OCD intrusive thoughts worse on SSRI

[Hylo46]

Hi there,

day 6 on SSRI (meds) and my intrusive thoughts are more prevelant and nastier - keep thinking I will act on the them due to the thoughts - anyone out there have a similar fear?

[geoff]

hi CheeseSlices, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and there maybe some truth in what you say, however SSRI is a medication given to people because they do have OCD, so if you google 'is ocd a side effects from ssri'it will explain a lot for you to consider, so I disagree that OCD is a side-effect of SSRI. Geoff.

[CheeseSlices]

If you want to hear from people who are have also been affected in similar ways please visit other forums. Specifically US and scandinavian countries. Those threads go back years and show the thousands of people with similar worsening symptoms. Also many people have dropped medication for this specific reason - you can find those people on withdrawal forums. Goodluck.

I have years of doctors saying meds dont cause this or that. They dont even know how the meds work.

[Verita]

HI Hylo46, i was reading the conversation between you and Geoff and also feel the worst part for me is the shame and guilt and how the thoughts then slowly feel like they are degrading your whole self until you see yourself as this horrible evil person. I am a loving mother of a young child and my thoughts and fear and anxiety stem around him. It used to be external threat like i needed to protect him and i spent about 8months paranoid about dying and not being there for him and i would have to walk around near all the medical centres just in case i would think of it 24hrs a day , it then turned into what if i could do something wrong to him and a random compulsive suggestion in my head said you could do that.. and as soon as it became this internal threat of what am i capable of doing, the innapropriate thoughts escalated toward him. which recently became devestating to me and heartbreaking and i hated myself . You need to view yourself as you would a friend, forgive yourself you have done nothing wrong and say i am a good , worthwhile person. Try to view your thoughts as seperate to you and beyond your control , "ok thoughts i can see you there but i dont believe you , i know what is important to me and valuable to me" Give yourself a friendly voice in your head one that stands up for you and tells you that you are a wonderful loving person and this is precisely why you are suffering so much with your thoughts because you do care, you do have values and morals that are important to you, i think the suffering goes to show that these thoughts are not in line with your true nature. Trusting and believing in yourself is important you need to balance these thoughts with concious attempts to discount them and then as you slowly discount them , the next hard part is starting to ignore them, or say no i dont have time for you today and quickly divert your thinking to other things. this is a long slow process and im just trying to figure out strategies to phase these thoughts out somehow. I am just struggling along to figure this all out myself and i plan to get a psychotherapist to truly help me, i hope you can find a therapist that you are able to share with also. Have faith

[Ness_]

I went through a very traumatic time two years ago and just after that I could not go into multilevel shopping centres. As soon as I reached level 2 and 3, I had something telling me to jump off. I would go into shops to get out of the area. I was all anxiety and did not feel in control of my thoughts, other times I had to control myself from throwing myself in-front of cars and buses. Horrible, as I remember, but stopped now. I don't know why it stopped.I really empathise with you. So sorry this is happening to you. I didn't want to do the things in my head at all and I felt fearful of my own thoughts.

[Hylo46]

Wow Verita that sounds terrible! So happy for you that it stopped, how exhausting!!!

my thoughts were never of a criminal nature, they firstly were just around getting ill, aids etc... I then met my partner and had a terrible time, intrusive thoughts of cheating on her, obsessing over my past. I agreed to go on SSRI and that made me think I was going to do terrible things to other people due to the medication. I came off them and feel so trapped, I'm left with the criminal thoughts now, I wish I never went on them. These thoughts have changed everything and so much harder to shake... I need something, I can't go on like this, but now I'm too scared to start the meds again. Damned if I do, damned if I don't.

[CheeseSlices]

I acted on intrusive thoughts today 😞

I am so ashamed.

I am trying to drop my dosage of medication in the new year but need to find a GP who wont laugh at me for needing to wean off a smaller dose.

Its hard to know - as it was a behaviour i followed through (and found much relief/benefit) yet it was so impulsive and so fast, I dont even remember having the thought before I found myself doing it. Scary.

I am so so so thankful I am off the antipsychotic that gave me intrusive thoughts of harming children. It has been a much easier chirstmas.

[geoff]

hello Verita, a good reply and I agree with you, so the technique is that people have these intrusive thoughts about harming or hurting someone they love, so you can think about this, then why can't you do as Verita has mentioned, to begin with, to think of a person who is always telling that you are good and would never do any of them, that's how I eventually never believed any of my intrusive thoughts would follow through.
Actually this started when I was watching the Flintstones, believe it or not, where there were two imaginary figures of Fred, one telling him to do something bad and then the good angel figure of Fred saying to him not to do it, so the battle between these two figures continued, the bad Fred yelling at Fred to do it, while the good Fred kept talking to him in a quietly spoken voice, not to, eventually Fred did the right thing and believed the good imaginary and told the bad Fred to go away, funny analogue, but yes it sent a strong message to me, to bring in the good in you, as strange as it is this is how I overcome these awful thoughts.
It will take some practice but persevere. Geoff.

[keeping_positive]

Hi hylo

Sorry to hear you are going through this. I have contamination ocd, its horrible, my intrusive thoughts are more just constant thoughts of everything having something harmful on it. But i also have the compulsions, to try and alleviate the anxiety. They used to only be "needed" if a situation happened, like i walked in something that i believed was harmful, panic would start and it wouldn't go until I cleaned or whatever i felt needed to be done. Now well its just a constant battle of everything is contaminated ALL the time, but Im working on it.

You say they have worsened have you looked in to methylation.. over or under methylation play a big role as to how you would react to ssri. Mensah medical or biobalance australia are great sites to look at.

[Kat017]

Hi Verita,

I found your words here so profound and helpful to me. So much so, that I wrote them down for me to look at when I'm next in a fog of anxious thoughts.

This is my first experience of somewhat debilitating anxiety, I'm seeing my doc in a couple of days for assistance, after coming to the realization that I'm actually not ok. I wish you all the best. I hope we are both able to accept and move on from the unwelcome thoughts.

thank you again ❤️

[kath92]

I struggle with intrusive thoughts as of late, I am so embarrassed about them and hate myself. I can say with such gratitude thank you!!! Thank you for your post I was meant to see it. I've been scrolling for an hour trying to find someone I can relate to so I didn't feel alone. This was put so simply and perfectly. Thank you Verita you may of just saved my life xx