- Date posted
- 5y ago
- Date posted
- 5y ago
I would recommend try to let yourself believe what you want to believe... what my therapist told me to do is remind myself there is a chance of developing a crazy illness BUT there is a higher chance that it wont happen. OCD is all about not knowing anything FOR SURE.
- Date posted
- 5y ago
I guess my main worry is that my life will be gripped by a crippling illness and I won’t be able to do all the things that I want to do in my life and I won’t be able to give my son a good life
- Date posted
- 5y ago
I had this exact same problem. I know how paralyzing it can be and how hopeless you must feel. The only thing that really helped me get over it was doing exposure response prevention therapy. I would definitely recommend going to an ERP specialist, but if you don’t have access to that, the OCD workbook is really good. You can get it on Amazon for super cheap!
- Date posted
- 5y ago
Thank you both for the support. Ellie what did you do for ERP? I tried doing a loop tape erp with my therapist but it didn’t work because I wouldn’t get anxious listening to the tape. Most of the time I know my OCD is irrational which makes the erp really hard because I can’t force myself to be anxious it’s only in the heat of the moment of anxiety that It feels real
- Date posted
- 5y ago
It can be hard to do erp on mental rituals sometimes for the reason you describe. But what you can do is erp when the anxiety strikes. Just let the thoughts be there and the anxiety be there without engaging the content of the thoughts. Feeling anxiety is an exposure.
- Date posted
- 5y ago
The truth is you cant be certain you will or wilk nit get some horrible illness. But with ocd you can realize youve spebt years if your life wondering will I get sick and not living in the moment. Even if yo u do get sick being worried about it before wont have helped so its just a compulsion and at the end of the day a waste of time. A lot of time. Learning mindfullness skills and acceptance and commitment therapy can complement erp treatment as well for ocd. Id recommend checking them out.
- Date posted
- 5y ago
I did a lot of loop tapes consistently. I would set a timer on my phone and do them every thirty minutes for a few days. It works for me but I’m sure it might not be the same for everyone. I think another good method is to sit with the thoughts exactly phisch said and don’t try to avoid them. The loop tips for me were essentially allowing myself to think about being schizophrenic consistently throughout the day. I ultimately got bored with the thought and I don’t have as much anxiety when I think about it now
Related posts
- Date posted
- 24w ago
I've gotten diagnosed with OCD and I'm in therapy. But I'm worried that I don't have OCD/that I got misdiagnosed. And recently I'm worried that I've just gotten myself into a habit of thinking of dirty minded or just plain old terrible things after I see/hear certain things because I feel like I need to prove I have OCD or else I'm faking(sometimes this goes away). Or that I'm just mimicking symptoms of ocd to cope with real problems I may have and that im just really deep into denial. I don't know...I'm just so tired. I mean, what if I really am what I think I am and this is my brains only way of coping? I don't even really feel anything towards most of the thoughts anymore either I just know they go against my values and I don't want them. I don't know if that's because I'm so mentally exhausted, I just don't care, or that the thoughts are true and I'm comfortable with them.
- Date posted
- 13w ago
I struggle so bad with intrusive thoughts. They can be so bad that I'll cry because I KNOW that's not how I feel or want to do. (Too embarrassed to say what they're about) I'll constantly try to figure out why I have them, and constantly figure out what they mean, causing me to constantly circle around and around. I had to get on anxeity meds, which helped a little but the thoughts still happen. How do you help yourself with this? How do you know that you're just not some physcopath? 😅
- Date posted
- 13w ago
My last and almost life long theme/sub-theme largely subsided recently and my ocd felt like it wasn’t even an issue. Then I went on winter break from uni and being alone made my mind come up with a whole new topic to obsess over. TLDR on my fears, my advisor wouldn’t email me back for a while about signing up for classes so my mind started to worry “what if he doesn’t in time and you can’t enroll this semester and you lose this whole life you just built and all these new friends” So when that issue was resolved my mind found other scarier ways I could be uprooted from my current life and friends that I’ve grown so attached to. Then my mind remembered back when I was struggling with false memories and scrupulosity and I essentially made a post on a forum 2 and a half years ago saying I did something or was convinced I did something that I never actually did. Now I’ve been spiraling about someone finding it reporting me and I either get seen as a horrible person or arrested or something over something I never actually did but “admitted” to out of fear of going to hell. My mind won’t let it go and keeps finding new reasons for it to be “valid” “logical” or even inevitable. I feel like it’s just hanging over my head and I can never rest easy. Especially when I try to focus on my daily tasks or plan for the future I get this horrible flair up of “why plan for the future when this could come back in that future and you get uprooted from all of it” my mind won’t rest without certainty being uprooted won’t happen but certainty doesn’t exist, at least not with ocd. This sucks and I miss being care free.
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