A lot of us go through horrible experiences with our OCD day-to-day to the point of we’re literally living in fear. Does anyone have any tips on how to self-soothe when your OCD is loud?
You can’t. Literally the only answer is to sit with it. You have to be uncomfortable. You have to allow yourself to be uncomfortable. It’s how your Brain heals from this. You’re gna have bad days where it’s loud and you question everything but all you can do is let it be and not argue with it until it passes. It sucks 1000 percent, but it’s the only Sure way to get through it.
The best advice I’ve ever gotten for getting through it is when you have a bad day is to tell yourself “ ok it’s practice time” and sit with it.
Yes I do! 🫶 Check out my most recent post, that has a good self soothing technique on it. Here are some others: - tell yourself you’re going to sit and set a timer for one minute and just breathe. Focus on the sounds around you, the feeling of you sitting on the ground, your breath, as best you can. - Keep a feelings journal. In order to avoid reassurance, focus on the feelings you had that day - and validating those rather than telling yourself whether your fears are true or not. Here’s something good to say to yourself: “I can’t tell you whether or not your fears are true.. but I am always here for you. I know how hard today has been for you, and I love you” - Understanding and having compassion for our intrusive thoughts. If you can trace it back to the source - for example, with my HOCD my real fear was that I’d never find love. So I decided to direct love to that part of myself - that was so afraid she’d never find love that she spent endless hours questioning her sexuality to try and figure it out. So when I’d get an intrusive thought about that, instead of freaking out - I’d say “I can’t tell you if that’s true or not. But I know that you are deserving of love and will find it one day”. Validating the feelings, but not reassuring against the fears - is the key. (This can be tricky to avoid reassurance - I wasn’t getting OCD thoughts about never finding love so I knew this was okay. But be careful here.) or you can say “I understand. It’s hard to not know whether this is true or not.” - other things: take care of your physical health needs. Doing that gives you something else to focus on, other than the thoughts. This is a good way of practicing self compassion. Especially when dealing with really rough intrusive thoughts - sometimes we may feel disgusted by ourselves or even nauseous. But here it’s even more important to be kind to ourselves - because we’re dealing with heightened OCD. Hope these help. ❤️
Yes it’s important to just let it be until it passes on its own, but I’d also say that it’s totally ok to take extra care of yourself on the harder days. Whatever brings you joy and peace and is fun, don’t be afraid to do those things. You just want to be careful that self-soothing doesn’t turn into a compulsion, otherwise I think it’s ok to do things that you enjoy to help healthfully re-direct your attention from OCD. Don’t stop living your life because of ocd.
Does anyone have any tips/calm down routine/ mental health ritual they do for days where ocd is bad? I’d love some tips.
Hey guys. So I just had a pretty big relapse in my ocd, the first one since I started going to therapy. At first it was hard to accept that I had gone back to old patterns, but I’m trying to look at it as a chance to do better for myself this time. A chance to handle it with compassion, kindness and regard for myself rather than the disgust and shame I felt during my first big ocd episode. Here are some things I’ve been doing that have helped: Epsom salt baths- what I’ve realized is that it doesn’t serve me to be anxious all the time. I need to calm my body down so I can feel hunger, and have moments of clarity. And these baths help a lot - the magnesium really helps relax and give you a moment to be comfortable in your body. Remember to eat and drink enough water. Right now, your mind is running wild and your body is responding as if it’s in fight or flight mode- make sure you’re taking care of yourself. Gratitude practice- I know that it can seem really hard to find the positive during a really intense OCD episode. But what I’ve found is that if I make the effort to recognize the good in my life, even if it’s as small as “I had the money to buy myself some epsom salts to take care of myself” or “I’m grateful for that sunset I just saw” has helped me keep my spirits more alive even if my brain wants to pull me into rumination. Crying - let yourself have a release. One thing I like to do is imagine my mom or an older version of myself coming in the room and comforting me. It helps to imagine what you would say to a loved one that just had the day you had. For example: if my head really hurts from ruminating all day - I’ll take the time to drink water and take some medicine. Then I’ll think about what I would say to someone who dealt with the stress, anxiety, and rumination that I just had that day. Well a lot of times (and we want to stay away from reassurance with this) I’ll say to myself “I can’t tell you whether or not your obsessions are true. But I can tell you that I love you and I’m here for you no matter what.” And I find this is a great way of reinforcing your relationship with self as you learn to trust your ability to navigate difficult flare ups. Holding your own hand, being the support you need, can make the world of a difference. Doing exposures in real life. I’ve found that doing exposures have made me feel empowered again, even if that only lasts for a little bit. I’ve found that not planning exposures as much and just going about my life saying “Right now, what would I do if I didn’t have ocd?” Or being spontaneous anyways even if it feels uncomfortable has helped. Look objectively at your day. Are you spending two hours laying in bed in the morning before you get up? Maybe eliminating that or paring it down intentionally will help you reduce rumination. Taking supplements - fish oil, b6 vitamin, vitamin c, vitamin d are all ones I take every day and help keep my immune system up and my brain functioning a bit better. Keep a feelings journal. Staying in touch with your emotions is really important. I’ve found it to really help me break out of ocd as I can say to it “I hear you, OCD. But my inner child is really sad right now, and I’m going to direct my attention towards her rather than engage in rumination.” At the end of the day we can’t help what our brains might want to do. They might want to ruminate, mentally review, make us afraid and anxious and have irrational doubts. But we can control the ways that we treat ourselves, and what we direct our attention towards. May we direct our attention towards the good in our lives, towards care and love and moments of peace, because that will start to being more of that in. You know what they say “What you focus on gets bigger”. And I would say that especially if you are dealing with ocd - you deserve even more love and compassion - and hopefully I’ve been able to give you some tips that might help foster that as well. Feel free to add your own methods of dealing with OCD below. And hey, to anyone struggling through their own relapse right now - I get it. It sucks. But it’s also within your control to make it better - and I believe in you. I’m so proud of anyone out there fighting ocd right now. Fighting for the big, beautiful life that you deserve. Stay strong ❤️ You can do this.
-just get through this next hour (or break it down even smaller, “next 5 minutes”) breaking down your day into bite size time increments makes getting through a tough day feel more doable and I think, helps to prolong or entirely prevent you from a compulsive behavior you’re considering doing -View getting through a tough moment as entering “challenge mode” you are the first person in a video game, a badass hero in a movie, you can handle the anxiety and discomfort and pain like a champ!!! Your city is counting on you! -preferably with the help of a therapist to guide you…Lean in a little then disengage. Whatever it is you’re afraid of, set a timer for 5 min to dive into that fear and take it as far as you can in your mind, imagine the worst case scenarios if your fear comes true, then after the timers up, disengage with the obsession while still welcoming the unpleasant feelings and lingering what if’s, but ultimately moving on with your day. (If you have somatic OCD, focus on that sensation hard for 5 minutes) -if you’re having a sh*t day, focus on how you can make the day better for others. Be mindful of this potentially becoming a compulsion…a way for you to try and completely escape your unwanted thoughts and feelings…rather, continue to welcome them while doing things to make others feel good. -remember that everyone’s got struggles and you’re not alone❤️ go live your life, unconditionally. You’ll feel how you feel, it’ll go however it’ll go. You can handle anything.
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