Jassraj singh
- Date posted
- 3y
tomtom45tomtom45
- Date posted
- 3y
Are you asking here for discussion of difference between confidence and certainty? Confidence is like "it's probably this, I don't need to spend more time thinking about it". Certainty would be "I 100% know this, there is no doubt". Confidence it's possible to get to, certainty is impossible to get. There's always a "but what if?" Or "how do I know for sure?". With ocd you *want* certainty on some things, particularly if they're important to you. But like you say, it's never satisfying enough for ocd to be pretty confident, it wants to *know for sure*, so it gets you to go back over everything, check again, etc. The thing about moving forward with uncertainty is recognising that you want certainty on something, but you're never gonna know for sure, so it's practicing telling yourself "yep, maybe, maybe not, I'll probably never know for sure", sitting with the uncomfortableness of that and then hopefully over time being able to let the anxiety come down by itself. Takes practice tho!
Jassraj singhJassraj singh
- Date posted
- 3y
Means every person has these types of thought ,but they are comfortable with uncertainty they didnt 100% sureness. While person with ocd needs certainty,after knowing this it is not possible , means digging that hole where you never get water... Accepting uncertainty =Freness from ocd
tomtom45tomtom45
- Date posted
- 3y
@Jassraj singh Hey, yeah 100% what you said. Everyone has loads of random, weird, tricky, difficulty thoughts all the time. Even people with ocd will have lots that they just, let go. But with ocd some of those thoughts you latch on to. I think cos you're *really* scared they're true, so you try and find ways to be sure they're not true. Digging that hole when there's no water is really good way of putting it. One way of thinking about ocd is trying to find sureness for things it's not actually possible to be sure about. So you keep trying harder and harder but it doesn't work, so you try harder. So key to treatment is practicing being ok with not knowing. Taking a different approach even though you really want to keep trying your normal approach. Think that's why ERP works, and why it takes a while
airbearairbear
- Date posted
- 3y
I do the same thing.
OcdDude1OcdDude1
- Date posted
- 3y
This is me, sometimes it could’ve literally happened 10 seconds ago
allieandscrupallieandscrup
- Date posted
- 3y
I think in some context confidence and certainty are different and in some places they’re similar. If you aren’t certain something didn’t happen, you may still feel confident it didn’t happen, or you may not feel confident at all it didn’t happen. I’m not quite sure what they mean by “move forward with confidence.” I’ve never heard that phrase in relation to ocd, actually. I guess I’d just say don’t focus on it. Toss it out. You can move forward without feeling confident. Maybe they just mean you’ll feel more confident in your recovery eventually?
Related posts
eugeniodepalo
- Date posted
- 25w
Double standards for certainty?
Do you ever feel like people without OCD have an easy time just saying “you need to accept uncertainty” only because they’re not subject to the same level of fear and anxiety as an OCD sufferer would? I feel like they don’t really accept uncertainty, they’re just naturally more certain about things. For example, if you ask anyone whether they think their loved ones are real or not, they will never answer with “maybe, but I’ll never know for sure”. They’ll just say “of course they are”. Isn’t that what certainty is? For me, as I’ve been suffering from existential OCD most of my adult life, such a question absolutely terrifies me. The mere thought of my loved ones and the world not being real sends me into a spiral of anxiety and depression and never ending certainty-seeking behavior. I just can’t stand the thought of that horrible scenario being true. How can one accept uncertainty about such a thought, when it completely undermines all my values and beliefs and world view? Can non-OCD sufferers really accept those nighmarish scenarios? Am I misunderstanding what ERP and therapy is about?
Anonymous
- Date posted
- 20w
I can’t tell anything real anymore
This situation just happened and I can definitely remember how it went but my brain is telling me otherwise and I know you guys said to sit with the uncertainty but what if the intrusive thought is so bad like disgusting, I can’t sit with that. Maybe it’s false memory but this just happened. I don’t even know how to live with this
Ih8ocd!
- Date posted
- 15w
Uncertainty
Hi All, just wondering if anyone here has any tips with dealing with uncertainty? My OCD centres on my being worried that I have committed a crime and can’t remember doing so, I was out last weekend and my mind is telling me I attacked somebody as I got an intrusive thought to do so when passing them in a bar, my therapist says I need to sit with the uncertainty that maybe I did and maybe I didn’t and have to be ok with that But if the answer is yes then how can I be ok with committing a crime and going to jail??, it’s affecting my relationship and I’m going on holiday on Friday and I’m worried it will ruin that, any tips would be greatly appreciated.
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