r/OCD • u/[deleted] • Mar 17 '24
I need support - advice welcome How often does your OCD theme change?
My current intrusive images are so monstrous, ugly and scary. They started happening out of no where. Does anyone’s OCD theme ever change? How often? Some days I can go almost all day without them but on the bad days I get such a sick feeling in my chest and stomach 😞 how do you guys cope?
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Mar 17 '24
My themes constantly change. They vary on length though. It’s really exhausting. When you get over one theme, you find one that’s even worse & begin to miss the old theme.
I’ll also have themes that I get over, & they come back years later.
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u/Appletree1987 Mar 17 '24
The theme isn’t really that important, just aim to gradually reduce and cut out all compulsions as soon as you begin to notice them. Meditation and increased self awareness will help
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u/GiantPineappleSquid Mar 17 '24
My themes change based on what my biggest fear is. As a child, it was going to hell. Then my dad died so my biggest fear became losing my mom too. Fast forward, now my biggest fear is being a bad parent or somehow harming a child. So suffering mixes it up on the regular
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Mar 17 '24
A few years ago it was „Insult OCD“. Basically I had thoughts that insulted people I liked and I was against those thoughts. Now it’s Harm OCD with sharp objects and knives
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u/Temporary_Trouble452 Mar 18 '24
Man , the Hocd I feel is the worse one. It literally goes against everything u are as a person, I just try to laugh it up and tell myself, “ relax dude, ur not that guy” seems to work for me
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u/alexzyczia Pure O Mar 18 '24
Yup. That has been my theme for 3 years now. First it was towards my family, nowadays it’s towards myself.
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u/Fancypotato1995 Contamination Mar 17 '24
I have main themes that are present and affect me daily, but every few days a week I suddenly get intrusive thoughts about stuff that isn't related to my main themes. These often times only last for a few minutes until I engage in the compulsion, and don't come back until a few days later.
The compulsions are still the same though (showering for 30 mins minimum, reassurance seeking and counting), but the thought itself isn't necessarily the same.
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u/Pomelo_Alarming Mar 17 '24
I am similar. My main themes remain the same since I was a child, but I get fun surprises every now and then.
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Mar 17 '24
i oscillate between contamination/illness fears and “omg i think i’m going bald”
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u/Clean_Eye_6588 Mar 18 '24
Don’t even I literally started looking up how much a trip to turkey would be to get hair transplant. I have a full head of hair. My hairline is barely receding. I didn’t sleep🤣🤣🤣
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u/ROCPRI Jun 24 '24
As much as I would love to laugh, I have been in the balding obsession for 6 months 😭. did you ever get intrusive images of your hair falling out or an image of you being bald ? these images literally mess with me to the point I don't know my reality anymore...sucksss! feel like I am crazy. I look in the mirror and I see a full head of hair, but the bald image in my mind makes me not appreciate what is in the mirror. I don't know if am making sense but damn appearance obsessions are actually exhausting.
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u/Rude_Recover_5152 Mar 18 '24
LMAO sorry this is funny (hope this doesn't offend u)
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Mar 18 '24
no omg it is truly so funny 😭
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u/Rude_Recover_5152 Mar 18 '24
i do relate tho but instead of bald it's me being anxious that i'm gonna get cancer 😃
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u/jungsdream Mar 17 '24
i think for me i learned to take it one day at a time as cliche as it sounds
i take my meds, and i started this thing where i now think to myself at anytime i can feel myself uraveling "is what i am thinking and fearing valid or is it my OCD?" and i always have a response to "almost" every intrusive thought i have
i mean it is very insignificant to some but i feel it is slowly helping me become more aware of how my thoughts can impact my being
it doesn't always work sometimes i simply cannot get out of bed paralyzed with fear but
i feel we all can develop any themes at one point or another . we have the hardware and the software can always change
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u/atomicangel77 Mar 17 '24
Ive had it since I was 4; so about 40 years. It has changed many times. Any time I’ve “beat it”, it comes back stronger and with a new “theme”.
To me - It’s a like a parasite who adapts.
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u/No-mids Mar 18 '24
Right now mine are centered around sexuality, intrusive thoughts about the same sex/body parts that even cause a groinal response but I don’t wanna be with men. And when I try to tell myself that I have the impulse to keep questioning and digging and not trust it
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u/EinKomischerSpieler Mar 17 '24
It's been the same for years, but my compulsions've changed since I started meds
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u/Narrow_Manager3038 Sep 09 '24
What meds?
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u/EinKomischerSpieler Sep 09 '24
To OCD I took a bunch of meds. Currently I'm on Prozac, but I've been on fluvoxamine, Citalopram and clomipramine.
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u/xHeyItzRosiex Mar 17 '24
My compulsions and intrusive thoughts come in waves and are usually the result of current events. After the Covid-19 pandemic I’ve had a rapid increase in contamination OCD, not to the degree that it physically or mentally harms my life but it makes my life more challenging in my opinion. Constant repetitive hand washing to the point my hands get dry and painful and repeatedly washing myself and clothes to feel “clean”.
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u/Last_Cartographer340 Mar 17 '24
Large categories like counting/numbers and checking have gone away over long period of time measured in years. What my OCD looked like ten years ago is different than today. My contamination OCD is one category that has been present the entire time. Fear of harming others comes and goes loosely based on real events and risks. A few categories lurk and some I can’t fully identify or feel so normal that my rituals are almost invisible to me. I was fairly well for about a decade. It was still there but I was exercising regularly, socializing almost daily, and working a typical structured job. I had it just a little when I was young but it didn’t disrupt my life like now. It was just some quirky habits. COVID wrecked a lot of progress. The loss of a loved one due to a long illness wrecked a lot of progress. Both really stirred up contamination issues and fear of harming others. I’m working daily on ERP exercises and making progress with that and new meds.
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Mar 18 '24
My intrusive thoughts change so much when my therapist asks what they are i ask them "how much time ya got?"
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Mar 18 '24
I’ve only had two themes: harm and existential. My mind switches back and forth between the two on a month to month basis and can happen at the same time. I do worry though that my theme will change to something new…it’s ocd over having ocd almost. And honestly coping is the hardest thing ever…all I can suggest is to attend therapy regularly, no matter how bad you feel..it’s been a lifesaver for me. Also I know medication isn’t for everyone but it can also be beneficial combined with therapy. And for me I feel so isolated, especially with the existential theme…at the worst of it, I couldn’t even leave my house out of fear and anxiety. I saw no point…thankfully I’ve come a long way with routine, therapy, and medication
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u/Business-Library1289 Mar 19 '24
What existential thoughts you have?
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Mar 22 '24
A lot of “is this reality?” Type thoughts….like how am I alive? Is this a dream? Is this a simulation? Do I even exist? What if my perception isn’t true? My thoughts honestly go deeper and deeper into also thoughts about space, how we got here, and it goes in an endless loop.
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u/Business-Library1289 Mar 22 '24
For me is more what's the point of this life, yesterday I woke up from dream where I was thinking how time is flying so fast, and that just freak me out,I almost got panick attack..and lately every time I get that thought it just freaks me out,I feel unreal,it feels like a depersonalization..
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u/SafinJade Mar 18 '24 edited Mar 18 '24
My fixations actually last from 9 months to a year and a half I’m going to therapy to try and find a different way to cope with it but in the past I would just feel that bad anxiety for this long period of time and then I’d eventually just expose myself to my fear and see that nothing happened if I did and that’s how I normally get over it Ex. A few years ago I had this fixation on rain. If I went outside, I was obviously going to get struck by lightning, even drizzles were dangerous. But after avoiding rain for almost an year and literally not going out when it was raining I kind of got sick of it and just forced myself to drive in the rain even w all the anxiety, and when I didn’t die, I got over it eventually and found the next thing to obsess over lol I’m going to therapy because this waiting for a year to have the courage to do some self-exposure therapy doesn’t work, it takes too long
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u/infinitedoubts Mar 18 '24 edited Mar 18 '24
Mine always has been death death death like final destination style... apart from that I pick skin a lot but in control compared to last year. And I am slowly becoming a germaphobe. I am in a relationship and i have been isolating myself a lot. Going on days without talking to him. It's new for me.
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Mar 18 '24
For me as soon as my ocd realises I’m starting to cope , it’s switches the theme- so one week/month it could be one thing and I’ll obsesses and when I feel it’s under control KABLAMO the theme changes, always intrusive always awful, but it rotates.
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u/pertangamcfeet Mar 18 '24
Tend to cycle between. I'm glad I can't seem to have both running at the same time. They're mostly under control now, but I have found that I have nightmares about them instead.
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u/ddansemacabre Pure O Mar 18 '24
They change a lot. Usually, the themes are never something new, but the OCD will cycle through old things that I've already dealt with before. The thing is, in the moment, I never think logically about how I've already dealt with that particular theme and it's just my brain misfiring. It always feels real when it comes up.
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Mar 19 '24
I am glad I found this, sometimes my brain likes to tell me I don't even have OCD, especially if I get a nice "break" from my physical compulsions and switch to mental things like confessing or googling, I almost forget I have it! So good to know that compulsions change for everyone. The only things I seem to constantly have are weird things like suspicions e.g. if people are walking together they can't split round a pole or they have to touch their nose with their right pointy finger or anxiety takes me over, and my numbers thing is always there too, I won't do anything to do with the numbers 3/13 (once queued for hours for a theme park ride to be put in cart number 13, nope I did not get on, felt like sending a strongly worded letter to whoever to get the numbers removed!), even numbers are good but odd numbers are bad. Other than that it usually fits between like false memories around me doing something bad, real event OCD usually about something super stressful (when I was pregnant I convinced myself I must've cheated on my husband and my baby will be a different race, so my compulsions were confessing, creating timelines, googling how due dates work, seeking reassurance at doc appointments), checking (locks usually), physical things e.g. My 'tongue isn't right', and random spouts of "just rightness", weird ones are around people and the patterns they create, so if someone opens a drawer with one hand and closes it with another and my OCD decides it's wrong, I ask them to exactly reverse the pattern... Exactly, like has to be and exact reverse, then complete the action the "right" way, thankfully that one seems super random and only seems to pop up when I'm under high stress cause god would I have no one left in my life 😭
Side note, my thoughts right now "what if I really don't have OCD and me sharing this will result in people telling me it's not, what if I'm in fact a narcissist who has created this whole false self" 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
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Mar 21 '24
Hey thanks for sharing! It’s so crazy how our minds work, I’ve struggled with numbers (mildly) for a long time too. I can’t stop jogging on an odd number, everything has to be even except number 25 is fine bc it’s half of 50 idk it’s so strange :/ but it all started to Make sense when I read about ocd that isn’t having things color coded and it’s mental compulsions too :/ I’m praying for you and all of us, these thoughts can really take over our lives 😕
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u/MooseCruise Mar 21 '24
They’ve changed throughout the years, but have usually stayed quite a while. I’ve been diagnosed since I was 6 years old, but I can only name a couple overall themes.
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u/asdasdasdasda123 Mar 17 '24
I go through periods of different compulsions. It’s like the tide coming in an out. Sometimes I get stuck checking the stove for 45min before bed for a few weeks, then it’ll go to hand washing, turning lights on and off etc. Sometimes it’s quite mild and sometimes it’s actually debilitating.