The perpetual fear of being re-harmed or fear of harming others in any way, stemming from child abuse and violence, or any other trauma or issue, can exist either consciously or unconsciously. These particular type of symptoms occur from the compromise or loss of the sense of the goodness/stability of our self and loss of personal and human identity. 

Christina Vaughn

Harm OCD is a common subtype of OCD that causes intrusive, unwanted thoughts, images or urges to harm oneself or others.

My Experience of The Results Of Early Trauma

A Breeding Ground For OCD

After experiencing sexual abuse in 1983 at age 14, I began having symptoms of panic in my everyday life, fight or flight responses that worked to keep me in a constant state of terror and an urgency to try to control my environment.

A few weeks after being sexually abused by a fellow (adult, age 19) student in my high school, I became acutely aware that I had begun aggressively shaking my knee as I sat in each class, distracting myself from the chaos I felt inside. I began to recognize that I felt on edge all the time. I then began making decisions that put me further in harm’s way, such as hanging out with the girls I had met who had also been abused by the same person. Other boys I met in this crowd began to prey on me as well, as the unaddressed vulnerability from trauma often attracted the attention of other abusers.

The most detrimental, long-lasting effect of the abuse that I still struggle with today was the overwhelming feelings of “foreboding” and heaviness (guilt). I had no words or definition for the blanket of dark and suffocating terror that would creep over me.

Upon revealing to my parents what had happened to me, I was guided to my high school counselor for “talking” about the incident and subsequent harmful occurrences in my life.

Tragically, this man had the habit of taking advantage of vulnerable students and further traumatized me and my situation by asking overtly inappropriate sexual questions and making lewd suggestions to me regarding the abuse. This was all said after he got up and locked his office door in that first and only appointment before executing these violations against me.

I received no other help for the abuse nor sought help until recently, 40 years after the original incident of abuse. Manifestations of abuse will erupt sometime, somewhere in life and more so erratic and abstract without therapy.

Symptoms Begin To Manifest

I first experienced a year-long bout with OCD symptoms in 1989 at age 20 during my first pregnancy and for the first year of my newborn son’s life. I can say with confidence that the symptoms evolved with a definition of Postpartum Syndrome. Still, I believe the issue was more related to an initial acute presentation of Harm OCD.

Because of the urgent nature of harmful thoughts, sensations, and impulses toward my newborn, I believed I was a murderer and only told my father what was happening a year after the experience began because I thought I was going to lose control, commit a violent act, and be sent to prison. To me, the threat was very real. The impact remains with me. The overwhelming vulnerability and incredible sense of loss of self-control were tormentous and paralyzing.

Today, I still have strong memories of several other random thought processes related to my children’s safety that occurred in the past 33 years and provoked life-long terror, guilt, and shame.

The ever-present foreboding feelings caused me to almost completely shy away from intimate playtime with my children as they were growing up. I did not know that these feelings I was having were defined as anything except scary. I was terrified of committing a criminal act involuntarily so I just distanced myself in that way.

I saw and felt that it confused and hurt them. I did not know what to do and deeply grieved the loss we were all experiencing and felt such deep sorrow and shame that subsequently drove most of my life decisions forward.

I experienced a second extended bout of intrusive thought processes and symptomatic Harm OCD several years later:

One Thanksgiving holiday, I made plans to travel from our home in Austin, Texas to Dallas to be with family. After many setbacks in the plans, including having the brakes on our car suddenly go out and finagling repairs near a Holiday, we set out. Just before we reached the highway, a commercial truck hit us head-on. My 8-year-old daughter smashed her face into the back of my seat. Everyone was crying and upset, especially me.

All the frustrations of single-parenting and years of being alone in our needs as humans and family void of any support just seemed to capitalize that day emotionally.

Our car was towed, and we went home. I pressed the insurance company for a rental and we went on to Dallas the next day, but not without experiencing a terrifying incident the night of the crash at the kids’ bedtime.

While putting my two youngest children to bed, I turned my head to speak to them and distinctly heard the words with overpowering impulse “Kill them, kill them, now!”

I was startled and terrified. My body had a neuro-receptive response and I felt “shaky” inside and felt the urgent need for immediate cover or safety, but there was none. Again, because I had no reference point or explanation for any of these feelings, I just condemned myself as crazy and innately murderous.

From that point on, I continued to suffer from harmful thoughts, sensations, and impulses for almost 3 years. One particular day, I had enough and as I was driving somewhere I finally verbally “evicted” what I perceived as demons (and there is truth to this) from my life and thoughts. What changed was that I actually shifted my thought processes and decided to “stop believing the problem was character-related” and to “pay them no attention.”

These two belief mindsets are the bedrock of OCD therapy, as I have learned in my extensive research during the last couple of years.

This thought process is challenged constantly in my life with the symptoms and various nuances of OCD and I do not always have victory over it in the moment, but I am aware of its incongruencies, now, at least.

In employing these changes in my attitude toward the thoughts at the time, the intensity of the symptoms was relieved. Although I experienced relapses of them, they were very brief in comparison.

I endured a few more intense encounters over the following years. Notably, it has only been the last year that I have gained any understanding of and even the definition for OCD and how it is intricately connected to the root origins of C-PTSD I see my therapist.

How Can Sexual Abuse show up as (Harm) OCD Symptoms?

The correlation between childhood abuse (and other traumas) and OCD are noted as often congruent occurrences. Although psychotherapy does not directly source the two at this time, it is well-documented that the sudden and invasive loss of one’s personal boundaries works immediately to compromise an individual’s trust of themselves, others, their surroundings, the perception of their safety, and that of others in their world.

These and many other dysregulated responses create an environment of uncertainty in the mind that seeks from conception to reassure itself. Fear becomes a leading emotion, one from which most of life’s subsequent choices are made, including reactions, responses, and emotional states of being. Autonomic body responses (sensations, impulses, unexplained physical symptoms — the feeling that your response to the symptoms is involuntary.) occur and can cause a great deal of confusion concerning one’s personal “desires” vs. OCD symptoms.

The perpetual fear of being re-harmed or fear of harming others in any way, stemming from child abuse and violence, or any other trauma or issue, can exist either consciously or unconsciously. These particular type of symptoms occur from the compromise or loss of the sense of the goodness/stability of our self and loss of personal and human identity.

Unconsciously, there is the question sometimes asked of oneself “If someone could do those things to me, what stops me from doing the same to others?”

This begins a tormentous, scrupulous investigation into one’s innate morals and decency, true intentions in interactions with others, and a condemning defamation of our person.

Convoluted thought processes that occur as the mind tries to make sense of both the trauma experienced and what to do and how to be afterward can produce thoughts focusing on potential similar threats to those we love and others we value, as OCD capitulates many times on the themes and values we hold dearest to us: such as children, family, certain populations (children, parents) reputation, body functions and perception and others.

Feeling like you could harm someone you love or others physically, sexually, or otherwise (this includes children, which is deeply distressing to experience) detaches a person from healthy physical and emotional interactions with those around us.

As we focus on the horror of those type of thoughts we seclude ourselves further emotionally and physically second to the tormenting shame and guilt associated with those thoughts. One can begin to question every physical or emotional encounter, ruminating relentlessly on one’s “true intentions” for touch, especially any response to normal human interactions.

This is crippling and debilitating.

What To Do:

The primary route to wellness in and from Harm OCD is obtaining help. Therapy for Harm OCD and any other OCD theme includes many methods, with ERP showing the most positive and effective treatment.

Obtaining proper intervention prevents and treats the resultant state of mind that can evolve from initial concerning symptoms to the absolute terror, panic, and dark, chaotic existence that can happen from isolation. Trying to “figure it out” on your own will not bring success, the same way a heart attack or a broken leg will not fix itself without proper intervention.

Many people suffer in silence as guilt, shame, and humiliation prevent them from speaking about their OCD experiences. Being human with a creative mind means we are going to encounter bizarre and sometimes problematic mind processes.

You are not crazy, murderous, pedophilic, or losing your sanity. You have OCD and you need help right now.

Disclaimer: This article focuses on the relationship between Harm OCD and (child) sexual abuse. This type of OCD is not specific to an abuse victim of any particular violence and can occur in anyone for many reasons other than abuse. There is always a core fear(s) that needs to be addressed in any subtype of OCD to treat it effectively.

The post How Past Sexual Abuse Can Show Up As (Harm) OCD appeared first on Medika Life.

We also classify several specific feeding or eating disorders as eating disorders, and they include pica, rumination disorder, avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, and others. Although we think of pica as primarily associated with infants and toddlers, there are adults who consume non-nutritive substances such as clay, corn starch or laundry starch. According to medical professionals, a diet lacking in particular nutrients is the root cause of the desire to eat laundry starch.

According to the National Eating Disorders Association, anorexia, bulimia, and binge-eating disorders affect about 30 million people in the United States. Also, it is estimated that 28.8 million Americans, or 9% of the country’s population, will experience an eating problem in their lives.

A recent study of 12,000 teenagers ages 13 to 18 found that almost 4% of teenage girls and 1.5% of teenage boys have eating disorders. Also, according to a survey of 9,282 individuals, roughly 10 million men and 20 million women in the United States have an eating disorder that is clinically serious in their lifetime.

It is crucial to remember that not everyone who has an eating problem has a medical diagnosis of being underweight; in fact, less than 6% of eating disorder sufferers have this diagnosis. Genetic heredity also affects the risk for eating disorders, with 28–74% of the risk being genetic.

Overall, eating disorders are serious problems that can endanger a person’s health, emotions, and ability to do basic things that are necessary for life. It’s critical to get professional help if you or someone you love is dealing with an eating disorder in order to recover and control symptoms.

But now we also have to deal with avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) and atypical-type anorexia nervosa (AN), which are two more types of unusual eating. ARFIDs are mainly characterized by a clear lack of interest in food, avoiding food products because of their color, shape, or packaging, or avoiding food because of phobic-like symptoms, such as after-choking episodes.

ARFID, or avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, makes it difficult to meet one’s nutritional and/or energy needs and results in at least: nutritional deficiencies, weight loss or failure to gain the right amount of weight, a need for enteral feeding or nutritional supplements, or significant disruption of daily activities.

Psychological symptoms of ARFID include avoiding or limiting certain foods or textures, feeling anxious around mealtimes, being sensitive to sensory input, being afraid of choking or throwing up, and other things.

People with ARFID may wear layers to hide weight loss or stay warm. They may also complain of constipation, abdominal pain, cold intolerance, lethargy, and/or too much energy, and they may have recurring gastrointestinal problems (upset stomach, feeling full, etc.) around mealtimes for no known reason.

Some people with ARFID may also show signs of anorexia nervosa, like worrying about their body size and weight, avoiding meals with a lot of calories, being against being fat, and having a bad body image that isn’t distorted.

It’s crucial to remember that ARFID can manifest in people of all ages and may share characteristics with other eating disorders like anorexia nervosa. In cooperation with a healthcare practitioner, a proper diagnosis and treatment strategy should be created.

The post Another Eating Disorder or Is This Diagnosis Gone Wild? appeared first on Medika Life.

Think tanks such as the Pew Research Center have shown that social media now provides political and cultural news to one-half of Americans. The topics, whether seemingly benign or graphically serious in nature, stick with us, and that’s where the damage may begin. This is especially true when it comes to highly serious issues related to the Covid pandemic.

Political media news also affects children, and teen icons are rising up to address these issues. For example, Greta Thunberg, a teen environmental activist, and David Hogg, a gun ownership activist and survivor of a school attack, and Malala Yousafzai, another school shooting survivor.

The presence of upsetting politics in our lives can damage our mental and physical health. Anxiety, sadness, sleep disturbances, and even heart disease have all been linked to political stress.

Unpredictability and resulting chronic stress are the most difficult aspects of political life. Our emotional well-being can take a hit when we have no control over these circumstances. Will there be another shutdown of the federal government? Do you think there will be another major shooting? How likely is a nuclear assault from a foreign country? Will a recession cost me my job, and we’ll lose our home?

The emotional toll of being subjected to constant bad news is significant. When we hear about violence, lies, and corruption all the time, it’s easy to feel powerless and even suspicious.

There’s also the persistent prodding to pick a side. It appears impossible to be impartial in today’s political climate. You are for or against someone, for or against gun control, and for or against issues like abortion, healthcare, taxes, school lunches, or other social programs, and even Medicare and Social Security. We know that stress affects our decision-making, so we must help ourselves.

What can we do to help ourselves remain on an even keel and protect our mental and physical health? Researchers are looking for answers and some are now coming forth. This isn’t rocket science, but it makes good sense.

One solution is to limit our exposure to upsetting or completely biased news. Stop yourself from “doomscrolling,” the constant seeking out of media detailing the pandemic or other disturbing news. One expert named this “headline stress disorder” and even “election stress disorder.” He believes this erodes our resilience to maintain stress under our control.

The intent here is not to leave yourself devoid of information and to become a pawn in any way. You need to keep abreast of government affairs and how they affect you and your community. But excessively zeroing in solely on political discussions and news does not provide only pertinent material; it provides material.

Dead air on TV is verboten, just as newspapers, magazines, and internet blogs or publications need to fill their designated spaces with copy. Is it always something that provides you with needed information? How could it possibly do that?

A second means of handling this stress is to take action and not give in to feelings of helplessness. We’ve seen many ads encouraging people to vote, write letters to the editor, or make phone calls about issues that affect them socially, financially, or emotionally. Action is a good way to stay healthy.

Third, focus on what you can do and devote yourself to a pleasurable activity, such as a hobby or a group (social service, church, environmentalists, etc.). Volunteer in your area. In fact, research on charitable works for others has shown that it benefits the volunteer just as much as the person or group receiving the help.

What other ways can you help yourself in stressful, politically uncertain times? Take a journal and start writing things down and how you might counter the stress they cause. Track how successfully you’ve met your daily goals. And remember, accentuate the positive.

The post Paying a High Cost in Personal Health for Politics appeared first on Medika Life.

It feels like yesterday when computers first became integral in our lives; now, it is difficult to imagine existence without these fantastic machines. They are continuing to evolve in leaps and bounds, and soon, they will bring about more monumental change. Envision a few decades from now: our children will be browsing our archives and marveling at how we struggled to make artificial intelligence a reality. They will learn about the day we had our very first encounter with the very first AI-synthesized drug. They will read about how excited we were when the drug went into clinical trials, how it fared, and perhaps, how it initiated a trend that would see AI identifying drug targets that could provide relief for several disease conditions worldwide.

If you are familiar with AI trends, you are likely cognizant of its vast possibilities. That it can surpass human intelligence and better apply information is something future generations will be grateful for. You may have heard that AI could hold the key to drug discovery, personalized and precision medicine, diagnosis, and disease treatment.

Today, our world is experiencing one of the most significant milestones in the history of artificial intelligence as researchers and scientists recently announced the first precision-engineered drug generated by AI.

The drug, now ready for clinical trials, was created by the UK-based Exscientia in collaboration with Japanese Pharma, Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma (DSP). Exscientia designed it for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and the clinical trial will measure its efficacy on the human system and its possible side effects.

What Is OCD?

OCD is a disease characterized by irrational fear or obsession capable of triggering repetitive actions. The majority of people who suffer from this condition are aware that their actions are illogical. Still, they can not ignore the urge to perform it repeatedly. Information published by the National Institute of Mental Health shows that it affects 2.3% of the United States’ adult population. OCD is not discriminatory as it can affect anyone regardless of race, age, or gender.

“OCD affects 2.3% of the adult population in the United States.”

-National Institute of Mental Health (2017).

Since the obsessions may occupy hours with repetitive behavior, OCD has significant implications on a person’s emotional health, education, career, and social and personal life. A body’s natural biology, genetics, or environmental factors can contribute to OCD’s presence, including streptococcal infections known as Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders (PANDAS).

Why Is AI-Based Drug Discovery Worth Celebrating?

Creating drugs is a process that can occupy researchers for many years. However, utilizing AI, the discovery of the latest OCD medication took just 12 months instead of the usual 60 (or five years). Also, AI could locate the candidate compound (an antibody or small molecule with a strong therapeutic potential whose activity can be optimized to create drugs) within 350 synthesized compounds rather than the conventional 2,500.

The molecule is known as DSP-1181, and it was created by utilizing algorithms that sifted through and singled out potential compounds for having good potential against a massive database of parameters. Selecting potential compounds helped identify optimal candidate molecules faster than expected, thereby setting a new drug discovery milestone.

Industry enthusiasts, scientists, and researchers expect the introduction of DSP-1181 to usher in a new era in which more effective AI-synthesized drugs will be discovered strictly by recommendations from AI-based systems.

Dsp-1181 and Its Possibilities

DSP-1181 is a long-acting and potent serotonin 5-HT1A receptor agonist recently added to the DSP’s lengthy psychiatry and neurology research pipeline. Although the drug’s efficacy is untested, information gathered from the International OCD foundation shows that over a quarter of patients do not benefit from the standard treatments for OCD. These treatment methods include selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) or Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP).

This challenge presents the need for an urgent clinical intervention targeted towards the brain’s glutamate system as a strategy for treating refractory OCD or treatment-resistant OCD.

By exhibiting neuromodulation, serotonin 5-HT1A receptor agonists decrease blood pressure and heart rate via a central mechanism. 5-HT1A receptor agonists stimulate the release of hormones like prolactin, oxytocin, adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), and cortisol, which induces overall peripheral vasodilation. The receptor agonists centrally stimulate the vagus nerve (connecting the brain to the body) to decrease heart rate and blood pressure. The activation of serotonin 5-HT1A decreases aggression, and drug-seeking behavior yet increases sociability, prolonged REM Sleep, and heightened sex drive and arousal.

Final Words

If all goes well, thanks to artificial intelligence, we may soon have a new AI-synthesized drug capable of assisting OCD patients in managing their symptoms and thus leading normal lives.

The use of AI in drug discovery is evolving at a fast rate. There are reports that it has helped R&D discover a therapeutic drug candidate for the first time, and more news is always breaking. Amazingly, the use of AI and deep learning to design, synthesize, and validate a novel drug candidate is 15 times faster than the best pharma companies!

Overall, these advancements are more evidence that artificial intelligence may hold the key to several future discoveries.

The post First Drug Synthesized by AI Goes into Clinical Trials appeared first on Medika Life.