Reddit reviews Brain Lock, Twentieth Anniversary Edition: Free Yourself from Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior

I'm not a health professional. I'm a person with actual OCD.

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Going to a psychiatrist means that you're going to a person that is going to prescribe you pills. That's their mode of operation.

That may be fine. That may be the kind of help you need. You might have a hormonal or chemical imbalance that the only fix for is an external source.

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However, some mental issues, such as OCD, can be helped and even have your brain changed through behavioral modification[1] that eventually brings you to a far, far, far, far, faaaaaar better place.

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https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Lock-Twentieth-Anniversary-Obsessive-Compulsive/dp/006256143X

The above book is written by a couple of people that provide well-researched and well-experimented behavioral methods that produce a literal and visible change on MRIs in people that have OCD and that helps greatly improve their ability to function.

Hey,

Congratulations on your decision to get help! You can do it. In you post history, I can see that you struggle with depression.

First, where are you located? Are you in Europe, in the US, somewhere else? In most places, you can find therapists. Are you still in school or studying? Many schools and universities offer free mental health councelling. Check those out! Depending on your situation, you might be able to qualify for government assistance. I am not in the US, but I believe you can check HealthCare.gov to find out if you qualify and take your next steps from there. If you don't qualify, there is a very cool blog post by a psychologist on how to get mental health care on a budget: http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/04/25/mental-health-on-a-budget/

Let me quote from that article:

"This section is on ways to do therapy if you cannot afford a traditional therapist. There may also be other options specific to your area, like training clinics attached to colleges that charge “sliding scale” fees (ie they will charge you less if you can’t afford full price).

1. Bibliotherapy: If you’re doing a specific therapy for a specific problem (as opposed to just trying to vent or organize your thoughts), studies generally find that doing therapy out of a textbook works just as well as doing it with a real therapist. I usually recommend David Burns’ therapy books: Feeling Good for depression and When Panic Attacks for anxiety. If you have anger, emotional breakdowns, or other borderline-adjacent symptoms, consider a DBT skills workbook. For OCD, Brain Lock.

2. Free support groups: Alcoholics Anonymous is neither as great as the proponents say nor as terrible as the detractors say; for a balanced look, see here. There are countless different spinoffs for non-religious people or people with various demographic characteristics or different drugs. But there are also groups for gambling addiction, sex addiction, and food addiction (including eating disorders). There’s a list of anxiety and depression support groups here. Groups for conditions like social anxiety can be especially helpful since going to the group is itself a form of exposure therapy.

3. Therapy startups: These are companies like BetterHelp and TalkSpace which offer remote therapy for something like $50/week. I was previously more bullish on these; more recently, it looks like they have stopped offering free videochat with a subscription. That means you may be limited to texting your therapist about very specific things you are doing that day, which isn’t really therapy. And some awful thinkpiece sites that always hate everything are also skeptical. I am interested in hearing experiences from anyone who has used these sites. Until then, consider them use-at-your-own-risk." (end quote)

There are also sections on prescription medicine and on supplements in that article. Check it out!

If you are in a particularly bad spot or just need somebody to talk, there are lots of phone lines and services where you can call in for free. One example: https://www.crisistextline.org/depression/ (US-based).

There are also subreddits like /r/depression where you can get help from people who actually know what they are talking about.

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Good luck and hang in there!

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Have you sought help from a professional trained in OCD?

Many therapists are trained in treating anxiety and depression, but OCD requires a very specific type of training.

If you cannot find a trained OCD therapist, I would suggest the book Brain Lock by Jeffrey Schwartz. I found it helpful.

I’ve heard that “Brain Lock” comes highly recommended for self-treating OCD.

Bibliotherapy can be hard though—if it’s not working out, don’t be afraid to seek out a therapist who specializes in exposure-and-response-prevention therapy. Best of luck!

Read this

There's a lot of stigma behind mental illness. You may be crazy but anyone who says they're not is truly fucking insane. I'm crazy too my dude. I forgot the word for it (I'll look it up tomorrow there is a copy of the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual of Mental Disorders at my work) but OCD is characterized by thoughts that are intrusive to the point of feeling like they are coming from outside. They are not schizophrenic in nature because the person recognizes them as their thoughts but can not control them and does not identify them.

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For the longest time I obsessed over death, self-harm, etc, among other things. I would wake up and the first thought in my head every day would be "Have you ever thought about putting a gun to your head". It was like I was asking myself that when I knew damn well I was thinking about it every day. At one point I even unloaded my .380 Handgun and placed it to my temple in hopes that maybe putting myself in this vulnerable position would help make it stop. It didn't. I was just feeding into the thoughts and making them worse. In addition to this I also have suffered from obsessions based on cleanliness, relationships, counting and repetition of certain tasks just to name the major ones.

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I have tried two different medications. One of which I am on now. I started on Prozac (Fluoxetine) 20mg with a Psychiatrist. Their job is pretty much just to put you on pills and make you feel better and send you somewhere else for therapy. Then I was on 40mg Prozac. I was happy, eventually I started becoming emotionless because of it. My insomnia returned, I started missing doses. Eventually I quit the medication to join the military. The problem was during my time on Prozac I just made the thoughts go away I didn't learn how to deal with them. I am now on 125mg of Luvox (Fluvoxamine). When I first started Luvox my symptoms honestly got worse. The thoughts worsened. I was back to that fucking pit of despair. I would get dizzy. Motion sickness. All symptoms associated with starting a new medication especially something as fast acting as Luvox. Over the next two weeks these symptoms subsided and I am doing great! I have been on Luvox for 10 months now. My doc has helped me not only control these thoughts but learn more about them to the point that I feel confident I will be able to maintain myself when it's time to come off the medication. I personally believe its just about finding a medication that can help you. I view it as a crutch. Eventually I will learn to walk on my own again, and until I can do that there's nothing wrong with walking on crutches.

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This is a book my doc recommended me. Judging by your previous comment you may still live at home with your family, and I don't know if you have a job. If you can't afford the book but are interested, let me know and I will personally mail you my copy.

https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Lock-Twentieth-Anniversary-Obsessive-Compulsive/dp/006256143X

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Take care. <3

I know this all too well.

This is pretty clearly hypochondriasis. I'd suggest you see a CBT based psychologist. You can also purchase the Book Brain Lock and read the help section in the back. It's about 15 pages or so. https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Lock-Twentieth-Anniversary-Obsessive-Compulsive/dp/006256143X

You can also find summaries of it online like http://hope4ocd.com/foursteps.php

You need to know that the more you wash your eyes the more sensitive they will get. The more prone to stuff getting in there that you will be. This can be droplets of whatever to debris floating in the air to the unknown. It's funny how when people suffer from anxiety, it seems like the anxiety finds them. These events don't really happen to other people but it keeps happening to you. Anxiety sufferers start to become aware of things everybody else is not aware of and may even start to scan and seek out anxiety provoking events.

My advice is to find a psychologist, ask if he/she provides CBT based therapy and try it.

In the mean time. Wash your eyes if you get something foreign in there. Don't go overboard though. Soap is pretty bad for the eyes so you should try to prevent it. But everybody uses soap everyday and most people aren't frantic over it.

We all have immune systems, well most of us at least. The chances of some infection are unlikely. Read on the hygiene hypothesis. If you want to not get sick you should try to eat bacteria.

I'd suggest getting some lubricating eye drops to lubricate your now dry eyes and make you notice them less. Give it a try. I think you should seek out a psychologist though. It may be a little bit of eye washing now but one trauma in your life and it could turn into a debilitating condition.

Start with this https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Lock-Twentieth-Anniversary-Obsessive-Compulsive/dp/006256143X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484755888&sr=8-1&keywords=ocd

That sucks big ass. Meds are good, but a good therapist is invaluable. But, maybe you can meet in the middle:

https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Lock-Twentieth-Anniversary-Obsessive-Compulsive/dp/006256143X

https://www.amazon.com/Stop-Obsessing-Overcome-Obsessions-Compulsions/dp/0553381172

I used those two, along with meds (and therapy), and all-in-all, it pulled me out of a really bad cycle of suicide-OCD.

I've also seen people recommend this:

https://www.amazon.com/OCD-Workbook-Breaking-Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder/dp/1572249218

try this m8
https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Lock-Twentieth-Anniversary-Obsessive-Compulsive/dp/006256143X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1501794675&sr=1-2&keywords=ocd

OCD here also, brought on by sexual abuse. I heard strep throat and mono can cause cases of OCD too, which I found interesting.

OCD is a beast, OP. I recommend the OCD Workbook https://www.amazon.com/OCD-Workbook-Breaking-Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder/dp/1572249218 and Brain Lock https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/006256143X/ref=pd_aw_fbt_14_img_3/156-4783552-9915231?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=1G575XJQ1MDGGTWDCCF0

OCD is so different in everyone. I'd be happy to talk to you about it, but I'm more obsessive than compulsive. Therapy has worked for me as well.

Hey, I am sorry your experience was so rough when you tried to get help the first time. I can sympathize with you and your obsessions look like OCD to me, though I'm not a professional. Have you considered going to another doctor to help you? Sometimes it takes getting the right one for it to work. If you can't, there are books out there about OCD that are helpful, two of my favorites before being able to see a therapist were Brain Lock by Jeffrey Schwartz and Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder by Jonathan Grayson, but there are even more than that.

I really hope you can break the cycle soon, no one deserves to get their quality of life diminished by something like this.

Copy-paste form my previous thread so it doesn’t go missing:

Here are some resources that I think are essential reads for anyone suffering from ROCD and/or depression

ROCD: Relationship OCD and the Myth of "The One" - Great writeup written by therapists who are specialized in treating ROCD

Love You, Love You Not - Excellent ROCD 101 short book targeted towards people who have ROCD. It's very insightful as it is written by someone who has dealt with it and learned to successfully manage it. I just re-read it recently while going through a relapse, and it punched me with even more power than the first time

Imp of the Mind - Although it does not talk about ROCD specifically, it is all about Pure O. It helped me to look at ROCD and other intrusive thoughts in my head from another perspective. Some of the cases in the book are bizarre and funny, which made me feel like i don't have it so bad

Brain Lock - This should be part of anyone's OCD treatment swiss-army knife!

The Noonday Demon - If you struggle with major depression, as I do, this is dense but an incredible read. The author has a TED talk that is really good: Depression: The Secret We Share

Don't Panic - This one borders more on self-help books, which I kinda don't like, but a must-read if you struggle with panic disorder

I didn't read these to cure any addiction but sure everyone has some bad habits which they would like to take care of. I'm big on self improvement so try to ready as much as I can in that category.

If you're dealing with bad habits or addiction, I'd highly recommend https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Lock-Twentieth-Anniversary-Obsessive-Compulsive/dp/006256143X

Even though the book is about curing OCD, but the 4 steps mentioned in this book can be applied to any kind of bad behavior or habit. Also, if you want to change habits, then power of habit gives you a really good insight as to how habits are build.

I had a therapist recommend this book to me a few years ago, and reading it / applying it is the best thing I ever did for my OCD.

I'm not a professional, but it sounds to me like you have some form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I'd recommend talking to a therapist.

I've had similar feelings like this and think I understand what you're dealing with. I've had OCD for many years, though thankfully a very mild form. But every now and then the brain just starts repeating and obsessing about something you've already thought over and making you wonder if you're really doing what's right, if you're sinning when you haven't done anything, or any number of things. It's the irrational mind taking control and making you question things you already know and if you give into those thoughts and dwell on them and keep going it gets worse. This could also be why you're having a hard time concentrating on what you read because your mind is running all the time, cycling through the same thoughts and concerns over and over.

I highly recommend you check out Brain Lock. It's a fantastic book on the disorder.

Brain Lock at Amazon.com

There was a book about that. The author said the tendencies reinforce themselves. He said actual "tracks" are formed in your brain. https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Lock-Twentieth-Anniversary-Obsessive-Compulsive/dp/006256143X