A lot of people are saying that reassurance isn’t beneficial for OCD recovery because reassuring yourself is only going to make it worse. I’ve done CBT in the past but I’m willing to try ERP with a telehealth specialist that practices the therapy method that I’m looking for. Again, how does one not do reassurance in order to fully recover from OCD?
The Paradoxical Attitude Necessary to Overcome Anxiety When working on overcoming your Anxiety Disorder, you will see that the normal, common-sense ways of coping with “feelings’ don’t work. In general, we believe that we do best by following our feelings, using our emotions to guide our actions in life. In contrast, we need to learn NOT to follow what our anxiety is telling us. I would like you to thing of anxiety as a “pseudo-emotion;” often it is best to try to do the opposite of what your anxious feelings are telling you to do. Paradoxes in the Treatment of Anxiety When working on overcoming your anxiety disorder, you will see that the normal, “common-sense” ways of coping with it don’t work. I encourage you to think as anxiety as a “pseudo-feeling;” often it is best to try to do the opposite of what you are initially tempted to do. When dealing with anxiety, don’t trust your feelings. Anxiety is a great bluffer, and will tell you that you are in danger, when you are perfectly safe. When confronting anxiety, less is more. Attempts to avoid anxiety make it stronger The energy used to fight anxiety adds to it’s intensity. Short-term anxiety reduction leads to long-term anxiety increase. Reduction of anxiety in the future requires an acceptance of increased anxiety in the present. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. Perfectionism, the need to avoid mistakes and the unwillingness to allow the feelings of awkwardness that accompany new activities–these all increase anxiety. Resistance Creates Persistence – the more you are able to accept your anxiety and allow it to be, the more quickly it will start to subside. Once you have labelled your fear as anxiety, your job is to accept and allow those feelings. Accept Anxious Feelings Try not to avoid or push away the feelings. Try not to beat yourself up because you are feeling anxious feelings. Think of them as an “allergy” to your anxiety triggers Try not to get angry at yourself, be disappointed at yourself, or feel like a failure because you are feeling anxious feelings. Remember, you are sensitized. This is not a test, nor a measure of how good or successful you are as a person. Allow Anxious Feelings Try not to run away from the feelings, or fight them off. Try to be gentle to yourself. When you are feeling anxiety, try to be as kind to yourself as you would be to a good friend. Fight the BEHAVIOR of avoidance and escape. Try not to flee. Try not to avoid. Try to be disciplined. Remember that you are allowing the feeling to be, but fighting what the feelings are telling you to do. This requires courage. This requires both gentleness and discipline. Remember that the best thing to do when you feel anxiety is also the hardest. The best way to cope with anxiety is to do nothing. Try to float with the feelings while you let time pass.
From Dr. Martin Seif’s article: https://drmartinseif.com/paradoxical-attitude/
I think support is different than reassurance. Support is encouraged, feeling like you have a community. I go to the treatmyocd support groups (they’re free). These support groups allow you to vent without anyone trying to fix your problems. They also have constructive helpful conversations. Reassurance seeking is a compulsion. For me, I will constantly research for health ocd to make sure that I’m okay. It can also look like asking someone to tell you that you’re fine. This turns into a cycle, and it’s not allowing you to get better. This behavior is enforcing the feelings of fear.
Hi! I've been on my OCD healing journey for about half a year and I have seen a lot of success. I'm reaching out for advice, I am very willing to do exposures because I know the more I do them, the more I get better, but I struggle with the response prevention part. I don't know how to control my brain when it comes to facing the fears especially since most of my compulsions are mental. I can tell myself the typical things "I am okay with the uncertainty of this happening", etc. but its like my brain doesn't believe them. I've been stuck in this disconnect for a while and would love advice you have heard from a therapist or learned that has really help you.
I told my OCD group about NOCD and one of the members brought up that this app, despite its intent to create a safe community for sharing OCD experiences could potentially be used for reassurance seeking, thus contributing to compulsions. I’ve noticed some posts about people venting and asking for reassurance and I wonder the same thing.
I had just posted a summary of ERP for a group member, and I thought it might be useful for everybody. Here it is below (with a little extra added)…. ERP therapy is researched-based. Most other therapies don’t work. There have been people who have been literally stuck in their houses (from their OCD) who gained their lives back through ERP therapy. NOCD does ERP therapy exclusively. You can find it in other places too, but you have to ask around. There are two tenants of ERP therapy: The first one has to do with the repetitive thoughts inside our heads. These thoughts are actually defined as “obsessions”. You are not supposed to do anything with the obsessions. You are supposed to let them run through your head freely, without trying to fix them or stop them. Imagine a tree planted by a river. The leaves fall off and float down the river. You can see the leaves falling, but you don’t try to stop them or pick them up. You don’t try to fix them. You just let them float away. This is really important to do with your obsessive thoughts. The more you try to fight them off, the worse they get. I used to have blasphemous sentences running in my head 24/7. I felt like I had to put a “not” next to each sentence in order to “fix” it. But this just took hours of my time every day, and it was very scary, because I was worried that if I messed up, that I would go to hell. It was very freeing to learn later that I could just let those sentences run freely through my head without trying to fix them. The second part of ERP therapy is all about “denying your compulsions.” Every time OCD tells you that if you don’t do things a certain way that something really bad will happen, that is a compulsion. Once you recognize what your compulsions are, ERP therapy will have you practice stopping doing all of those things. For some people, that will mean stopping washing their hands or touching lights switches or, in my case, putting “fixing” words in their head. Compulsions are safety behaviors. During ERP therapy, you will practice stopping engaging with safety behaviors. All this is very hard to do and scary, so during therapy you will be given tools to help you deal with the fear. Often ERP therapy will take people from being non-functional to functional. I highly recommend it. ————————————————- PITFALL #1: After you have been doing ERP for a while and become somewhat successful, the OCD will try subtle little tricks to bring you down again. The first one is to tell you that your thoughts are REAL and not OCD, and therefore you can’t apply ERP therapy. Don’t fall for this trick! All thoughts are just thoughts. They are all meaningless. Don’t try to figure out what is real and what is OCD. Just treat all thoughts with ERP therapy. PITFALL #2: The second pitfall is that OCD will tell you that you can’t move forward unless you have absolute certainty that you will be safe. Hate to tell you this, folks, but there is no certainty in life. You will never know for SURE that you or your loved ones will be “safe” from the OCD rules. Therefore, you have to move forward in the uncertainty. It’s hard, but it gets easier with time and practice. We got this, guys !!!!!!
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