If not then I would spend some time examining your past and what you were taught and why and how it has impacted you and how you feel about that.

    If you do still participate in that religion, then maybe you could speak to your priest or minister for guidance.
     
  3. Cactusflower

    Cactusflower Beloved Grand Eagle

    It has 0 to do with religion and 100% to do with ocd thought behavior.
    We are not psychiatrists, Nobody here “treats” ocd, anxiety etc. It’s great you have a therapist, they can guide you.
     
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  4. JanAtheCPA

    JanAtheCPA Beloved Grand Eagle

    Unfortunately, OCD is TMS on steroids. TMS cubed. TMS 10X. Whatever - OCD takes the TMS mechanism and multiplies it exponentially, and it really requires professional intervention. That's just MHO of course - based on years of personal observation.
     
  5. Booble

    Booble Well known member

    I agree. Likely professional medical diagnostic. Though it would certainly be interesting to see how it responds to TMS style actions.
     
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  6. JanAtheCPA

    JanAtheCPA Beloved Grand Eagle

    I would like to think that TMS/mindbody knowledge and techniques are being incorporated into interventional OCD therapy, since individuals with OCD are obviously as prone to TMS as any of us with typical anxiety. The problem we see here is that the OCD brain is incredibly resistant to doing the emotional work - most likely as a result of childhood adversity. This means that self-directed programs (like our free ones) are not effective, because the highly-resistant brain is too strong, and it does not allow the individual to do the work at the deeper levels that are required in order to achieve consistent results (the biggest clues that this is taking place is childhood adversity explained away, skipped over as not relevant, or completely disregarded - I know you know exactly what I'm talking about). Frustration and reassurance-seeking ensue.
     
    Last edited: Sep 26, 2022
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  7. Booble

    Booble Well known member

    That all makes good sense.
    The parallels are interesting. The obsessive checking on ourselves and hyper focusing on our "symptoms."
    But certainly huge degree of difference. Thanks for sharing your interesting thoughts. I hope the original poster gets appropriate help.
     
  8. Cactusflower

    Cactusflower Beloved Grand Eagle

    Do you consider OCD to be tms if there is no pain associated with it?
     
  9. JanAtheCPA

    JanAtheCPA Beloved Grand Eagle

    Huh.

    Well, my completely non-professional and generalized observations (as a retired tax accountant) are only from this forum, where virtually everyone who ends up here has physical symptoms, so... I am unable to consider the question!

    Didn't Dr Sarno eventually conjecture that depression, anxiety, and OCD were probably TMS equivalents? Just different forms of brain distraction? By that definition, I suppose Dr Sarno might say yes. Or maybe. (I'm pretty sure that he was not talking about severe clinical diagnoses, eg bipolar disorder).

    All that being said, I would actually be surprised to see any of those three conditions exist without physical symptoms. People often don't make the connection until they've really done the work.

    Caveat to others reading this: as with everything in this work, there are innumerable individual differences in real-world experience, and these are fairly sweeping generalizations that certainly won't apply in all cases.
     
  10. Cactusflower

    Cactusflower Beloved Grand Eagle

    @JanAtheCPA , I ask because there are at least two or three people on this wiki who ask similar questions recently, but when asked about pain they refer only to OCD or fears, anxieties, but never discuss or mention chronic pain struggles.
     
  11. JanAtheCPA

    JanAtheCPA Beloved Grand Eagle

    I'm going to suggest that these folks probably do have physical symptoms - but they have not become disabling or chronic, because the OCD and anxiety are achieving the main repression goal., at least for now. This may change with age.

    Don't forget that butterflies in your stomach is a TMS symptom, as is blushing - but these are considered to be normal physical manifestations of emotional discomfort. Some people are more prone to TMS symptoms than others, some will experience worse symptoms with age. I certainly did - looking back, I had a lifetime of vague inconsistent symptoms from childhood, but they didn't become chronic and didn't get in my way until my mid-forties or so, and they didn't become a crisis for me until I was 60. I did not experience childhood adversity, but I did get pretty bad anxiety passed to me from my mother (she got over it after having three more kids!)

    In any case, if we agree with Dr. Sarno (and others) that OCD, et al, are TMS equivalents, then the answer to your question is an unequivocal Yes.

    Here's an old blog post written by Dr. Schubiner: Dr. Schubiner's Blog - The relationship between OCD and MBS: Jacob's story | TMS Forum (The Mindbody Syndrome) (tmswiki.org)

    I've seen references to Steve O saying that OCD is definitely a TMS equivalent.
     
  12. stevow7

    stevow7 Well known member

    question. I feel mentally drained a lot of times and I don’t know if it could be by Ocd, tms or other things. How can I make mental fatigue lessen and not have it?
     
  13. JanAtheCPA

    JanAtheCPA Beloved Grand Eagle

    In an impressive feat of timing, this article appeared in my newsfeed this morning:
    Deep brain stimulation can be life-altering for OCD sufferers when other treatment options fall short (theconversation.com)

    After six years, @stevow7, I don't know about anyone else, but I have nothing else to offer you. Since 2017, you've created well over 100 unique threads to ask your questions, but you don't spend time offering advice or support to others. I know that you've received a lot of great advice over this time period, but you are still asking essentially the same questions, and still seeking reassurance for the same issues - and I don't think you've ever really done the emotional work.

    Look, I know that this is not conscious, and that you can't help doing this. I know that it is your unconscious fear brain that is preventing you from dealing with your emotional issues, and I'm sorry for you, I really am, because OCD sucks, big time. But as I said in the paragraph you quoted "The problem we see here is that the OCD brain is incredibly resistant to doing the emotional work."

    I'm just a retired tax accountant, who sticks around on this forum to support people who can do the emotional work that is needed to overcome TMS. I simply do not have the skills to help you, and the sentence I requoted above has to be my final answer for you.

    But that's just me. I do wish you luck.

    ~Jan
     
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