So since arriving to the OCDI i have learned a number of things that i didn't know that i had in terms of my OCD, and because i am treated this blog as an open account of living with OCD and now living with OCD in an intensive treatment environment i feel that i should be as honest as i can. I have discovered since arriving here that i do in fact have intrusive thoughts which is something that i had always said "well at least thank god i don't have those" well I do. And they have been a goddamn fucking nightmare this past week which has been one of the reasons why i haven't been blogging because i have been so triggered* through the first week and over the weekend that i have really just been keeping my head above the water.
i have violent intrusive thoughts about children falling over the top glass ledges on the second floor or higher levels of a mall. we had a LSO (leisure skills outing**) to a large mall and many of the children were running around without supervision from their parents and I was crying the entire time. I am learning that thought suppression for intrusive thoughts is not the way to get rid of them it only makes them more powerful. so this was the first time in my life that i didn't suppress them and that i let them flood me and i tried to run away from the mall. i went out side to try to get to my car but then i realized that i didn't have a car at the mall because the hospital provided the transportation. part of me really wanted to call a girlfriend in the area to be like please take me back to the hospital please take me back. instead i was able to use a technique that i have learned in a group called mindfulness that is called 5 senses. I sat down on a large stone planter and felt the cold of the planter, the sound of people talking around me, the smell of the CPK cooking right in front of me, the dryness of my mouth from being panicked and through my tears the bright lights of the Crate and Barrel. It was very grounding and eventually it snapped me out of it because i jumped up after a while and was like my butt is FREEZING from sitting on this stone.
the other thing that has been triggering the intrusive thoughts is another patient here that by "profession" is a trapper and has been talking about how they have are missing trapping season and different dispatch methods and other horrifyingly inappropriate topics. this person has been told not to talk about this topic because it is very triggering to other people in the unit and still talks about it and has been triggering me with violent images about my own beloved pets.
all this time i keep trying to say the serenity prayer and try not to leap across the table after this person and put them out of commission.
I will check in more later about the good theraputic work that they are doing here but i thought that i would check in because it has been a couple of days and i know that there are some people that are curious as to what is going on.
*triggered- an environment, person, phrase, situation that spikes your SUDS and triggers you to want to ritualize to neutralize an obsession or compulsion
** LSO- an outing in treatment in which you get off the unit but are also confronted with situations in which you may become triggered and then using the skills you have acquired at the institute try to get through the trigger with out ritualizing and start to habituate
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