It might not necessarily be OCD. Do you perform compulsions in order to control your fears, or are you always just afraid that something bad is going to happen to you? If it's the latter, it could be Generalized anxiety disorder, which is obsessive worry over everyday things. OCD and GAD are related (they're both anxiety disorders), but they're not exactly the same. To give you an example of OCD, let's say you're at a doorway and you turn a light off. Then, a thought pops into your mind that says ';If I don't turn that light on and then off again, I'll die/lose my soul to the devil/never be successful/etc.'; Convinced that this is true, you turn the light on and then off again. But the feeling doesn't go away, and you do it over and over again until it feels ';just right.'; In that case, you likely have OCD. Now, I know that someone mentioned ';pure O,'; but that doesn't sound like what you have (from what you've written).
Now, for an example of GAD, let's say you wake up one day and get out of bed. All of a sudden, you get this intense fear that you're going to get hit by a car today, or get kidnapped, or you'll be late for an appointment or meeting for work and you'll get fired. That's GAD.
I read that you're on Antianxiety medications (Likely Klonopin or Ativan, but if it's Xanax, go back and demand a longer acting benzodiazepine and an effective plan to taper it off when you're finished with it. Xanax should not be used for something like OCD or GAD because it's too short acting.) along with Zoloft, is that correct? If so how long have you been on them? The reason I ask this is because zoloft may take up to four to six weeks to work. That's (I assume) why you're on a benzodiazepine now (Klonopin, ativan, etc.), to give you time for your Zoloft to work. The reason for that is because Zoloft (an SSRI) is the primary medication for anxiety disorders like OCD or GAD. The benzodiazepine will likely be tapered off once the zoloft begins to work.
The next step after the zoloft starts working is therapy. It doesn't matter whether it's OCD or GAD, you'll still need therapy. If you have OCD, you'll likely do CBT as well as something called Exposure and response prevention, which is basically exposing you to a compulsion and then teaching you not to do the compulsion. Over time, it's supposed to help reduce the anxiety associated with OCD.
As for GAD, you'll also do CBT to help to think through your fears and help you function on a day to day basis.
In any event, the first a determining what anxiety disorder you have. Your PCP or family doctor is not the person that should be diagnosing this. You should go to a psychologist trained in anxiety disorders or, if you have to, a psychiatrist, who will diagnosis you with the correct disorder. Do not rely on anyone from Yahoo answers to give you an accurate diagnosis. What I'm telling you is simply my experience and knowledge from having an anxiety disorder.
It may seen bad now, but if you get the help you need from the right people, you should get better. It won't be overnight, but give it a couple months for the therapy and the medications to work. You'll be ok.Need serious advice about obsessing/ocd problems?
I have the pure O, or whatever you call it, where you just obsess without any compulsions. What are you complusions? Like what to you do differently to get rid of these scary images? Please email me. My mom is full out OCD, so I've been dealing with it for awhile, lol.
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