Silly girl
- Date posted
- 6y ago
@Dee@Dee
- Date posted
- 6y ago
Psychologist is super helpful, meds are also good as well helps lessen the symptoms. But you must continue to do cbt or erp to get better, meds are a control but not a solution if that makes sense. Like if you decided to stop taking them it would pop right back up without therapy techniques and even then ocd is chronic so it doesn’t go away but the more tools you learn to manage it and attack it the better. I’ve found detaching yourself from your thought that upsets you can be helpful.
Silly girlSilly girl
- Date posted
- 6y ago
I’m not currently on any meds and would like to avoid them if I can. How do you detach yourself from your thoughts?
@Dee@Dee
- Date posted
- 6y ago
What is exacerbating the anxiety is your reaction to your thoughts. You think something, bells go off your body goes into overdrive and you break that thought apart piece my piece or push it away or argue with it... I think it’s helpful to acknowledge the thought, simply label it (let’s say you have a theme of a fear, then label that), do not dive in, do not judge it. Notice the thought and then consciously try to let it go. Allow yourself to have the thought. No thought as good or bad. You can’t control your thoughts.. but you can control your reaction to your thought. The more you become alarmed by it the body remembers that response and it causes pattern of thinking. But what if you broke that pattern? The idea is that you become bored or disinterested in that thought, you don’t allow it to mean something anymore you just observe it as it is. A therapist said once: you can’t be bored and scared at the same time. And that is how you trick you brain or at least the idea of how it should work. Easier said than done... I like to imagine a ship setting sail and just drifting across the ocean whatever thought is bothering me that is printing or labeled on the sail, then I imagine the sail boat drifting away. I’m not attaching a meaning to the label or judging it or diving in, I’m simply just giving it a label. This also helps in recognizing your ocd when it’s happening because most people have themes so once you catch yourself with similar labels then you can see a pattern occurring.
@Dee@Dee
- Date posted
- 6y ago
There is an app called Calm, it has a subsection called anxiety. These are guided meditations, but they discuss noting thoughts and various other techniques. Essentially your brain gets stuck on a loop and goes through whatever synapses pattern that is engrained the most, the idea with mindfulness and other therapy techniques like cbt and epr is to break that pattern of thinking by shifting your perspective and reaction. Remember that facts are facts, and anything beyond that are just stories we tell our selves... Don’t let this ocd scare you, you can do it. I understand your desire to not take medication I’ve been like that on and off for various years. Lately I’ve been off for a year and resistant though might go back on it. I prefer things natural and learning to manage without medication but I think it just depends on your quality of life as to what you decide. Personally for me I’ve noticed it getting worse since a few big transitions in my life. I think you should do what works best for you, cbt and epr and the leading techniques. Meds just help maintain. Also I read something about milk thistle being really effective but I couldn’t find much evidence to back that claim up. I’m sure there are different things out there. I’ve also tried acupuncture and I found that to be helpful in the short term.
madmad
- Date posted
- 6y ago
I’ve been feeling the same way. You have to take it day by day. Unfortunately, it’s not something you can control over night. Intrusive thoughts are the worse, but as long as you know you’d never act upon those thoughts then you’re taking a step in the right direction. Within time you’ll start seeing changes! Therapy is a great start, and I’d suggest seeing your doctor to talk about starting medication, if you’re comfortable with that. Another great outlet is Support Groups! I have an OCD Support Group that has sessions the first Wednesday of every month. Talking to others face to face who struggle with the same illness will help you feel less alone during this journey. Wishing you the best! :)
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Solrose
- Date posted
- 22w ago
Delusional thoughts - scared. Please read.
Hi everyone. I’m going through it at the moment. Any advice would be appreciated. I posted this before, but I really need to vent about this again. Feeling really anxious. I would just like to hear more opinions and advice please. So my main theme of OCD is harm related, especially towards my mom. I live with my mom and I love her dearly, and she loves me as well. We’re best friends and have been close my whole life. I was diagnosed with ocd and generalized anxiety disorder at 15 years old, and I’m 32 now. Got back into therapy this year due to flare up of my ocd. Back in July I had the thought “what if my mom wants to hurt me?” Which led to thoughts that she is going to hurt me in my sleep or plotting against me. Also just other crazy thoughts like what if she’s secretly a killer or something. My mom is one of the kindest people I know, gentle and polite to everyone she meets so to have these kinds of thoughts just seems too bizarre for ocd. They seem almost delusions. There were also urged to like barricade my door at night so she couldn’t get in, which I never did of course but the thought to even do that and feeling like I wanted to freaked me out. I even had the thought like “maybe I should report her to the police.” It just sounds crazy deep down, but those thoughts and fears feel so real at times. It just seems to lead to more paranoid type thoughts and it freaks me out. Fast forward and the thoughts went away, but the past two weeks or so they came back and I have been thinking them on and off. They give me anxiety, which then makes me think I believe them. Like if I’m scared of the thoughts, that means I believe them. I wonder a lot if I really believe them or not. I know I truly don’t deep down, I never once thought like this before, but the feelings and doubt make it feel real. I have told all of this to my mom and she understands me, but I feel guilt and shame as well to have these thoughts. I want to get back into seeing a psychiatrist again since it has been 15 years without any adjustments to my medication, but ai’m terrified of seeing someone new and then diagnosing me with schizophrenia or think I’m experiencing psychosis due to how delusional these thoughts sound. I’m scared to be misdiagnosed, even though I have always just been diagnosed with ocd. But maybe I have changed… I hate these thoughts and I just worry they’re too bizarre for ocd. If this isn’t something else. I’m scared ERP won’t help with this or that it will make it worse, prolonging me from getting different help that I may need instead. Thank you for reading all of this.
FairyWithaKnife
- Date posted
- 19w ago
I just don't know
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.
nae nae
- Date posted
- 12w ago
I'm sorry. Just need to vent. :(
This might contain triggering content, but I'm also wondering if others have dealt with this similar thought, and if so, how to deal with it? Overall, I've been doing so well these past few days. I'm able to eat again, which I hadn't been able to do because of how much anxiety I'd been experiencing. I'm spending time around loved ones and not just rotting in my room, and I've been able to wake up without immediately being bombarded by intrusive thoughts. When things first got really bad, I'd wake my mom up every night for reassurance, but I haven't done that in a while either. I'm really proud of myself, but there's still this nagging thought in my mind... While looking through others posts on here, hoping to find advice that'd fit my situation, I ended up making things worse. Someone mentioned how they had a fear that they'd purposely search for illegal content (related to POCD). I panicked, and "what ifs" flooded my thoughts. "What if the intrusive thoughts affect who I am as a person, and I do that?" I'm terrified that I'll search for those things, which I know means I wouldn't do it. But then, another person on here said they'd actually looked for those things, and that freaked me out even more. Does that mean it's possible for that to happen to me? I don't want to do that, but I keep having intrusive thoughts surrounding it. I've been doing so well these past few days. I'm just... stuck. I don't know what to do. I've spoken with other people who have the same fears, but how do I manage this? It's not something I've even thought about before seeing those posts. I've been practicing accepting the uncertainty, but I'm really struggling with this one. I hate this. This morning, I woke up, and the intrusive thoughts were back. It's just disheartening.
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