Dating apps

This is exactly how I feel when using dating apps

Thanks for commenting. I did think about that. I've used it to look at men and create the anxiety now I probably need to do it with women.

@Shaun05 Do you have good response prevention methods to use instead of compulsions? This can make a huge difference

@NOCD Therapist - Rex P. Hi - I just try and sit with the anxiety and not analyse it or question it. This is the difficult bit though because I don't have an actual focus point as this could be seen as avoidance. Do you have any specific prevention methods that you could share please?

@Shaun05 Absolutely. There are many. First, if you don’t mind my asking, are you currently seeing a therapist for OCD or another issue?

@NOCD Therapist - Rex P. Hi - I received therapy two years ago for my OCD which had the same theme and I'm currently on a waiting list to start again. In the meantime I've been looking back to the techniques I learnt from last time. Apart from acceptance one that I remember is having a section of the day dedicated to ruminating. In the lead up to that time I would simply say "I won't deal with it now I deal with it later". Any other tips would be gratefully received. I'm doing ERP by watching video content which puts me at unease and then I try and sit with the anxiety without questioning it. The one I'm struggling with at the moment is checking- I find I keep checking to see if my reaction has changed and of course it hasn't. I do feel that I'm making gradual progress though. Thank you for your time.

@Shaun05 Good to hear your making some progress. Some methods are difficult to explain on text, but the main one I prefer and also use myself, as I have OCD as well, is mindfulness based stress reduction. If you Google mindfulness meditation you will see tons of research on its effectiveness with lowering stress, managing depression and anxiety, sleep issues and many more. The meditation is just an exercise to strengthen one’s ability to be mindful. Mindfulness is basically being aware and present in the moment. Anxiety is always either future based or past based. You’re either anxious about what will happen or something that did happen. To use as a response prevention technique you can just add this to sitting with the anxiety without engaging in compulsions. Response prevention is just that, replacing compulsions with something more productive and that doesn’t become a compulsion itself. To be really effective you want to develop your ability to be mindful. When you are mindful, you are focused on the present moment where anxiety does not exist. Mindfulness meditation is the exercise to strengthen it. You can find many ways of doing mindfulness meditation online and many apps that do guided meditations. I recommend these for starting off. However, mindfulness meditation is nothing more than sitting and observing thoughts and feelings arise in your mind and body and then pass through without attachment to them. Most thoughts that have no significance to us do just that, they arise in our mind and we don’t think much of them and so they pass on through. However, thoughts that we attach fear to such as OCD based thoughts we tend to hold on to because of the fear they create. This feeds them more power to have over us. What I do, is whenever I recognize an obsessive type of thought rise up in my mind, I first became aware of it and acknowledge it as just a thought. The moment you do this you have brought yourself back to the present moment and out of your head. Second thing is to maintain that long enough for the thought to completely pass through. This is done by focusing on your breathing and what meditation helps you develop. Once the thought has passed, I continue on with whatever it was I was doing before. You mentioned having a focus point for response prevention. Welll, observing your breathing is the best. You can’t forget it and leave it at home right. It’s always there. Plus it helps calm you down if done right. I’m sure you’ve noticed that your anxiety can increase when you have nothing to pay attention to or keep your mind occupied. This is what mindfulness does. The breath is an anchor for your thoughts. Again, the process is becoming aware of OCD thoughts or when you’ve been caught up in your head overthinking or obsessing, then focus your attention on your breathing, and continue doing so until the thoughts pass and go back to whatever your were initially doing. Not the easiest to describe by text. There’s a good book called “Get out of your head and onto your life” that teaches this along with other techniques for managing anxiety. That is the ultimate goal. Get out of our heads. We spend too much wasted time in them worrying and analyzing everything looking for an answer that will fix everything. The problem is, that doesn’t exist. OCD is not based on logic. Therefore, we cannot beat it by using logic. We need to take away the attention we give it and let starve to death from not having control over us anymore. Remember thoughts are neither good or bad until we make them one way or the other

@NOCD Therapist - Rex P. First of all thanks a lot for taking the time to offer the advice and support and reply to my messages. That's all I needed, a focal point and breathing is just that. I think I've finally accepted that it's not a quick fix and once you understand this you take the pressure off yourself. Thanks once again - you've been a massive help!

@Shaun05 Glad to hear. And your absolutely right. There is no quick fix. Learning to accept that and stop fighting and resisting it can be very helpful. Best of luck to you