Ok so I suffer from intrusive thoughts around my husband. I know that ruminating is bad and that I need to learn to sit with the thoughts and feelings. It’s hard but I’m managing a little more each day but I have a constant feeling of being in denial, burying my head like I really should be reacting, checking, figuring it out. Is this normal when doing the work? Does it get better eventually and how long does it take?
I’ve seen this referred to as the back door spike. I am in the early stages of ERP myself, but have done OCD work for a while now. When you resist compulsions, your OCD comes back with even stronger “what ifs” to try and hook you. Keeping on resisting the compulsions and OCD will eventually quieten. Try not to put a time frame on it 🙂
I too have similar feelings of “but this one REALLY needs solving”. I see OCD as a massive attention seeker, it isn’t getting the attention it is craving from me so it’s doing a whole performance to really try and get me to look. Ignore its performance and keep going with resisting. If you notice you’ve done a mini compulsion, notice it, and go back to resisting.
Thank you so much. I’m trying very hard but it’s tough and hard to ignore. Will keep at it 💪
I find it really hard too. I just now found myself doing a sneaky compulsion because I believed OCD’s big “what if” display. You just bring yourself back to the present and keep on going. We’re creating new pathways in our brain, that’s going to be hard to do - so keep going at it is the best method here! ❤️
You got this, that was my biggest hurdle that I had to get over. I am Christian, and what has really helped me is verbally speaking out loud over myself that I choose no matter what rational thoughts or lofty arguments try to set themselves up against that decision to try to ‘what if’ me out of it, I choose regardless. And in doing that my mind and my thoughts, good memories all of that slowly starts to trickle in one moment at a time as I continue to practice . And it builds up good memories, and truth, that overrides all those bad memories and what is