How to deal with OCD

Question

I have a mild case of OCD. There are many little rituals that i do, but lets say if i don't do the ritual i will have bad luck. Not bad luck as in if i play poker i will always lose, or if i bet on a game i wont win. I mean bad luck as in bad things will happen to me throughout the day. Nothing will go my way. People are gonna put me down, or things will happen that are against me. Ive tried dealing with it by skipping rituals and saying "its all in my head" but when i do its always a coincidence that bad luck does actually happen to me throughout the day. So now i don't even like to take chances. Its really stressful. Can anyone give me advice as to how to deal with it. Maybe i just need someone to tell me its all in my head. Maybe i need someone to explain to me why it cant be real.

Answer 1

It's not luck. It's what you feel inside. If you do not do something, you obsess over it. You may even feel dirty or incomplete. Sometimes you feel guilty or you just get increased anxiety with no attached emotion.

It has nothing to do with luck. If it's bad enough where you can't make yourself stop or someone helping you can not help you break the habits, then you might need medication.

I have a mild form of OCD. With some thinks like brushing my hand back and forth over textures I didn't like to "make them okay" I was able to train myself to stop. However certain preferences like colors, sizes of rooms and such I can't fix on my own. I could use medication but it's not something that interferes with my daily life enough to warrant intervention. For example, I prefer rooms a certain height and certain width. If my OCD was worse, I would rather sleep outside with bugs and rain than be inside a house I felt was "wrong". That's not the case, in face most of the time I don't notice it. So that's why I don't need meds.

It could be different for you, though.

EDIT: And about the rituals seeming to affect your luck, well you are hyperaware of negative events it seems. Millions of things happen to you daily, most of which you don't even know, or ever could know. But if something negative seems to happen you remember it and directly link it as a cause of something you did in your rituals. However, it could be that your general feelings created by not following ritual (the anxiety, the negative feelings which are common to suffers of OCD) are coloring your outlook so that some events just seem excessively negative or fitting in with "bad luck."

It is possible your form of OCD incorporates an impulse-control issue with gambling. Something to look into. It may not be an addiction. What I mean is, with OCD you do something and it feels 'right', and doing something else or not doing the first thing feels 'wrong'. Thus, you do the action compulsively. It could be that these games of chance or whatever are just another "ritual" and you do not even realize it because of the nature of the activity.

Answer 2

thats like me lol  um u could take medicne ......~xoxo ally*

Answer 3

OCD Behavioral therapy:

The specific technique used in BT/CBT is called exposure and ritual prevention (also known as "exposure and response prevention") or ERP; this involves gradually learning to tolerate the anxiety associated with not performing the ritual behavior. At first, for example, someone might touch something only very mildly "contaminated" (such as a tissue that has been touched by another tissue that has been touched by the end of a toothpick that has touched a book that came from a "contaminated" location, such as a school.) That is the "exposure". The "ritual prevention" is not washing. Another example might be leaving the house and checking the lock only once (exposure) without going back and checking again (ritual prevention). The person fairly quickly habituates to the anxiety-producing situation and discovers that their anxiety level has dropped considerably; they can then progress to touching something more "contaminated" or not checking the lock at all — again, without performing the ritual behavior of washing or checking.

Exposure and ritual/response prevention has been demonstrated to be the most effective treatment for OCD. It has generally been accepted that psychotherapy, in combination with psychotropic medication, is more effective than either option alone. However, more recent studies have shown no difference in outcomes for those treated with the combination of medicine and CBT versus CBT alone.[30]

Answer 4

OCD is always all in the head. I have OCD and I see a psychiatrist about twice every year to talk about how I have been with my disorder.

Maybe going to the a psychiatrist and asking for medicine is the best way because I take medicine to control my rituals and habits.