OK, but what about OCD and Pure-OCD?

I said I planned on stepping away from the forum, but I wanted to get this off my chest and get support from you all. Fair warning, this is long.

Over the past few weeks I've realized, although I no longer fear my pain symptoms (they come and go but IDGAF) , my anxiety and my OCD thoughts are running rampant (I actually DO GAF). When I was on an antidepressant, looking back, I was enjoying life, I could rationalize my thoughts better and my anxiety levels weren't triggered by thoughts. I didn't assign as much meaning to my thoughts and I could brush them off. My pain disappeared. I didn't meditate but I was reading my favorite books and that felt like meditation to me. I was lost in a world that wasn't this world. It effectively felt like I distracted my brain. It felt like BLISS. I didn't care about being PERFECT. I had the mind set of "it is what it is" and then I'd happily skip away to paint my laundry room.

I think I'm struggling with believing that OCD is TMS and I need help and I think it's because it seems as if there aren't many success stories with OCD, especially mental compulsion, checking if I am feeling the correct emotions in the right situations. Success stories would inspire me when I had horrible hip, pelvic, back pain. But my mind is telling me that if there are no success stories on OCD, especially OCD thoughts that are similar to mine ("But I'm different, and my thoughts are different than what these people went through!!!!") that I won't be able to heal. I'm not going to get into what my theme is because that's not important when doing this work, right, but I've experienced OCD around my marriage and relationship for the last decade, thinking that if I don't find my partner attractive when he is doing something silly or even all the time, or if he's wearing the wrong color shirt, that I don't love him and that our relationship is doomed, and that it doesn't reflect another person's marriage, I mean it goes even further but you get the idea. I experienced this in another relationship when I was 16!

Then I went back even further to my childhood when would check with my mother daily if I had cancer or if I was dying. Then even further when I had a choking experienced on food (apparently I choked a lot when I was young?) to where I was obsessively checking to make sure I chewed my food correctly. I've come to realize I've never felt safe as a child. I don't remember when I felt safe. I think the first time I felt coming close to feeling safe was back when I was not giving a f*ck about my TMS pain symptoms months ago. And then they disappeared.

I didn't realize that OCD is ANXIETY until I recently Googled it and it clicked in my brain.

I've been thinking more and more about what the hell happened in my childhood to make me not feel safe and it is stressing me TF out. Like I almost want to blame something. There was some alcoholism in the family, but I don't ever remember being horrifically scared. There wasn't abuse. I got a spank on the butt when I was a child if I did something wrong - but who hasn't? Otherwise I was running around with my friends in the woods, climbing trees, and not going home until dinner. I'm coming to realize more and more that the past can't matter this much (this is something that Dan Buglio has said: "You don’t have to change your whole life or personality to recover from chronic pain or symptoms. You just need to teach your brain, which is perceiving danger, that you are safe."
), and my brain is like yeah, girl this is it. I truly don't feel like journaling is helping me relive any past trauma or experiences, it just causes even more pain. However I do find it does help rage writing with current events. I "get" that it doesn't matter what happened, but that it led to where I am now (fearful brain that's misfiring danger signals where and when it shouldn't).



There is something in my gut itching that is like "girl, just move on and live your life, it's not that serious". And I think this may be the key based off the experience I had months ago. iI've also read many success stories with this same pattern, go and live your life. However, I also think about recently reading how Sarno was open to the idea of OCD/depression/anxiety being a TMS equivalent, but my understanding is that he didn't further explore that before passing away, so then I'm stuck at, well, if Sarno didn't say this is TMS, how can I move on? I may also be getting into the existential workings of our minds. Is it possible that now that I am AWARE of TMS that I can defeat my anxiety/OCD compared to when I wasn't AWARE of it? Does this make sense?

Lots and lots of things going through my mind lately. I also think I am angering my inner self for continuing to be so absorbed in this work, trying to be oh-so perfect at it, and not living my life.

 

I had/have OCD and got over it...I am kinda tired right now, but if you search 'STOP Therapy' you will bring up our old post where i went into detail of how to break the cycle of OCD , which is as bad as pain or even worse.

..and Sarno did equate OCD with TMS in HBO... in fact, it was one of the strong connections I made early that expedited my recovery from Both.

sand if it matters, I was a 'born that way' OCD sufferer. I don't remember EVER not having it.

 

Something seriously clicked in me today finally.
I’ve been seriously avoiding my fears that relate to my anxiety “ocd”. I don’t even want to label it OCD because it’s all the same, just TMS!

I faced some fears regarding my anxiety today and I had some new pain in my feet but I was SO RELIEVED? Like I didn’t even give a shit

idk, something is SHIFTING IN ME.