When your thoughts become fears and your fears become obsessions

Family
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Review of “The Man Who Couldn’t Stop: OCD and the True Story of a Life Lost in Thought” by David Adam

By Carlos Lozada January 22

Linger for a moment on those irrational thoughts that sometimes hop the mind’s rope line. What would happen if I drove against traffic in the thick of rush hour? What if my completely healthy loved one died tomorrow? Or if I got too close to that ledge, might I jump off?

Imagine now that the thoughts are not quickly cast out, but instead claim more and more space until they overwhelm everything else, all but the awareness that you can’t stop them. Trying to banish them only ensures their persistence. Some people develop distractions — compulsive, repetitive behaviors — to fight back. But the compulsions aggravate the obsessions. Being caught in this destructive loop is what it means to live with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

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I can relate a lot to this. I became pretty ocd years before i turned to schizophrenia. And still having tendency for ocd makes it more difficult to fight this off. I am getting better at it. Gotta simply and let you thoughts flow with holding any ground. Distraction is about the only way to find peace in the midst of it, hence me being on these forums all effing day and night. I figure eventually I’ll wean myself off, but not until my mind starts gravitating to more normal perspectives of the self and the world. I put my phone down and immediately go back to obsessive psychotic thinking. I used to be a powerful thinker before all this set in.

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My voices have ocd as well. Fuck this illness it’s so easy for me to start bouncing around try to defend myself from these accusations.