someone mentioned this to me, more explanation of what it is please?

i just looked up lots of good info on the internet describing Pure "O". google it ; )

The best explaination I have ever heard about Pure O was here! At this exact site. I doubt I can do justice compared to those that have helped me but let me try. Read some old posts.

Pure O is the Obsessive side of OCD. It usually is listed as it's own disorder seperate from OCD? I don't know if that means you can't have any compulsions or not? Maybe I am confused as to what a small compulsion is?

In Pure O your obsessions are always in your mind. It wans and waxes, this does not mean waxing your car. It comes and goes. It spikes and then leaves. If you are in the middle of a spike it is hard to notice that you had good days before though.

In your mind you will have intrusive thoughts. Thoughts that enter your mind out of the blue that you would never want to think. There are typical thoughts that happen, weird huh, disturbing sexual incestous, child abuse, strange or any other sick thought possible. There is also doing harm, killing loved ones, family, babies, strangers etc. There is other ones too, religious ones.

There is also rumination. Where you relive over and over again different episodes in your life that can or cannot have meaning. For me they never are good enough. I will relive this message over and over again, sometimes for years. I have relived over my whole life a billion times for the last 40 years.

That is a quick version, and there is so much more. Hopefully, any of the people here can fix any of my mistakes. I want to have lots to ruminate about.

Dan pretty much nailed it, but I want to add one thing. These thoughts trigger panic attacks and anxiety to the extent that they interfere "big time" with your daily life. I was actually agoraphobic for ahwile due to the Pure O and the anxiety it caused.

There are ways to learn to live with Pure O and some things that will get you running in the right direction are:

Quit smoking
Quit drinking
Quit caffeine
Quit all mind latering drugs
Learn to meditate!!! This helps with the thought control and relaxation
Eat well
Exercise a few times a day! This gets rid of some of that energy and keeps you busy

Medication: Typically antidepressants cause more anxiety and induce more horrible thoughts with this dissorder, however there are exceptions to that rule as in any person and the drugs they take. I have found that for me Xanax has helped a lot with the anxiety and panic associated with the Pure O. Once that was helping then I could deal with the thoughts using meditation. I am now almost symptom free, but I still have some bad days.

There is hope for this, so understand that there are lots of people on this board as well as the "anxiety" board who suffer from the same ailment. You aren't alone, in fact you are in good company.

Take care,
OE

sounds pretty much liek me, except not to such an extent any more. some of the thoughts have seemed to make a long lasting effect on me as ocdengineer has read. but i never thought i had OCD and id idnt think it interfered with my life that much any more.

I don't understand the pure o of ocd. It should be different illness then and not ocd because people with standard ocd tend to have compulsions so who is to say we with harm thought wont have compulsions that is to say act on the thoughts

Hi,
Compulsions are not acting on the troubling thoughts, they are rituals to avoid the thoughts, I believe. It's the fear and feeling that we will act on the thoughts that's the OCD.
Hope that helps a bit.

Actually, you do have compulsions, Sany28 -they are "mental" compulsions. One of my worst compulsions is reassurance or relief-seeking to neutralize the anxiety. My bad compulsion is posting on message boards to gain reassurance that it is OCD and not my real thoughts/feelings. Another mental compulsion is trying to outlogic or find an answer to your disturbing thoughts. Anything to reassure yourself that you are not really thinking those things and you can emotionally feel OK again. That is the same as someone who has contamination OCD and washes their hands 100 times to "feel" clean and right emotionally.

thanks for that Post-it. I always relax a bit more when someone reassures me so I guess you're right our compulsions are mental and not physical but have any of you gotten a really really strong urge to actually act physicaly on your thoughts? I'm asking couse I need reassurance again. I love my little children more then my own life and would rather hurt my self then them so please understand my fear here and if you have any suggestions please post them here