Does anyone make little bets with themselves to ease their anxiety ? For example I’ll be driving and I’ll say “if I make this green light without it turning yellow I’m not my intrusive thoughts”
I usually do it when running up the stairs while something is in the background. Like if somebody is watching TV, and the into comes on, I tell myself “if I don’t make it up the stairs by the time the intro is over, something bad will happen”
I do that I usually do it for luck or something but trying not to
In the beginning yes. OCD at its finest the big jerk.
I've made deals with myself like ok u r only allowed to do this thing 3 more times or something bad will happen. It's like I'm trying to stop myself doing compulsions but then it back fires cuz then if I want to do it again I freak out cuz I can't cuz then I'm afraid something bad will happen so then I make new rules
Compulsions are never really satisfied. I had a really stupid nagging harm thought that I knew I should just let go of. I was tired and said ok just check one time to shut it up. Guess what, I checked more than once because it didn’t shut up. I felt bad because I caved in but also I felt reassured that checking in the first place was not going to work and I kinda knew that. Lesson learned. Always try to resist compulsions, they are unnecessary and don’t work for ocd.
Why is this a thing?
I find if I am legitimately in a rush and preoccupied and check if I locked a door since I truly don’t remember checking once is sufficient. With ocd normally those intrusive thoughts don’t represent real threats and they usually make us anxious. When you do a compulsion we tell our brain this will make the anxiety go away, but this is only a temporary relief. My guess is that compulsions are really a faulty fix and that realizing that intrusive thoughts are just thoughts that can come with anxiety teaches your brain there is no threat.
@ivrec It just feels like such a real threat and due to all the compulsions I do the fear has grown.
How do yall handle intrusive thoughts !? I never realized that was a thing I think I’ve been dealing with this sense I was in elementary school I remember getting on the bus and had the the worry my mom was gonna get in an accident and it’s just gone from there
sometimes, to try and prove my fear wrong i’ll be like “ okay, let me think of this REALISTICALLY. would i REALISTICALLY feel this way or do this thing? “ then i come up with scenarios in my head on how i think i would realistically ( or logically ) do something but then my feelings go against that thing i thought of then i start getting anxiety and start to fear that i would actually want my fear to happen or that i’d feel a certain way that proves my fear true. it’s basically just checking how i feel about something i think of to try and prove my fear wrong, checking my emotions or checking how i think i’d realistically feel towards it.. but then i may react “ unrealistically “ it goes wrong and i freak out
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? 😅
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