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2qwerty
Senior Contributor

OCD and Anxiety are destroying my life

I have this mixture of "normal" life stress and exaggerated anxiety. Some things are reasonable things to worry about and others are just nonsense and inbetween the two, so i'm always on a hair trigger. 

 

I can't even handle PMS, a period ends my world. Oh, but don't worry, in 2-3 weeks I'll be having another mental breakdown again, just in time to partially forget the previous one. Does it make it easier knowing it'll calm down for awhile, eventually? No. Every single time is a living nightmare. But when I'm not dealing with that, I still get to enjoy anxiety, depression and OCD anyway. Along with a career that is slowly killing my spirit. 

 

I feel trapped in this existance and everyone is perplexed by my discomfort. I have a husband who doesn't even pretend to understand what I'm going through. He tells me constantly that "no one else cares about" any of the things I obsess or worry over. As though that is supposed to make me feel better. When I tell him it doesn't help, and he's making me feel worse, he will then proceed to grin at me like the cheshire cat, as though that absolves him of any wrong doing, while planting the seeds of anger, guilt and frustration on me. At work, I feel like even though I am very clear with my current concerns of the team, problems, and my current status of burnt out beyond repair, they are not able to help me. If anything, they pile it on. I have problems I feel like I cannot fix, and not just from an anxiety perspective, actual problems. Big problems with no out. I can't take time off because no one has the capacity to fill in for me, and if they HAVE time, they're terrible at their OWN job, and constantly and consistently make extra work for me, making foolish mistakes. They'd just not do the work at all and leave it all for me. You probably think I sound big headed right now, but I'm talking multuple times a day I instruct and remind people to specific requirements, and multiple times a day they let me down. Doing the task wrong, or not at all. Taking the pressure off in any way by instructing the team to do something ends with poor results, if anything, then when you sit them down to explain it, they look at you with vacant bambi eyes "oh? I didn't know." But I'm meant to just take it in stride and relax, right? Watch everyone burn the place to the ground and just grin and bare it. I'd not care, but they impact my work, too, and I'm sick of it. My boss is a gigantic wimp who won't deal with "that confrontational stuff" so I get to have panic attacks all day at my desk while they play dumb and ruin the business. 

I struggle with so many basic day to day tasks that other people do without a single second thought. It's not going to improve, it's only going to get worse and worse as I go on longer and longer. 

 

No one cares. And the people who "do" care? I'll never meet. Where do I even go from here. 

 

22 REPLIES 22

Re: OCD and Anxiety are destroying my life

Hi,

 

just checking in and being one of those people who tells you it’s going to get better.

 

you’re going through hell and I am so sorry you have to feel the way that you do; like a horror movie over and over.

 

try and educate your husband, I don’t like to give anecdotes but now that my family understands my disorder at least they can be supportive.

 

best of luck and it does get better, trust me.

Re: OCD and Anxiety are destroying my life

Hi @2qwerty and welcome to the forum. There are a lot of caring people here.

It's sounds really hard to be dealing with all that you are. I think it makes it extra difficult when people don't seem to understand or care. I felt frustrated just hearing that your husband seems to brush aside what you go through. I wouldn't cope well with hearing someone say that other people don't care about the things that I do. That wouldn't make me feel better at all.

Do you have any kind of professional support with your anxiety, depression and OCD?

I find it helpful to be here on the forum around others who get it. Sometimes it helps me just to vent and be heard. Keep talking if it helps you too.

Re: OCD and Anxiety are destroying my life

@Former-Member  @CheerBear  Thanks, I worry I'll break the caring people's spirits, as I often push back on hope and help. 

 

It's in his nature to dismiss things he doesn't understand. As long as we don't address the elephant in the room, everything is relatively fine. I say relatively, because our relationship is rocky, at best. I resent that he can't offer emotional support or intimacy, and he has zero empathy to anything or anyone, (except our dog) and he resents that I can't cook him meals and drive, or do anything slightly demanding without having panic, (think small like buying eggs and bread at the same time, or chemicals and food being in the same bag). When he points out I don't do specific tasks that I SHOULD be able to do as a functioning adult,  things become problematic. All I have is denial, as soon as I am faced with my failings, or poor qualities, I struggle to accept and move through that. It's living life with a handicap, I can't ever get ahead and anything else I do with my life will make it harder and harder. Any new change or challenge just adds more stress and anxiety, rage and tension...and it'll only hurt our relationship further. I'm poison. But if I get frustrated and angry at him for his commentary, his response is "why are you always so angry?/you've been angry all day (lie)/angry, angry..." Which doesn't help, clearly, telling someone they're angry? I'm frustrated, obviously, and I wasn't angry until you MADE me angry. Funny how I only get angry when HE TELLS ME I'M ANGRY. I want to be the person he EXPECTS me to be, but I can't. I'll never be that person. But I can't function without him, he makes me appear as though I am a functional adult. That's a lie. It always was. There's a lot I can do, but I'll never be like everyone else, and I have to face that every single day.  

 

I see a psychologist, but I'm seeing no real benefit from it, and I ran out of mental health plan appointments, so I've been seeing her less and less as months go by waiting for it to refresh. I'm considering seeing someone new, as so far her only advice is to accept myself, and say i'm doing my "best" when clearly I am not, and despite my objectons to medication she keeps telling me to consider it, but i've made it clear I do not want to go down that avenue. I now just talk to her about day to day stress rather than mental health issues, other than suicidality, because I hate being told I have to expose myself to things, when there's so many variables, I never become comfortable with tasks. The more I fiddle with my obsessions, the worse they get. Either new ones are born, or the ones I am challenging get more and more intense. I've already had one breakdown in my late teens, I don't need to have another. I'm going to stick with the path of least resistance. Doesn't make it better, but it's easier than attempting to rip myself to pieces. 

 

The universe offered me a lifeline today, and I got a possible solution to one of my biggest work problems, but it's a month too late. After all the worry, anxiety, panic attacks and anger...this solution should have been offered weeks ago. I made so many calls, sent so many emails, panicked so many times...and the first person I spoke to has offered the solution they denied me previously. It's like a cruel, sick joke. Then questions come in, is that my fault? Was I too angry? Panicked? Frustrated? Could I have achieved this in August if I didn't have PMS rage? I did this to myself?! Why? Will this happen again? Of course it will! I had my day of clarity, and I finally get what I needed.

But it's short lived. What's next. 

I don't see a future for myself. I can't be a mother with a life like this. But what else do I do with myself? Just be this until I am old? I can't continue in this body. But I don't think I can leave, either.  

Re: OCD and Anxiety are destroying my life

Hi @2qwerty 

I am one of the Moderators and I thought I'd post and join @Former-Member  and @CheerBear in welcoming you to the community. As Cheerbear says, sometimes just giving voice to things is useful! Trying so hard and feeling that nothing is working can be so frustrating.

It sounds as though you've been able to arrange a good solution to some of the problems that you were having at work but that when you posted you were still feeling overwhelmed by issues with your mental health, work and relationship. If you could check your email shortly I am going to send you an email. You mentioned that you talk with your psychologist about suicide and I am hoping that you are able to keep yourself safe there when those thoughts are present. I will check in with you by email if you could look in your inbox shortly. Take care 

Re: OCD and Anxiety are destroying my life

Hi again @2qwerty. I missed seeing your reply the other day.

It sounds like there's so much that makes the relationship with your husband difficult. I again found myself feeling frustrated reading about the things you experience. I totally empathise with how infuriating it can be when someone's response to your frustration is to tell you you are angry 😖. It's not helpful!

It sucks that a MHCP only offers 10 sessions. I shake my head at that all the time. How can that be enough when you live with any kind of complex or ongoing MH issues? It took me a while to find a psychologist I found helpful but we've been working together for more than 7 years now and it helps. I hope that if you do see someone new you find it helpful also.

Sorry to hear your lifeline with work was a month too late. That sucks a lot. You also mentioned that you can't be a mum while you're living with what you are. I'm mum too and find it really, really hard sometimes. You're not alone with that.

I wanted to reply to say I hear you and to see how things have been going for you since you posted? Hope theres been some moments of OK or better for you.

Re: OCD and Anxiety are destroying my life

Thanks for checking in, I didn't realise i'd gotten another message. Must have missed the notification.

It really isn't enough appointments, but I also have the guilt and uncertaintly of not knowing if I should even go to that specific person anymore or not. Half of me doesn't want to move on because she knows the backstory and I can just use names and she knows who they are. I don't have to explain, and she can pick up where I left off. The other half knows it's not helping anyway. Then a small little slice feels ick about getting there, cause I have my husband drive me, so it's like I'm pretending to deal with my problems while hiding from them at the same time. The particular psych kept moving around to different offices and it's gotten further and further away from my house. While not a long way away, it's further and I can't drive there alone (or so I think). So I'm torn on "cheating" on that person and trying another place (I know she'd not care, it happens, but I feel weird anyway), but the next one I got a referral to is also a tricky but very close trip...which would  involve walking down a seculded trail with homeless campers close by, OR driving on a freeway for a few minutes. OR changing my schedule. I guess they expect someone like me with ongoing problems to see a psychiatrist as well, or manage payments on my own. Thing is I could pay it on my own, but I don't prioritise it, and also I'm made to feel like I shouldn't pay full price, I've gone there and done so and they've implied that I shouldn't, and also asked if it's helping or a waste. It's like they dont really value what they're providing if I have to pay full price. But when Medicare takes the bill, they don't have to feel bad about it. 

The thing about my moods and problems is they wax and wane, I had a lot of downs, for a few weeks and during my last post, and then a few days of improvement hit, my motivation came back, everything started to feel better again...and now after a couple days, I feel it all slipping down again slowly but surely. I'm in the mid ranges for now. I think it all ties into my cycles, I had a couple weeks of nightmare moods, horrible feelings, tears and anger and worry, work was a nightmare, marriage falling apart, world collapsing, then my period started and problems began to solve themselves (almost by fluke) I got more optimistic, motivated, I started to clean out the mess, physically and mentally...a few days went by, libidio raised, everything started to look better...and now BOOM. Everything is hitting me again, I got about five good days at work, optimism, joy even. I think now i'll be gearing up for another couple weeks of meltdown. Not factoring in OCD or anxiety at all, (which never sleep) this is just the additional stuff which makes everything harder. I just feel uneasy, i've not hit the wall yet but a few things in my personal life have showed up again, rearing their ugly head, reminding me I have problems in my life that I can't fix...and ignoring them is stupid, but facing them is difficult or impossible. I doubt my marriage, I doubt i'll ever be happy. My mind screws with me, I dream about things that plant stuff in my day mind and I don't know how to ignore those thoughts. I know that emotionally he can't support me, and my dreams are making that VERY clear right now. 

Re: OCD and Anxiety are destroying my life

Hi @2qwerty how are you doing tonight? I also have anxiety, depression, and OCD, and I really relate with your posts. I'll have a few days when I start thinking the mental health issues are just imagined, and then BAM! one bad sleep or something and I'm sliding back into really dark thoughts, SI.

 

I've found mindfulness and meditation has been one of the few things that as helped me. I use the headspace app, and find their guided meditations so helpful when I'm super anxious or my ocd is gojng wild. 

 

Can I ask why you've decided to not try meds? No judgement at all. I'm still trying to figure my meds out, they're not great yet, but I still have hope we can find something to help. 

Re: OCD and Anxiety are destroying my life

@Molliex 

 

Well, I wrote a long response and it was somehow flagged as sp@m.

 

Sp@m? Seriously? 


Nice to know that not even a forums automated filters can be bothered listening to me. 

 

I'm so fed up!

Re: OCD and Anxiety are destroying my life

Argh that's frustrating @2qwerty. I'm listening if you can be bothered rewriting

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