Help and a few Narratives for all you sufferers out there.

[MarkCal1287]

So it has been a few months since a very bad OCD
"spell" hit me. I'm slowly getting better now, and in the process of doing so I've observed a few things about my OCD that might be helpful to others.

My last OCD battle was over homosexuality. I know many of us have had this obsession, and I know if you've had it that you know how mentally and socially crippling it could be. I didn't want to be near males of any kind at one point, because weather it be a thin handsome well sculpted man or a chubby acne laded moron I would still have awkward intrusive thoughts.

Now this was very very strange for me, see I used to be the most sexually comfortable person I knew. I would sit on a guys lap just to joke around and make them feel uncomfortable. I always was obsessed with women, I still am. That goes to show you the power of OCD, it can take you straight out of the person you are.

Let it be known you OCDers that your intrusive thoughts are not completely irrational. There is some logical basis behind them when they originally start. Imagine you work at a restraunt and some wacko spread his excrement all over the walls (things like that happen trust me). You may be the one who has to clean it up. You finish, you're disgusted, close to vomiting, and you now have to wash your hands. You turn on the faucet because your brain tells you that's the first step, you add soap and ring your hands together because that's step 2, next your brain has to decide that it's done. **zapzap** Uh-oh, there's a short in the wires. Some incorrect pathways of some sort of neurological damage/deformity has stopped the message from being fully received. So you turn off the water now, but you don't feel clean, you feel like you should still be washing your hands. **zapzap** Here comes the anxiety. So you turn the water back on, and wash again. Still no good? Well then you try scalding hot water. Nope? Well then you just scrub until us skin hurts and your hand are beat red. You still don't feel right, but you decide its time to leave the bathroom before you start scrubbing off flesh.

Now the next OCD reenactment will be a bit graphic, so if you're a wuss don't read it.

You're sitting at home reading a book about cooking. Cooking is one of your favorite hobbies, dinner for you sometimes isn't even about the eating. Sometimes it's all about the art of making the meal. It's perfectly natural for anyone, male or female to love cooking. Unfortunately for you, American social stereotypes tell you that women like to cook. Also you're told that homosexuals act just like women. During the course of reading a new fried tomato recipe, you make this connection in your mind randomly. Cooking= Women= Gay men liking cooking= I'm gay. This thought goes through your mind for a second makes you feel uncomfortable, but then disappears from your CONSCIOUS mind. As it floats around your subconscious you decide to turn on the TV. You throw on sports center to check out the weekend action. There is a locker-room interview with let's say.... Jets new QB Marc Sanchez. His shirt is off, he's very sweaty, scruffy from not having time to shave, his muscles are all well defined. You think for a minute "He's an attractive guy" which is perfectly natural even for a straight man to think. For you however this adds onto the unconscious insecurity you already made about your sexuality. You think "Oh my god, I like to cook, I think men are attractive.... Dear lord I must be a gay!!". Just like that you've ruined the next 5 months of your life. (this isn't what happened to me, my story is located somewhere else on here. This is just a feasible situation based on things I have actually thought during my OCD battles.)

As you can see however there is SOME element of rationality at certain points. Thinking something might be true because it's a widely accepted stereotype is rational. It's not nice, or intelligent, but it is rational. You just need to sit an analyze all of your OCD related thoughts and actions. Break them down into what they really are.... Idiotic nothingness.