CBT Sucks...but It Works!

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) focuses on stopping the negative automatic thoughts that are associated with the feared object or situation, replacing them with more rational thoughts instead. OCD is all about irrational and intrusive thoughts so CBT along with certain medications can help someone suffering with OCD to overcome some of their irrational thinking and hopefully cut down on compulsions and anxiety. With CBT comes exposure therapy. Exposure therapy is a way of replacing those automatic negative thoughts with rational ideas instead. When the patient is faced with the very thing that causes them anxiety and they see that they can be in that situation and still be ok, the anxiety will lower and the rationalizing begins.
When simply reading about CBT and Exposure Therapy it doesn't seem like a big deal at all. It looks like it would be a fairly simple process where the person would just realize they're being irrational and move past it...If only it were that simple. OCD is a very real thing to the person suffering from it because their brain is telling them it's the way things are around  them. OCD lies and until the person is diagnosed and starts to learn CBT and how to disassociate real thoughts from OCD thoughts, it's a miserable existance. A favorite saying in the OCD community is "it's not me it's the OCD".
Think of the one thing that scares you the most. It could be spiders, heights, anything and imagine that you have to face that fear. For instance, if you were scared of spiders, you would start out sitting in a room with a spider and gradually work your way to having a spider on your body! It sounds almost impossible to the person with the fear, but people who like spiders can't imagine why being around a spider would be such a big deal.
The average person doesn't have to come in contact with spiders on a daily basis so this fear wouldn't interfer much with their life. OCD fears, thoughts, compulsions, and rituals consume a person's life. I found a video clip from the A&E  tv show Obsessed. It was a documentary on people going through CBT and living with OCD. In this clip the woman is scared to ride in the back seat of cars, so she ends up taking a ride with her therapist and boyfriend. Most people can ride in the back seat of a car without any hesitation, because of her OCD she couldn't. Check it out!

CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO CLIP!

My Brain Is On Fire!

 

The picture above is an image from a PET scan of a person diagnosed with ocd (right) and a normal brain (left). It was from the research of Lewis Bacter, M.D. at UCLA.

So I've been told this is what my brain would look like in a PET scan (on the right). All the colors represent brain activity, blue being the least to red being the most. The first time I saw this picture my literal reaction was "Dang! My brain really is on fire!". Someone who suffers from ocd will tell you that the disorder is constant and it's not usually in the back of your head, but usually right at the front of all your thoughts, actions, and processing.

Ocd mainly affects the front part of the brain which controls the perception of danger or fear, and the ability to start and stop different thoughts and activities. Basically, that's the perfect formula for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Many researchers have linked the ultra high activity in the front of the brain to an abonormal functioning of the nuerotransmitter, serotonin. It's been shown that through more PET scans that taking medications that have serotonin will decrease the activity in the brain as shown in the picture below.

Taking medication will not cure the disorder, since there is no cure, but it does aid in helping the person to control it overall. Medication is only half of the treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder. The other half is CBT (Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy). Along with CBT comes daily assignments and a rating system to help gauge anxiety levels. CBT makes a person face their fears, but at a controllable anxiety level. Ultimately the patient in CBT has the complete control to decide what they want to do and how fast they try to accomplish it. Speaking from experience, it basically sucks while you're doing it but it works! It takes a lot of dedication, hard work, and support from loved ones to get through, but once your first fear is accomplished ocd doesn't seem so big. There might not be a cure, but there's definitely hope to live a happy life!

An Intrusive "Thought"

I came across this video on Youtube and was so excited to write about it! One of my biggest goals is to try to help people without OCD understand it better. This video is an awesome example of what people with OCD go through when they see something that triggers their Obsessions, and why we must do the Compulsion to ease that anxiety or thought in our head. Here the man is trying just to listen to the woman talking and carry on a conversation with her. Unfortunately, his OCD is triggered which is followed by the constant annoying "thought" and then the compulsion.

Max's Misfortune

So I'm sure many people have seen the commercials for the new tv show "Parenthood" on NBC on tuesday nights. I saw the show for the first time today and was taken aback by how much I could relate to this scene. The little boy, Max, has just been diagnosed with a high functioning form of autism. While this is not OCD I could not believe how the dialog is so similar to many of the conversations I have had with people that I love. I have been told "that's ridiculous, all (s)he's gotta do is...and (s)he's gonna be fine." It's funny how something that seems so simple, like walking by candles in Max's case, can be so complexed and difficult. People that have OCD really do have "something wrong", as the boy's father, Adam says. It took me a long time to accept that I had something wrong with the way my brain functioned, but once I looked at it as like being sick. Having OCD is just like someone living with diabetes. There's no cure but there's ways to control and live a happy life with it. I didn't do anything wrong to have this disorder it was something I was born with like a lot of other people with diseases. Anyways here's the video and please leave comments and questions.

Finally People Similar To Me

Having OCD can be a very lonely thing and anyone with it knows that. After doing some research I found this amazing website that is all in support for people who are struggling with OCD and a community of people just being there for each other from all over the world. It's amazing what reading other's stories and hearing other's perspectives about living with OCD can really help. There are people from all walks of life and are in different stages of their lives. I've learned how to cope with living with OCD now and seeing that I'll be able to continue living with it. Hopefully have a family, career, and follow the "normal" steps of growing up! This is my Tribe :)

What is OCD?

Since being diagnosed with OCD I've found out that not a lot of people know what Obsessive Compulsive Disorder actually is. I had heard about it, but didn't understand all that went along with the disorder. Many people think OCD is just someone being a "clean freak" or "very particular" about certain things. This is only part of the disorder.

Here is a great website to help define Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.