I Don't Know How I Should Feel or What to Do

Looks like everyone has your back with everything else here. My questions are regarding your OCD. How does it present/manifest itself and what medication were you prescribed for it? Were you also referred to therapy for it?

@charlie12

heya thanks for reaching out! yeah this was a recheck.

i asked if my low hormones are because of the adenoma and he said no “the microadenoma is so small that its not causing damage” “ i wouldnt operate that” “ a lot of people have them withoit symptoms and don’t know they had one until they die”. so basically this is what i depend on. one of the top neuros in my area.

anyways, he said my hormones are not because of it and its somewhere else and said to just go to endocrinology department in some hospital around here.

im also going to search for urologist even thought my labs shows pituitary. my igf1 is a concern of mine thought and the estradiol is killing me. going to the bathroom 10 times a day or more + dry skin. o and t3 always feeling cold

@jpt365
mate, the ocd appeared out of nowhere. i didnt know what that was until it manifested. never saw it in any other friend or family. ocd + low t = killer. i literally wake up and go to sleep with this stuff. i wash my hands 20+ times daily, trouble with several numbers, showering for 30 minutes and a lot more hehe. no medication because of my hormones. im also afraid to take ssris because of all the things i see around here about it and tbh i might end up with something for my mental health (other than possible trt even thought im trying to hold it) possible ending up in hospital for it. hope not thought

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So I think I’ve had OCD all my life but it was very controllable. I had a horrific time coming off of TRT cold-turkey due to an incompetent urologist. This fucked me up good and proper and made the OCD ramp up to a level I could never have seen coming.

I know what it’s lile to wake up and go to sleep with it, it’s hell. I thought (on bad days still do) that I’d end up in a hospital too. However, a good OCD therapist will be a godsend for you. I’m on an SSRI, was put on it this year due to the severe panic/anxiety my withdrawal caused. I don’t think the meds are necessary to help OCD, but everyone is different. The best outcome (according to the literature) comes from meds and therapy, but I know therapy alone works wonders because the meds didn’t help me (granted I’m on a very low dose).

I will tell you that OCD is for life, but is HIGHLY controllable. TRT most definitely helps but dialing in at first was hellish and made my OCD go crazy. Mine was insane last week but I’ve had 4 days now feeling almost like a new person (I’m 4 weeks on a new protocol).

If you ever have questions on the OCD front I can definitely help. I’ve been in mental health for a decade and have lived this shit myself.

@jpt365
true ocd is no joke. this is a real mental issue that needs therapy (good) asap. this thing if it becomes severe can cause damage or suicidal. i literally have bleeding hands all the time. i can’t clean dishes without help, dermatologist cream relieves pain only a little. water burns. cold burns. i have to hide my hands during work or afraid to shake peoples hands. sometimes my hands bleed during gym. i legit spent 1 hour brushing my teeth, flossing and showering right now. i need to check stuff 20 times. sometimes i need to rush to work because ocd. ocd about numbers. i can’t even hang out because of ocd. the fact that i spent the majority of the time dealing with this issue is just wow. i however have a therapist who is doing CBT (don’t know if its the correct one because she told me to get 3 and reduce it little by little until i can control them)

how did you find your endo? i have an appointment but before this one i went to another one who said low t is not the cause of mental issues. shit


also, people and especially the close ones, don’t understand this. one family member told me all of what i do is childish and stupid. haha.
thanks mate!

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[quote=“Riaero, post:65, topic:248962”]
true ocd is no joke. this is a real mental issue that needs therapy (good) asap. this thing if it becomes severe can cause damage or suicidal. [/quote]

Ironically there’s a form of OCD, which can make the sufferer think they’re suicidal due to suicidal images or “what if” thoughts, when they’re actually completely opposed to suicide. OCD usually attacks a person’s value systems and makes them believe they’re opposed to the thing they value. If you’re religious it’ll make you think you love the devil, if you love your child it’ll make you think you’ll hurt them. It’s a cruel disease.

Sorry to hear about your hands. Are your compulsions coming from fear of contamination? My OCD is more Pure-O as they call it, I have obsessive thoughts that can be crippling if not approach properly. CBT is really going to help you. Just remember the mantra “it’s not me, it’s the OCD.”

Your keys to succcess will lie in cutting out the compulsions, because you can’t stop thoughts from coming into your brain.

Well, I can’t argue with an MD, but speaking from experience, low-T doesn’t help at all and can exacerbate an existing or dormant issue. I use Defy Medical for my TRT.

I know how it feels, I’m lucky that my wife understands it really well and helps me with it. I do have family members who think I “just need to get over it.” The most helpful thing to do is to give them resources and have them read about it themselves.

Here are two of the most helpful resources out there for OCD:

First of Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz, pioneer of OCD brain research.

The next is Mark Freeman who got over OCD and now helps others.

@jpt365
wow i never heard of anything like that with ocd, that makes you think and believe the opposite. Nah im not killing myself, the thoughts might come but i won’t do it. yeah im religious. God, Jesus Christ, Virgin Mary and all good angels believer :)!

my compulsion is because 1) i fear getting sick, 2) i can’t find a freaking doctor who finally diagnose me and tells me why i have low t. low t and fear of getting sick is why i have ocd. low t because “o what if i touch plastic or damn i need to reduce stress or i need sleep or i need to eat healthy” and fear of getting sick “ damn i need to wash my hands because i touched the freaking door” and developed other things like having to check if lights are turn off several times etc, you know. i remembered i washed my cell phone 18 times after the gym because i touched a dirty barbell


o for sure mate. i know low t doesn’t help but ocd also lowers it
 i saw 100 drop because of it.

i would do defy but i still want to try stuff like hcg or clomid or try to find the reason why low t.

i understand but the one who i live with she denies to look for info even for low t. she thinks its depression and ocd is childish. when i ask her to look for info she says” no because im looking at it right now” but then she says its childish


thanks a lot for the links mate! hope youre doing alright

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I’m doing well man. A belief system definitely helps so I’m glad you have one.

I also have the fear of getting sick. Part of healing comes from the acceptance that you can’t control everything, accepting uncertainty.

Hopefully your family will accept these things as a reality in time. If not, that’s ok too, not ideal but you can do this. Feel free to reach out to me anytime.

when you say acceptance, do you mean like”yes i have ocd and yes i have intrusive thought but its ok, ill keep leaving and accept it”? but you keep feeding it? or just accept it and wash your hands once instead of 30?

thanks mate!

It’s sort of like that. I accept that I’m going to have intrusive thoughts, I just don’t engage with them. They happen and I just go about my day anyway.

If they’re causing me anxiety I’ll practice the exercises I learned in therapy. Visualizing the thing that is giving me anxiety and rating my discomfort on a scale of 1-10. You keep imagining the thing that’s bothering you until your discomfort is lower than when you began. It desensitizes you to the thought.

My therapist says that when she works with people who wash their hands she tells them that they can’t wash their hands for a week. Or they’ll go to the back of her building and they’ll practice touching the dumpster and sitting with the uncomfortable feelings until they lessen.

I have this on my fridge. My son gets these what ifs on occasion and it’s about a 2-3 week obsession at a time.

That’s definitely one way to do it. Unfortunately OCD thoughts are completely illogical, the sufferer knows this too, but no amount of rationalization makes them remit. Attempting to rationalize with them actually reinforces that they are a threat and worthy of note. 95% of the population has intrusive thoughts everyday but they just don’t engage with them, they come and they go without harm. OCD makes the sufferer believe the thought that popped into their head is a threat and that they’re a bad person for thinking it.

Bill Burr, the stand-up comic, has a bit on this. He says “you ever just find yourself sitting at a stoplight and think: ‘what if I just ran my car into that crowd of people?’” That’s a good example of an intrusive thought. However, most people don’t react to a thought like that because they know they’re not a murderer. OCD would make someone experience this thought and say “holy shit, I would never do that. Wait, would I?” The person’s never going to do it but they can’t let it go.

My therapist says, if someone comes to her afraid they’re going to harm someone for no reason and they’re really bothered by it, she makes them literally hold a knife to her throat. It completely desensitizes them to those thoughts, as crazy as it sounds.

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What you are describing is exactly what my son goes through on occasion. It comes in waves. There seems to be more time in between waves so he is getting better at processing these thoughts.

Your advice is priceless to me. I have saved your advice in my goggle keep app. Along with the 2 videos posted which I have not seen yet.

An basically his therapist. When we think about sending him for therapy it usually it is over at that time.

He had one recently. Said he is afraid he will be gay. And kept saying what if I am. This lasted for 3 weeks. It was how you described the religion thing. He started believing Something he knows hes not but was so afraid that he maybe.

He had done this with many diseases which he did not have.

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Yup, he’s experiencing HOCD or homosexual OCD. It’s pretty common (among OCD variants). OCD comes in different themes, they change over time. They’ll morph depending on what the brain latches onto. In the OCD brain the danger/error-detection circuitry is off and it confuses the suffurer into thinking there’s a problem.

For me I got drunk in college and had unprotected sex with this girl I knew. I was convinced for months afterward I had AIDS. The actual going to get tested made it go away. Once you face it head on it stops, it has no power. Mine morphed into thinking I had cancer and I did the same thing again, got tested for everything, it stopped. It then changed into “I ran over a bump, oh god, was that a person?” And on and on.

What’s your age and state do you live?

31, Vermont. Your son will really benefit from ERP (exposure, response, prevention) therapy. Look into a practitioner in your state who specializes in it. Also buy the book: You Are Not Your Brain by Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz, he teaches you how to recognize and label those thoughts for what they are, just thoughts.

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He’s basically stopped with the medical stuff. He starts with a tic too when he’s in the middle of the OCD burst.

Why not CBT?

CBT also works, CBT treats a lot of things and everyone can benefit from it. ERP is specific to OCD and turns off the danger-detection so the person can relax and see their thought for what they are, it’s extremely effective.

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I will keep a close eye on him. Next episode I will probably take him.
Would you suggest a clinical psychologist? Or a social worker?

That’s a stupid question. Am sure a clinical psychologist.
Unless there’s another professional I don’t know about

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Definitely a psychologist if you can, they’re usually up on this stuff. A social worker usually just has a master’s in social work and might/might not be very familiar with OCD at all.

Another thing you could do with him to ease his mind in the meanwhile is this exercise.

Tell him you’re going to count down from 20. Tell him you want him to tell those thoughts to do their worst in that span of time. Once the time is over you tell him to tell those thoughts he gave them all the time they needed to do what they were threatening and they didn’t, so he’s now free to move on with his day.

It would look like something like this, you’d want to count slowly:

“20, alright thoughts do your worst. 19, 18, 17, 16 come on thoughts, get really bad, 15, 14, 13, 12 you’re running out of time now, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, come on anxiety, 6, 5, 4, 3, now I’m going to count real slow, last chance, 2 and three-quarters, 2 and a half, 2, 1 and three-quarters, 1 and a half, 1, ZERO.”

This exercise also adds humor which helps let the sufferer recognize that these thoughts are actually kind of funny, they lose their power this way too.