Certain places or events that trigger anxiety...

And so here we are again after a month-long break. Since I was last here, I have had some extreme feelings of panic and doubt, and I have done my best to avoid places that trigger them.

One is specific came back tonight after stumbling upon a certain forum post that made me, well, doubt things all over again. I did my best to engage in a related activity to those doubts but ultimately it was of no good use. I felt like my sanity had slipped out from under me, and I am experiencing a feeling of going crazy right this moment as I am typing this. Uncertainty and unconfidence consumes my mind as I sit here with my red-colored and drained eyes from a not-quite-done week of schoolwork.

And I would be feeling a little bit happier if I never had to come across the trigger tonight, but unfortunately a completely unrelated Google search landed me back in what I dub the "doubt train". And the doubt train has brought me here back to Blogger to express my feelings yet again after a whole month of inactivity. Basically what I am trying to say is that, if you suffer from intense anxiety, certain places, things, or events (or even people sometimes) can trigger your anxiety if you have specific worries. And then it will ruin your day. The next step now is to just try and relax and get this doubt out of your head. DOUBT MAKES ME SO MAD!

"Periods" of different worry

From what I have experienced, even though a lot of my worries in general pertain to the same subject, I will tend to go through different "periods" of worry. These "periods" typically still relate to the overarching subject but at the same time are very specific and "focused" on a very specific worry.

For example, if I was worrying about me being a bad student, I would worry about my grades during one month and then the very next think about my work ethic. And then the next month I could begin to worry about my skills and learning aptitude. Get what I am saying? All of those fears correlate to the presence of school in my life, but each month a new specific problem shows up, which sometimes causes you to completely forget about a past worry (and thus stop worrying about it) and move onto another.

And in many cases for a person with an anxiety disorder, these worries may be completely irrational and silly, as oftentimes they will be things that the victim would have not even bat an eye at in the past. A lot of these kinds of worries are what I go through; while I was completely confident in myself and free of the same worries just a year ago, now they have shown up and have been consuming my life to the point of near insanity.

Doubt: not as simple as you think

The topic of this post is doubt. Doubt is pretty much the cause of OCD symptoms such as anxiety, stress, and panic.

What is doubt? One might say that it is simply not believing in something, but for somebody with OCD, it is much more complex than that. Somebody with OCD will doubt even what they used to KNOW is true before their symptoms started showing. For example, lately I have been doubting things as small as disbelieving that I even have anxiety to begin with and that my worries are completely legitimate. Or for a more unusual example, how about getting good grades and getting your work done for school yet doubting that you are really a good student? Even though I am not a true psychiatrist, I as a sufferer know more about the disorder than those who are unaffected (except for, of course, people with a degree in this field), so all of this knowledge comes mainly from personal experience and a tad bit from what I read online.

One thing that has been happening to me lately is the doubt that, if I have never seen it in real life, then it doesn't exist. For example, if an OCD sufferer reads about the Yellowstone Supervolcano on Wikipedia but has never actually been to Yellowstone, they will occasionally doubt that the volcano even exists unless they have actually seen it. This can also be associated with knowledge; something that you KNEW before your OCD symptoms showed up (which happened to me. In recent years my symptoms have exploded) will often be doubted by a sufferer as true. For example, if somebody learns that the word "fish" is a noun in school, they may clench their forehead later from sheer doubt that it is a true notion.

The main summary of doubt relating to OCD is a lot like what you would normally think of when you hear the term, only it is much more severe. Doubt from OCD will commonly be much more intense as well as be caused by more mellow things that shouldn't stress somebody out.

It may sounds confusing to non-sufferers, but in truth this is what I have been experiencing for an entire year so far. OCD sufferers who have experienced a lot of doubt should be able to connect with me here; and for you non-sufferers, I am hoping that you guys can learn about some horrible things about what you are luckily missing out on. I usually update this blog whenever I am having an anxiety attack, otherwise I do not have the motivation to update it because I think to myself "why should I?". So stay tuned for more OCD posts coming soon!

A couple of places to go online for OCD help

Hey guys! Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while (a month; WOW!); I just started school again and it has kind of escaped my mind. Plus, the bulk of the time that I actually do write a new blog post is when I am currently having an anxiety attack, whether it is serious or mild. And unfortunately, this holds true now. I just got over a sudden attack which lasted about 30 minutes to an hour, but I am recovering now (on an knowledge-based note, this is common for OCD sufferers; they may be fine for the majority of the time, but they will often have short periods of intense worries and anxiety that quickly subside until they strike again).

I am not going to post a new entry about my specific OCD just yet (when I do, I will be talking about my 8th grade experience), but for now I am going to post a few good places to go for more professional OCD help. These are easy to access and have helped me greatly in the past:

http://www.ocduk.org/ - The primary focus of this website is the forums. I am a member there, and the people there are friendly and helpful. If you are to create an account and make threads, note that the rate of new threads being posted is very frequent (down to the very minute), so don't feel too bad if somebody posts a new thread right after you posted yours. Although I cannot guarantee that you will get a lot of helpful responses, most threads get at least 2 or 3 that will make you feel better. For you sufferers out there, give this site a shot!

http://www.ocfoundation.org/ - I just came across this site about an hour ago. I found this one really good subpage that talked about the general concept of doubt caused by OCD, and a lot of it lined up with what I am suffering from (mine is mainly about doubting myself, doubting the simplest of things, and a lack of self esteem). Unfortunately, I cannot pinpoint exactly which page that was, but yet I still took a gander at the other pages, and they are all quite helpful and specific.

https://www.youtube.com/user/everybodyhasabrain - This guy needs more publicity! What he says about OCD is less on the diagnostic side as the previous source was (relating to symptoms and such), but what he specializes in is simple strategies to help you relax yourself as well as tips on how to combat OCD. If you have a Youtube account and have not yet done so, SUBSCRIBE TO HIM!!!

http://www.anxietycentre.com/ - This website offers a wide variety of screening tests that can be done to give you an idea as to if you have any sort of anxiety disorder. There are a multitude of therapists here that can help you and offer a lot of good advice about helping with your symptoms.

7th Grade

Oh boy! Did my OCD really start to show up during this year of school!

To start off the season, I had begun my first year of full-contact American football (this sport, for those of you unfamiliar with USA sports: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_football). I definitely enjoyed it for what it was worth, but at the same time I was a very small kid in general (especially compared to the majority of my team), and I was not particularly skilled at it yet. On the first day of full-contact I was excited, VERY EXCITED!

However, I soon learned that it was not easy going up against some other teammates, and boy did it hurt! During dinner that night, I couldn't stop thinking about what had happened earlier at practice; I felt so bad for myself and just wanted to go to practice the next day so that I could redeem myself. But simultaneously, I was still scared of getting hurt. One might ask, "what does this have to do with OCD and ruminations???"; well I will tell you.

Every day before practice I would worry and worry about what was going to happen on the field that night. Most kids would shrug it off (I assume), but I could not let it go, as I was always worried sick. I would go to practice that night, it would end, and then I would be relieved. At least until the next morning where I would then think about injuring myself and/or getting hurt very bad all throughout the day (school and all). Rinse and repeat! This continued on until the end of the season, at which time I could rest easy for another 9 or so months before the 8th grade football season kicks off...



The first semester continued: Thanksgiving, my birthday, and finally Christmas passed by without much trouble. For Christmas I had received a week-long trip to Hawaii at the beginning of Summer break, and that was by-far the best Christmas gift I had ever gotten. I was so excited for the rest of Winter break and the entirety of the second semester! But then, sometime around March or April, I began to stress out about my grades.

I am a very good student with an average GPA of 3.5 (maybe a little higher), but yet my school had a Summer school policy where if you didn't please in terms of your grades you had to, well, attend Summer school. So that is when I started worrying about my grades. I would stress out and get all sweaty on the simplest of quizzes or assignments because I knew that I had to succeed. My worries about grades never held-up and I could not stop doubting my ability to complete assignments and achieve a pleasing score on them. I just knew that I couldn't go to Summer school because I wanted to go on my trip so bad!

Luckily, I ended that school year with promising grades (as usual...) and had a great time on my trip. But in the following years, my ruminations and worries attributed to my OCD ballooned and got worse. Strangely, my worries were much less-so normal thoughts and were instead quite unusual (simply, stuff that people should not worry about)

What have I experienced??? 6th grade

Many OCD sufferers (as well as many online sources) claim that symptoms begin to intensify during the teen or young-adult years. If I recall correctly, my childhood was not affected at all by OCD; sure maybe I was a bit of a hypochondriac and checked physical symptoms online and in the mirror to help keep calm and assure myself that I was being overdramatic and that I did not just contract some form of a deadly disease, but other than that my OCD was relatively mellow.

The first real barrage of worries came in 6th grade. Remember the December 21, 2012 doomsday scare that everyone was talking about? Well I was deathly afraid of the world ending at that time (this is not limited to OCD sufferers; many individuals experience tension and anxiety about thoughts of death or the apocalypse. But those with OCD will have these bad thoughts overcome their daily life for prolonged periods of time), and I worried about it for months (the majority of the year actually). Every day I would wonder "is this a logical thing to believe?" and I would begin to question the scientists who disproved the theory (sometimes their words of wisdom were beneficial to me, other times not so much).

Every time something about 2012 came up, I would get sick with butterflies in my stomach, nervousness, and just all out fright. When would it ever end? Luckily, my obsessions were still rather mild at this time (although I was still scared stiff!), and eventually I set my worries aside for more important matters.Yes, I was still slightly concerned for what the future had to offer, but I got over it and as time went on my worries about 2012, while still existent, drifted away. The day where all was set to be destroyed came and went; from then on my fears about doomsday screeched to a halt. The next school year would be far more nerve-wracking when my OCD started to bloom. 

Greetings OCD Sufferers!

Hello everyone. My name is Ryan Tesone. I am a current high school student who has, over the last couple of years, began to experience major symptoms of OCD. I am a sufferer, and I am intending to both help and recieve help for my occasional "anxiety peaks" that I experience from time to time. This will be a hopefully successful blog to teach people about the effects of Pure-O (obsessional OCD, which I have symptoms of) and to connect to others who unfortunately were given the gift (or lack thereof) of nonsensical worries, thoughts, and ruminations that won't seem to go away.