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Deinonychus
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07 Dec 2013, 7:20 pm

I'm not expecting a diagnosis or anything of course, I just want to know I have a reasonable cause to pursue this farther... I'm thinking this could better explain some of what I attributed to a possible ASD...

I'm having trouble thinking of many examples suddenly... and I don't want it to get so long so I'm leaving out some stuff
Also, most of my information on OCD has come from this site: http://www.steveseay.com/category/conditions/ocd/ though I also looked over the DSM IV (maybe V, but I think it was IV) diagnosis thing.
I've always been a perfectionist and desire evenness and symmetry. Sometimes I have to do things a certain number of times to feel satisfied... I need to check stuff a lot (or at least go over it in my head which usually doesn't help), such as when the school year starts, I have to check my schedule multiple times on my way to classes for the first week or so (and I can memorize it in a day or two) and then still feel nervous until attendance is taken. Even now I still have to check room numbers or make sure I know the people walking in the room are in my class. I'm always questioning my feelings/actions/motivation/interactions with people. I don't feel confident in what I feel ever. For example, when I was a Christian (still terrified of Hell but I'm more of a deist now) I was never confident I was actually "saved" and prayed a lot, often restarting be sure I was sincere. I'm not sure of anything, which I think is one of the things I hate most about myself. I always analyze body language and what people say hours afterward to make sure I understood stuff right or that I said the right thing... I'm very conscious of eye contact (which is one thing I attributed to ASD before) and sometimes breathing (mostly I'm afraid I'm breathing conspicuously loudly/heavily so that might not count) swallowing or blinking, but not that often for all but eye contact. I'm always worrying about things that most people don't seem to have issues with. I also fairly frequently envision myself violently rampaging, hurting/mutilating people (especially younger children), smashing expensive things (mine or other people's), causing car accidents, etc. It would be so easy to just snap it seems, so sometimes I'm afraid to do things/be around things/say things because of what I might do.

I'm not sure if I'm exaggerating/overreacting/hypochondriac, so I'd like input from people here, if you don't mind the long post.



cathylynn
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07 Dec 2013, 7:58 pm

if it takes up an hour of your day, it's OCD.



AardvarkGoodSwimmer
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08 Dec 2013, 1:01 am

It sounds like OCD, which in some ways I think is the other side of the coin and the largely negative side from being Aspie.

Okay, the part where you're worried about hurting someone. An analogy might be a fundamentalist religious person who because they don't get some specific feeling of disgust when they have a thought pertaining to homosexuality think they themselves might be gay.

Take a lesson from zen, that if you try too hard to push a thought out, you can end up just giving it extra power.

And maybe some self-talk such as, okay, unlikely that I'll hurt someone, plus I know how to disengage if I do.



Raziel
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08 Dec 2013, 1:18 am

I also had behaviour I wasn't sure if it's OCD or not...

but then I figured out an easy way to tell:
1) it's annoying/distressing me
2) it takes up a long time (more than one hour a day)
3) I can't stop

if you fullfill those three criteria, it's OCD


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AardvarkGoodSwimmer
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08 Dec 2013, 12:20 pm

You might want to get a blood test for strep. And not just whether you remember having strep for you might have had sub-clinical infection(s) and a blood test will show titer levels for antibodies.

And you might want to look up rheumatic fever, Sydenham's chorea (St. Vitus' dance), PANDAS. Now, the last one of PANDAS is controversial and some doctors don't believe it's real. In each of these, the theory is that not the strep itself but rather the antibodies to strep attacking different parts of the person's own body, including potentially the brain's basal ganglia. Ouch! And like with a stroke, the brain can have more plasticity and self-healing than originally thought, but you really want to stop further damage.

PANDAS has only been looked at in children and adolescents, but rheumatic fever and Sydenham's can affect adults in their 20s and 30s and presumably older if not exposed earlier. And the treatment of prophylactic antibiotics, and sure yogurt and probiotics for healthy gut bacteria, is so easy I think it's almost a free roll.



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08 Dec 2013, 2:55 pm

Thanks for the responses, and advice (except for your last post Aardvark 8O :lol: ); that's basically what I wanted to know. I think it takes up more than an hour on the average day, but I'm not completely sure. I'll pay closer attention for a few weeks. Parts of it are most definitely distressing, and parts of it I can't stop. I can ignore some things, especially perfectionist type ones with only slight discomfort, but I haven't been able to control things like violent thoughts and mental checking (I often can go without actually checking something physically).



AardvarkGoodSwimmer
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09 Dec 2013, 1:16 pm

I mean, if it was something autoimmune, wouldn't you want to know about it?



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09 Dec 2013, 3:03 pm

AardvarkGoodSwimmer wrote:
I mean, if it was something autoimmune, wouldn't you want to know about it?

Yes, but nothing I mentioned is remotely similar to the symptoms of the diseases you mentioned, so I thought you accidentally replied to the wrong thing.



AardvarkGoodSwimmer
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12 Dec 2013, 10:54 pm

The OCD itself, including obsessive thoughts, may be the symptoms which are the result of autoimmune damage.

Even if it's 1 chance out of 5, or 1 chance out of 10 or less, antibiotics is so simple a potential remedy that it might well be worth looking into.

I'm sorry it's taken me a couple of days to get back. I'll try and find a link.

https://mghocd.org/ocd_pandas/ Again, so far they have only looked at children. But I can think of no logical reason why this would only affect children.

-----------

And from Steven Seay, Ph.D.'s website, at least one antibiotic may work in a different way to help with OCD.

Quote:
http://www.steveseay.com/ocd-d-cycloser ... treatment/

'  .  .  .  Research on D-cycloserine in OCD treatment is still a work-in-progress, so it’s important to maintain some healthy skepticism on this issue.  .   .   .   .  Several recent, placebo-controlled studies have been quite promising and have indicated that taking seromycin can initially “speed up” the therapeutic response to exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP), a form of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) developed to treat OCD.  In essence, you benefit more from initial ERP therapy sessions.  D-cycloserine doesn’t appear to have any effects on OCD when taken on its own (i.e., when not combined with exposure and response prevention).  .  .  '



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13 Dec 2013, 2:56 pm

Alright, thank you. I'll check that out, just in case. Upon quick googling, I didn't see anything relating that to OCD type symptoms so I was confused.