Happy Monday everyone ♥️ wanted to share something that came from a conversation with my therapist last week. It’s really helped me notice when I’m starting ruminate much sooner, so hope it helps someone else too. ‘When you’re stuck deciding what to do, your nervous system is already activated, instead of deciding, get grounded and return to the things you enjoy’ Anyone else have any helpful things they’ve picked up in the last week they would like to share? We’ve got this ♥️♥️

I’m guessing that you’re already familiar with the works of Michael Greenberg, but if you’re not I can link them here. Great resource for compulsive rumination.

@GetSomeBread No, I haven’t! But I’m curious now. I’ll definitely look into it! Thx!

@LisaP99 His approach is a bit against traditional ACT and ERP models, but he knows his shit. See if you can find anything useful here. https://drmichaeljgreenberg.com

@GetSomeBread I’m about to go for an hour drive and I’m going to listen to ocd stories episode 252 that has him as a guest. By the description I’m looking forward to it

@GetSomeBread What resources of his have you used? I really think if I gain mastery over rumination, I can recover. I’m fairly new to learning skills. I’ve suffered for over 20 years but just received my diagnosis 6 months ago

@GetSomeBread Can you tell me a bit of your experience learning his approach?

@LisaP99 I find that the articles based on awareness and attention are by far the most crucial, since giving a thought attention by any means possible is giving into that compulsion. Try do some exercises with some of your recent obsessions to really try and grasp it. I think the entire point of his approach is to understand that rumination is something we partake in, but is harder if refrain from because of the non-physical nature of the act. For RF-ERP, the focus is not as much on habituation as it is on inhibitory learning. Out fears make us anxious no matter what, and ruminating whilst being exposed to a trigger is just compulsing while being in mf anxious since we are logically trying to consult our fears. He also has a great understating of how treatment works and has fair critiques on some other forms of therapy used to treat ocd. The 3 episodes he did with Stuart are a great coverage of his entire approach.

@GetSomeBread I totally agree ruminating increases our anxiety. I experienced that a lot and mine grew to dangerously high levels when I didn’t realize what I was doing. I listened to one of his episodes with Stuart and half of another interview on YouTube. I’ve struggled a lot lately and considered inpatient treatment but I’m curious to see if his office offers tele-appointments for my state. Even if they don’t, I’ll pursue what I can. Actually I’ve been practicing just based on the information I’ve heard so far and I felt so good yesterday. I usually question if I’m practicing skills correctly which I know is common with ocd treatment (probably a compulsion ha). It is almost shocking how he disagrees with ACT and with some aspects of ERP but I totally agree with his reasoning. Here I am beating myself up which isn’t good for my health at all… “why can’t you tolerate the anxiety?”, “you need to improve your anxiety tolerance!” So far, I think he’s brilliant! Thanks so much!

@LisaP99 Great to hear