Hey all, I was wondering on what it looks like to you to accept your anxiety and let the intrusive thoughts flow? I’ve heard this a lot but to me this prolongs my anxiety. For context I’m struggling with intrusive thoughts of beastiality and wanting to go watch it and it’s giving me high anxiety, I’m trying to accept it but I feel like it’s prolonging the anxiety.

I've been told a lot that in order to get better, we need to tolerate uncertainty, which yea I get that and I'm trying every day more and more to reach that point!! But I've also been told that we need to tolerate uncertainty AND "our worst fears becoming true". Like how does that work, especially with POCD, OCD about a///ault, SA and all of that? Like that is really difficult for me and I don't really understand how I'm supposed to just shrug stuff like that off

I feel horrible! My anxiety over my obsessive thoughts is 10/10 right now and no matter what I try, I cannot seem to relax my body and mind. I had my 2nd therapy apt this morning. I watched a support group this evening, took a walk, did a 20 minute Prgressive muscle relaxation video, sat in the hottub, nothing is making my thoughts less intense. My stomach has been in knots for days and it’s only been getting worse. I have been trying to accept my anxiety and reason and let my thoughts stay all day they still have me super wound up.

I’ve been really struggling lately with identifying whether I feel a certain way about a situation or people around me or if I’m having intrusive thoughts. Lately, I’ve noticed talking it out with a friend is my first line of defense, sometimes just verbalizing those thoughts can help me hear what I’m saying, and actually start to process how I feel. I do get caught up in making the right decision after that, and it weighs on me heavily, and this is when I struggle to take action or become distant with others that’re in said situation. I try to do more grounding techniques and things that make me happy, I tend to try to focus on something like work or household chores and then relax with a good Gordon Ramsey show hehehe, but I still sit with that confusion of whether this is how I feel? What if it’s just an intrusive thought? What if I’m making the wrong decision or what if I don’t have grounds to feel the way I think I am feeling. This is when talking it out helps for me, but I still always have that inkling that I’m making the wrong decision regardless of what I choose. Does anyone have any coping skills suggestions to aid in this sort of struggle? I feel like it can be quite common to be stuck in those mental gymnastics with your ocd and I’m really curious what you guys do to help process these feelings yourself. I tend to spend time with my pets, watch a show, call a friend, but I’m curious if maybe there’s a recommendation that would work for me that I haven’t tried : ) thank you all for listening!! This is my first community post hehehe