Does anyone find that meditation helps with OCD? I feel like it’s hard enough for someone without OCD but it feels almost impossible for me to not just ruminate the whole time. Any tips?

Hey there, I've actually been trying a meditation class online to help me with my OCD, and for what i've tried so far, i think it can be really helpful. The teacher has stated in the class several of the attitudinal foundations of meditation, and they are basically very similar, if not the same to what we are in a sense trying to do with ERP with ocd. Some of them were: The non-striving (let thoughts pass and not pursue outcomes, like good feelings for ex), non-judging(not labeling thoughts or desires as good or bad), patience; among others... That was the theorical part... The practice with meditation was indeed extremely challenging, I was constantly ruminating and my ocd triggers were constantly firing off. Because of this, I stopped doing it for several months, until my ocd kept getting worse and I decided to go back to the class and try to endure more than I did last time, and I actually see progress after i finish with each meditation. I think the way I have noticed it has helped me the most so far is that it helps put our ocd themes and compulsions in perspective. While youre doing the "focusing on the breath" and keeping in mind the attitudinal foundations of meditation that I mentioned before; the "focusing on the breath" is a metaphor for living in the present moment, and not persuing compulsions, resisting them. Because throught the whole practice youll have a million thoughts begging you to drift away from this boring meditation, and, if you just let the thoughts pass, and endure by keeping your focus on the breath (or any other object of attention during the meditaiton), It trains your brain for what it needs to do when facing ERP with our more triggering and compulsive themes.

I’m not sure if it’s a treatment for OCD per se, but it helps me feel less anxious by being less engaged with my thoughts. I also find (short) periods of time where my mind is quiet… like literally zero chatter! I’m not an expert, but have found the most helpful strategy for me is to not judge the ‘quality’ of my meditation. I sit and breathe for ten minutes each morning and evening. All I have to do is show up and sit. It doesn’t matter if I sit and ruminate for ten minutes, distractedly fidget, or have a deeply calming experience… simply showing up is a win! I have a calendar I keep in my dressing room where I mark a different color for different achievements that day (not smoking, meditating twice, exercising). The ‘quality’ of execution of these things don’t matter, just that I made the choice to show up for myself. It’s an act of self-love. Equally important is being fair with yourself and assuming some ‘cheat’ or ‘miss’ days will happen… can be as tough as building the habits, but is super important for me. A slip up is not a failure, or worse, a reason to quit the practice. For me the meditation itself isn’t as impactful as the little effects it has on me throughout the day.

When you start meditation for the first time, you ruminate and bring yourself back again and this goes on for a while until you spend more time on not ruminating and focusing. It's completely normal, don't let it discurage you. It helps tremendously. I wake up less affected by my thoughts, my mind can take a breather much easier and i can finally focus on my hobbies and my uni.

Yes, Zoloft helps me a lot with rumination. I still get intrusive thoughts, but like 100x less often. And when I do get intrusive thoughts, I’m able to actually let them go instead of getting sucked down the vortex for 8 hours.