# Is DP/DR linked to OCD or Pure-O OCD?



## Narrowawake (Sep 1, 2012)

Hi guys,

I joined dpselfhelp just a couple days ago and am wondering if any of you are experiencing DP/DR *because of *OCD or Pure-O OCD? I haven't been officially diagnosed with either, but my own experiences and research lead me to believe that I might have one or both of them. Here's the quick version of my story:

During the summer of 2010, I began obsessively worrying about religious matters, specifically about whether or not I was going to Heaven when I died. I could not turn my worries off because I could never come to a conclusion about the matter. The thoughts plagued me and injected so much terror into my life. I could literally think of nothing else and I spent every waking moment theorizing and pondering and going through hypothetical situations in my mind. This continued on until December of 2011, when somehow, out of frustration and exhaustion, I managed to give up on my quest for answers to this question and I also gave up in my attempts to be good enough to make it into Heaven. I just couldn't do it anymore. Once I stopped obsessing about that problem, my mind automatically started to focus on other things - the objects that were around me - and everything around me suddenly seemed closer and more real. It freaked me out because I was so used to being distanced from reality by my own obsessive thoughts, and all that reality was sooo heavy that I distanced myself again. I somehow made my mind unaware again of everything around me and tuned it all out. It was easier that way. So, for me, as I've dealt with my own dissociative issues, I've realized that some of it is caused by my own intrusive worries and thoughts, and I wonder if this is the case for anyone else out there. The other main cause for my DP is my own desperate choice to distance myself from whatever seems too heavy to bear at the moment.

I recently read an article by Dr. Steven Seay called *"Pure-O" OCD: Common Obsessions & Mental Rituals*. Here's the link if you'd like to read the entire thing: http://www.steveseay.com/pure-o-ocd-obsessions-mental-rituals/ It's pretty interesting. One of the more interesting parts of the article was one of the lists of symptoms he made for the disorder. It's below in quotes:

"Obsessions involving health or bodily sensations (somatic obsessions)
■Hypervigilance/hyper-awareness of bodily sensations/getting attention "stuck" on thinking/analyzing various autonomic processes (breathing, heart rate, swallowing, blinking, eye "floaters", flickering of the visual field)
■Persistent feelings of unreality, depersonalization, or derealization
■Fear of having or developing a chronic, progressive illness (AIDS/HIV, ALS, Alzheimer's Disease, cancer)
■Fear of throwing up, also known as vomit phobia or emetophobia"

So what do you guys think? Does anyone know more info about the links between OCD/Pure-O and DP/DR or can anyone relate or share about their experiences with both OCD/Pure-O and DP/DR? Any input would be much appreciated!







Thanks guys!

-Narrowawake


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## Guest (Sep 4, 2012)

Yes, I sometimes think of it as looking at the sheild we are hiding behind, instead of looking up at what we are hiding from.

I tend to think of OCD as an extreme type of coping mechanism.


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## kate_edwin (Aug 9, 2009)

I don't think you have OCD from that description, but I'm not a dr. It would be best to see a therapist, it can be really harmful to obsess abot trying to diagnose yourself


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## Guest (Sep 5, 2012)

Fearless said:


> Exaclty. I believe it is, just like DP.
> 
> The funniest part, whatever we're hiding from is probably 10 times less terrible than what we are choosing to go through instead.


Definately.

Maybe that's it in a nutshell. To labour the metaphor, if we look past the sheild and find we've been jumping at shadows, we dont need to study the nuts and bolts of it. We simply lay it down as it's no longer needed.


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