I just went back to reread some of my posts to see how far I have come and even though it has taken a long time I feel very proud of myself. I have made leaps and bounds I feel over the past six months after years of trying to recover from all of this. <BR>I noticed cl that you asked some questions I did not answer, my apologies. I will try to answer them now. I have OCD, no compulsions just obsessions. I am told by the psych a rather mild case evidently as I have always functioned well, I am a college professor, in fact I teach Pharmacology and Anatomy to nursing students, I have lots of friends and basically have had a pretty good life. I understand you are in the nursing field so you should get a kick out of this. It is funny because I had learned about OCD in college and we talked about it a little in class, basically the drugs used to treat it, but it never occurred to me that I had it. With the trauma I went through however, the psychiatrist said it was "triggered". And let me tell you I was full blown out of my mind obsessing when that happened. The weiredest thing that has ever happened to me, seriously debilitating, luckliy happened over the summer when I was not teaching. It was totally uncontrollable. I am now on the lowest possible dose of anafrail and the pysch thinks I would do ok without it and has asked me if I want to come off of it but I really think I feel better than I used to before I ever took it so I prefer to continue with the meds. I also have read a lot about it. My current boyfriend knows alll about it so that if I get stuck on something he says your obsessing or there is nothing wrong its just your ocd and this seems to snap me out of it. The meds only decrease the OCD by about 60% so you really do have to have other methods to deal with it. I was at one time on a much higher dose and that supressed the OCD a lot more but the dry mouth was so bad that my dentist said that my teeth were being destroyed. Of course if it was still really bad, I'd prefer dentures to having to live like that. When I was little my mother used to tell me I sounded like a broken record, that should have been my clue! The research now suggests that OCD may be caused by an antibody to strep throat that some people make, genetically determined, which attacks certain areas of the brain that look like the bacteria. Similar to the way this same antibody attackes the heart valves in rheumatic fever. My mom in fact had rheumatic fever and has mild mitral valve prolapse. In fact, from what I understand these characteristics are thought to be carried on the same gene or at least linked. My mother and I now think that other members of my family also have this disorder. My mother and an aunt are both obsessive cleaners along with having other characteristics and my uncle who seems to be pure O like me. The aunt and uncle seem to be worse than when they were younger. My mother however, seems to be much better, especially now that she is aware of the problem. I mean my most vivid childhood memories of her even when playing or talking to me she was intermittently cleaning. Out of the group, I am the only one however, that has chosen to pursue psychiatric treatment, although I think my aunt and uncle would really benefit from it. They are both functional but now that we can see that they likely have this disorder also, it is clear that it has made lots of problems in both of their lives, uncle is currently going through his third divorce, his wife, of 14 yrs, said she just couldn't take the obsessing over his job anymore. My aunt tends to obsess over her job also, and tends to think everyone at work is out to get her, true at some point in her career maybe someone was but with her there is always somebody at work trying to "get" her or steal her job, and many times these people also want to "steal" her husband. It just happens a little to often for it to all be real. She is in constant turmoil over this. <BR> You also asked if I was trying to repair my relationship with the ex- no way I am just still trying to recover from it, almost three years later. He had other problems besides just being a serial cheat that I have really in the past year just begun to accept. To be honest the first year after the split I was mostly just getting my OCD under control, trying to find the right meds etc. And it really took a couple years of digging to get the whole, well I'll never get the whole but a complete enough picture for me to understand what really happened. <BR> On the other post you also mentioned a book- In conflict to love I think, you said that the serial cheat type will cheat to get distance and go out and get "high" with an Ow or sexually mistreat the wife - did I read that right? was this from the book you mentioned? what do you mean exactly, I think this may be something I am still having trouble with. If this is not the proper place to post the infromation could you please give me some references?
