- Date posted
- 3y
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y
The saying goes: "I'm just taking it day by day." but my therapist helped me reword this to "I'm taking it moment by moment." as sometimes, its best not to try to think about the future of our OCD, to rather, just focus on doing our best in this moment. I know it's hard to see it now or believe that it's true, but OCD is very responsive to treatment. Have you practiced ERP by yourself or with a ERP-trained therapist? Also, The Self-Compassion Workbook for OCD by Kimberly Quinlan helped me a lot with suicidal OCD. In her book, she discusses mindful responses to thoughts. For example, you may think: "This thought or feeling will never go away." and the mindful response would be: "This thought is temporary and will pass with time." Another one would be: "This thought is bad." and the mindful response is "This thought is neither good nor bad. It is a thought." Lastly, I'll leave you with a quote from Jon Hershfield: "One of the most effective ways of combating these obsessions is not to fight them at all, but to accept their presence. A thought is not a prediction, instruction, or call to action. A thought is a chemical and electrical event in your brain, neurons firing this way instead of that way. You have weird, unpleasant, or violent thoughts simply as a result of having a brain, which means you can think about anything." It might also be helpful to check out NOCD's support groups just to know you're not alone. ❤️ https://www.treatmyocd.com/support-groups
- Date posted
- 3y
I feel the exact same way right now. I don’t know what to do either but just know you’re not alone.
- Date posted
- 3y
I’m just hoping that therapy is going to work
- Date posted
- 3y
Remember that you are not your I trusted thoughts. Ruminating on them is worse than having them! You cannot control your initial thoughts. You can control engagement with them ( I am learning). OCD is not who you are. And the content of the thoughts does not matter--nor does it indicate anything about you. I think the ONLY way to get over this is to go through this. Sit with the uncertainty and live your life! Let the thoughts come and let them be. Just notice them like a stranger on the street and assign no meaning to it. Just let it be. Be well, friend! We're in this together. We all struggle. And there is hope for us all.
- Date posted
- 3y
Intrusive * not I trusted.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 23w
I’m definitely having an episode right now. A few times I’ve thought about coming onto this app and writing something but then I spiral further and further and I forget about anything except what’s triggering me. Then I think about this app again and intend to write a post… but again I’m spiraling too hard to focus on anything else. But I finally ended up here because I got an email from NOCD. I opened it and read about someone who ‘overcame their OCD.’ It made me spiral harder, because I genuinely don’t understand how someone can control this. How do I stop? How do I silence my brain? I was told to sit with my thoughts and not try to divert them, but if I do that I have an extreme episode so bad that I feel disconnected from myself. I looked at myself in the mirror and it felt like my eyes were seeing someone standing in front of me and not my reflection. It scares me to think that I will be experiencing these episodes forever. I literally just put my phone down twice because I thought my cat was choking to death because he had a hairball (he’s fine) I just feel like I can’t see a way out of this. It’s not curable, and I don’t understand how someone can ‘conquer’ something that feels so out of control Obviously it’s possible, but unfortunately that reassurance doesn’t always break through the most awful thoughts Sometimes there’s nothing that can make me calm down, I just have to ride it out I hope there’s never a day where it’s so out of control that I can’t keep it in at work, and I ruin my own life by having a severe panic attack while I’m there and being fired. If I had the type of episodes at work that I have consistently at home, I would be so humiliated. It scares me. I’m trying so hard to be normal like everyone else. I just want to be happy. I just want to live.
- Date posted
- 22w
i want to get this out of the way; i’m not suicidal. i’m a 17 y/o guy whose been living with OCD for what i assume is most of my life despite only getting the diagnoses last year. i’ve been hustling on despite my mental health really consuming my life to moments in time where i question my sanity and self control. it’s the lack of control that really kills me with this disorder. each day i wake up, it’s the same persistent reminders; it’s the same meaningless conversations replaying; it’s the same small rituals that just barely let me breathe before the thoughts return. nothing i do is gonna stop that unbearable monogamy where i have to sit back and let my eyes be peeled open; i don’t know how to live with that. no pill has worked on me, and any response i give the thoughts just make them worse. right now i’m trying to just sit through it and not care. don’t let it effect me emotionally; try not to feel the discomfort. then it starts to manifest into physical pain where i feel the bones of my chest have this pressure—like staples entering them at the rhythm of a heart beat. i’m getting though this, but i’m not enjoying my life when doing so. i don’t know if i have a future where it isn’t just this repeating through the process of each day. i don’t want to spend the rest of my life avoiding the one thing i’m supposed to have control over. i also don’t want to drown my days in self medicating or get addicted doing so—like i already am. i don’t see the way to make this life of mine work, especially given how much i don’t have to do deal with at my age. of course that will come to. look, i’m not at risk; i really don’t want in anyway to die despite being basically hopeless. i’m numb to the pain of it, i don’t feel anything in my desire to escape these cycles, i just need an out. i’m not seeing a way to move forward. i’m willing to hear anything.
- Date posted
- 21w
No I’m not attempting or anything. I am just really in a depressive state as of now. I am so convinced that my fear is real you don’t even know. I don’t know what to do. I just want to go to sleep and wake up in a reality where this is all gone. But honestly I don’t know if that would change anything. I’m scared that this is who I was all along, and I’ve just been delaying what I will eventually become. I don’t want to do ANYTHING that my intrusive thoughts say AT ALL. But honestly that doesn’t mean anything anymore. I’m so convinced of the thought “you’ve been doing it this whole time without realizing it.” I think it’s true now. I feel incredibly stuck. I just want to be hugged :(
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