Somatic and compulsive thought ocd

Price23

New member
This post is describes the symptoms of somatic as well as compulsive thought ocd. Read if either of these apply to you or you seek more info about these topics. Or if your just curious :eek:

I am currently a college student who has suffered from the symptoms of ocd for about 5 years. I was diagnosed about around this time. My ocd is not one of the "common" or "stereotypical" forms of ocd that most people recognize. My ocd is centered around compulsive and obsessive thoughts, not many rituals. For instance it is most common for me to repeat numbers, or repeatedly answer the same question in my head over and over. Essentially i often run around in mental circles. The obsessive part of my disorder is what causes these compulsive thoughts. I often will obsess about a particular topic (which I will discuss these in a bit) for periods of days or weeks, then switch to a new one. My compulsions are used by me to combat these obsessions. In high school my obsessions were somatic (worries about health) in nature. For example, when my OCD set in I noticed a gradual change in my thinking patterns and abilities, so I immediately deduced that it must be a health problem and it was most convenient for me to believe I had a brain tumor. I would read medical books and journals and find every symptom that I could apply to me. I actually found that some tumors have no symptoms. You can imagine my horror. I felt that a tumor made me different than everyone else, that a tumor was causing me to think this way and that ultimately i was worthless. I battled this throughout high school. My second year of college my obsessions took on a new theme. I have begun to have fears about my future. Grandiose fears. My obsessions contradict everything I am doing with my life. I am an economics major. One of my obsessions is that it is pointless to pursue my degree in economics because in a few years it might be possible for scientists to predict intelligence based on genes and they would be able to tell me which field of study would be best for me to choose with some accuracy. Stated more clearly I often fear that it might be better for me to drop out and wait for this technology to be available. Obviously this causes problems and leads to circles of dissonance, compulsivity and uncertainty. These are just a sample of the things my obsessions center around. They are often variants of these and center around health concerns or transhumanistic (advancement of humans through technology)/future worries. /they are extremely debillatating and interfere with everyday life. If anybody else has the same or similar obsessions and/or can offer any help or insight into my situation it would be greatly appreciated.
 
I have the same compulsive thought OCD problems. When I was little it would manifest itself in not being able to deal with transitions. If I would get an idea in my head about what I wanted and had any reason to believe that this desired outcome would happen, I would throw tantrums if it didn't happen and wouldn't be able to deal with it at all. In other words, I couldn't forget about what I wanted and therefore it was all I thought about, and I couldn't be happy until I forgot about it.

Today it manifests itself in loops of backwards thinking similiar to what you described. For a period (and still today), I was paranoid that I had gotten my girlfriend pregnant, when there was no possible way it could have happened.

A part of the brain called the cingulate is responsible for shifting attention from thought to thought and between behaviours. When the cingulate is overactive, people have problems getting stuck in certain loops of thoughts of behaviors. (I read this in a really good book that I have). This very well could be a simple chemical imbalance causing our cingulates to be overactive.
 
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