# Anyone else have Pure 'O'?



## becky (Jan 19, 2006)

Does anyone else in this forum suffer from Pure 'O' (pure obsessions or a form of OCD in which u only have bad thoughts but no compuslions)? I have horrible thougths hat won't stop which I belive are caused by my sever anxiety. This has led to horrible depression and dp (in my worst of times- to let me escape reality!) but I think to overcome all of this crap I need to overcome the anxiety and the obsessions. If anyone else relates to this please let me know! What are the best therapies or medications for ocd and anxiety???


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## Lunar Lander (Feb 17, 2006)

Yeah, I think this is the root of mine as well. I've had full-blown OCD with compulsions in the past too. My dp started as a result of panic attacks which came from worrying over and over about a bout of insomnia I was having. After that I'd obsess about having another panic attack, and how my dp feels! I'm getting better at that though.

http://www.stuckinadoorway.co.uk

In the past I've benefitted from a book called _Brain Lock_ by Jeffrey M. Schwartz, which teaches a simple cognitive-behavioral technique for dealing with the obsessions.

I've actually read that they're finding out that pure O is the more common form.

There is also an OCD forum called Stuck in a Doorway that I've been on a little.


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## jft (Jan 10, 2005)

I have pure O. I do not have dthe bad thoughts ( knives and babies etc) but I have had in the past and sometimes now major ruminative, obsessional and intrusive thoughts that i cannot control, usually it is a head game where I solve an issue and then it just comes back in another thought and I have to solve it again. There are many approaches to helping with this, and I think many of the things I did helped, but I think time was the big difference for me. My sister has the bad thought stuff like you suggested, and she was cured of it by using ssri/s. I was not. Pure O is pure bitchh! I feel for you in this, for it is as if we are locked in a prison within our minds. The answer seems so simple, just don't play the game, but the other player won't give up on us.
jft


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## dpdpaulson (Dec 30, 2005)

Yeah, I've got the pure O. No rituals or compulsions (except coming to this site  ) , just the freaky thoughts about "what if i...." and fill in the blank with anything from driving my car in to on coming traffic, jumping out a window, the occasional knives and/or babies (creepy I know, sorry! I'm pretty sure I'm not serious! God it's embarrasing to admit...) But those are more fleeting than the usual "I've f--ked up my life", "there's something undefineably wrong with me", "I'll never amount to anything", "nobody likes me", never ending introspection and over-analysis of social stuff, the same blah blah blah, boo hoo hoo crap I've always got simmering on the back burner in my mind that never reaches a conclusion. I really don't know the way out either, they seem so real and self-fulfilling. Let me know if anything's worked for anyone.

Greg


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## freesong (Dec 26, 2005)

I am only obsessive in relationships. :shock: :roll: I am working on this but it is so difficult. I am truly OCD in this way so can relate up to a point. My ex-boyfriend was soo much this way and I adored him. He just could not stop worrying, controlling, thinking. re-thinking, etc. I miss him but not the behavior. I am sure he does not miss mine either. I read in Braverman's book that you can tweak the dopamine and up the serotonin to help this. Who really knows. I am getting obsessive with my posts on physiological stuff so shutting up now. But, I feel for you guys and hope it gets better.


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## jft (Jan 10, 2005)

It is interesting the often recognized connection between pure O and dp/dr. Simeon refers to a fellow by the name of Evan Torch in her book who made this a theme in his research articles. In fact he wrote one whope paper on the subject. He and others believed in a obessional "substrate" correlated with dp. Many of us talk about obsessing on symptoms and thus increased anxiety abounds making things worse, but Torch talked of obsessional introspection on our normal lives, our hypervigalence of our selves and runinations of our actions as leading to a loss of self in the same way that something will visuallly disappear when one states at it long enough. I see this as true for myself, for at the time of onset I was in a major way involved with obessional guilt and "staring at myself" way too often. I have not been one to be overly obseesed with my sympotms. but I am one who has obsessed in my dialy life (moreso years ago) to the point of absurdity. I remember all the wasted energy on this inner focus to the point where I was just "depleted" in my mind. I felt so weak in my head, almost to the point of instability. I can see where pure o like this could help one into dp/dr land. If someone was doing this to me, I would want to shut him down as well. I would tell my mind that I cannot do this anymore, this excercise in game playing swatting at pink elephants all day long. 
jft


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## dpdpaulson (Dec 30, 2005)

Good post JFT. I remember coming to that same analogy with a therapist a while ago. If you stare at anything long enough, it'll disappear. I also remember sitting at bus stops when I was younger, before all this, playing with my perception by staring at a pebble for so long that the world around it would disappear. In fact the whole sensation was very much like DR. DP is like doing that but internally. Everthing else you said fits me exactly also, especially about feeling depleted after self-analyzing so much. Makes me exhausted just thinking about it!! Ughh and schoolwork doesn't help any either. The mental fatigue has to add to this.

Oh and Freesong, I'm also obsessive in relationships as well, always have been, and it tends to ruin the natural simplicity that makes relationships fun.

Hope some people are able to get OVER this, it really does suck the life out of things.

Here's a great post JFT wrote just over a year ago on the role of hypervigilence.

Hypervigilance

I didn't know that you were sober during your onset JFT, that's really interesting. On the trip that "caused" this for me, i was already super self-conscious, before I took the acid. I thought it would help me settle into myself, but it was the opposite and the acid magnified this hypervigilance almost to the point of panic. That could be the same mechanism by which pot brings it on as well. Interesting..


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## Rozanne (Feb 24, 2006)




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## jft (Jan 10, 2005)

Dppaulson. Thanks for bringing up old thread. That said it better than I did it in this one. I would encourage you to read that short journal article by Torch, I am sure it is indexed in Simeons book, but it can be found on medline or whatever. The title has the word obsessional in it. I wish I was more computer savy as I would find a link for you, but I do not know how to do that.

The best work on obsessional thinking in general I feel was done by Leon Salzman, called the "obessional personlaity of our time" (out of print but found in libraries) I would imagine he was a bit of a freudian, but he seemed to really be spot on with so much as was my experience.

Even though many will argue (in our infant understanding) of the biochemical nature of this pure o, I beleive the more one understands the demon that tries to rob us of our energy the more we are able to sidestep the process. The bottom line is that we are never trying to solve anything by our obsessive endeavors, we only "need" to keep the obsessions going. This is the paradox, and once we REALLY see this, the more we know how absurd it is. We do not need answers, we jsut need to keep obsessing. And maybe the more we obsess the more we lose track of ourselves. And we just get tired.

I talked with Dr. Torch for one hour on the phone years back after I had read his work. His approach in a nutshell was eerily the same as so much of what is said on this board, this "focus outward" stuff. He advocated the use of ssri's to help with obsession as well, but that never helped me. His bottom line for combating dp/dr was to get involved in life outside of ourselves no matter how we did it.. Like I say, time I think helped me (in the obessional department), the process wore itself out a bit, but I do not think hunting and fishing hurt things either.

By the way Paulson, my onset occured after an intense few months of introspection and obsessional implosion due to something that had happened where I felt others might reject me. I felt too, jsut as you related, that an acid trip may give me the insight I needed to get over it. Of course all it did was make it worse, and I realized that I could no longer do acid. It was shortly after this, while I was straight one night that my onset of dp/dr occured, and it came on like a frigging freightrain at the snap of a finger. 
jft


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## becky (Jan 19, 2006)

for all of the replies... its good to know I am not alone Has anyone found any meds helpful for thsi condition>? i ahve read SSRI's arent as effective for this condition as they are for depression but if any of you have had any success with meds (along with counselling) please let me know!


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## jft (Jan 10, 2005)

Shooting star. I know of many folks who got help with ssri's with true ocd, the hand washers and hoarders etc. It just seems that pure o would follow suit. I just cannot tolerate them. I wonder if any others here with pure o have seen any significant reduction of cognitive obsession with ssri's, and if so any reduction in dp/dr. God, I know one main ocd website sees ssri's as manna from heaven. 
jft


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## SillyPutty (Mar 29, 2005)

If you have pure O you ABSOLUTELY MUST get this book.....

The Imp of the Mind : Exploring the Silent Epidemic of Obsessive Bad Thoughts by Lee Baer

It's available on Amazon but I also found it at my local Borders Books.


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## willswapforcancer (Dec 18, 2005)

Yes I have pure O, it was originally OCD, but has been pure O for a long time, I strongly believe my DP is linked with pure O as each episode occurs in the same way, I feel as though my DP is just another form of obsession wich I need to block out, this brings me to my next thread I will be creating.


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