Beware the Shapeshifter

Before ROCD became an issue for me, I used to suffer with hypochondriasis. I was a hypochondriac  -I believed I was either going to die or have a brain tumour or was about to have a heart attack or my brain was about to explode or some other jolly ailment like that. At the time I was having all of the physical symptoms to go with them too - clever how your body can run with your own auto-suggestions, thanks for that. These symptoms were running concurrently with panic attacks that I had started to get in my late 20s. I was always at the Drs asking him to take a look at me and I was always looking for reassurance that I was OK, asking the Dr repeatedly, reading books, scanning the internet, asking friends and family over and over. At one point I had the feeling of having swallowed a pea that was lodged in the bottom of my throat for about 6 months. It was all pretty exhausting. Then ROCD came along and blew that out of the water. Then, after learning about OCD for about 6 months and practising the techniques laid out in Jeffrey Schwartz's book 'Brain Lock' I believed that I had cured myself. Yes I believe in neuroplasticity, yes I can re-wire my brain. It was about this time that I became quite obsessed with making money and buying and selling shares. Before I knew it I had left my job and was a full time trader. I was making bucket loads of money, I was so clever. Well that's what it felt like for the first year or two until overnight I had morphed into a  rabid gambler addicted to spread-betting. Well the truth is I was probably never a great trader in the first place, just initially lucky but after a few years of losing a lot of money I decided I needed help and began my GA journey. As I started my new life, I felt good but was becoming aware of more and more issues creeping into my significant relationship. Yes, the ROCD was back and plaguing my mind. The more compulsions I carried out, the deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole I went. Back into oblivion. 

But when you stop to think about it all that had really happened was that the same OCD process was going on all the way through this time period. It had just shifted from one form to another without me even noticing. I was compulsively laying bets because 

Earlier this year I noticed that I was especially anxious because I need to come up with a lot of money that I don't have (on top of the debt that I do). What I began to notice though was that it was consuming my every waking hour, and totally interrupting my sleep. I started waking up earlier and earlier worrying about how I would find the financing to sort it out (and obviously all compounded by the covid crisis and the fact that I'm not getting much of my usual work). It was almost like I was obsessed about it. Well, you know, you have to find money at times, as in everyone does OCD or no, and that can be stressful and yes that's true but in my case, I was really anxious about it in a way that was way you could reasonably say was not normal. I had extreme anxiety.

And then I stopped to think.

Hang on, isn't the never ending calculations that I am making and scanning of the internet of everything conceivable way of borrowing money a little bit like a compulsion? Hmmm interesting. So I am having lots of panicky thoughts, one might say intrusive and then I am carrying out rituals to make myself feel better, to neutralise the never ending torrent of similar thoughts. And the reason why I realised that OCD was at work is two-fold. First of all, I had come in with a reasonable solution many times and it kind of relied on something happening later in the year which I can't control. Ergo; there's nothing more I can do about this, I need to just leave it and get on with my life and come back to in a few months when its becomes more prescient. But I couldn't leave it and the thoughts wouldn't go. Secondly I decided to force myself to stop the calculations and looking for loans. not only was this really hard to do because I felt a 'compulsion' to do it, but when I did finally force myself to stop it, I started feeling better. And within a few days of completely stopping this searching I had totally forgotten about it all bar a few thoughts about it and I felt not just like a little bit better, but like a whole lot better.

It certainly made me wonder how many other issues in life that had cropped up for me had got totally out of control because I was carrying out OCD-type behaviours without even realising.

Bottom-line - if you find yourself doing something either physically or mentally over and over again when there's really no reason to, you are probably in the cycle of OCD, so time to stop the compulsions.