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.
Remember thoughts are just thoughts, feelings are just feelings. We generally cannot control our thoughts or feelings, and even groinal responses. No matter how much you want to, they just happen and they 100% happen more when you’re worried about them happening, instead except it. Say “that’s just my silly thoughts again” or whatever it may be, say oh it’s just that silly thing again. Don’t try to work it out, don’t try to ignore it, allow them to come but don’t solve them. Just expect that they’re there . The best advise I was ever told is OCD is like a drunk person, they start to say silly things such as “omg I’m such a silly person” or “Ong you’re so great you’re the strongest person alive” you don’t actually believe what they say because they’re speaking nonsense, but you most likely will reply with “oh yes you’re right” because you’re trying to just please them, but it doesn’t mean you agree with them. You’re just trying to “shut them up” basically. For example if you kept saying “no I’m not” “not that’s not true” “no don’t be silly” the drunk person would carry on saying “no yes you are” etc etc… this is the same with ocd, the more you try to argue with it and say “no this isn’t true” the more it’ll say “yes it is” however if you just say “yes okay you’re right” (even tho it’s not) it’ll start to show ocd that you aren’t picking a fight anymore, you’re just excepting it and it’ll start to get easier. Trust me you aren’t alone in this. Ocd is scary. But you can do this. Some other techniques that have helped me massively is this… When you’re getting these unwanted thoughts etc, name 5 things you can see around you, 2 things you can smell or 2 things you like the smell of, 3 things you can hear and 5 things you can feel, such as touch your hair etc and describe how it feels, etc. this is a way of just distracting yourself. It’s a very good technique for ocd and I went from getting 20 showed a day due to my ocd down to 3 showers a day…. From using this. It works!!! Or take deep breaths that also helps people You aren’t a bad person, you’re just suffering with ocd and that doesn’t make you a bad person
Hello. I joined this app because I realised my experiences might be due to OCD. I often have these really disgusting and terrible pictures of me becoming someone horrible, doing horrible things to others. These ideas really disturb me, and often in my mind, and physically sometimes, I literally scream quitely to myself, "Shut up!" Over and over until the image goes away, but unless I distract myself with something else immediately after, it comes back and gets worse. I also end up looking back on these thoughts, and being terrified that maybe I am thinking of this because it is what I truly want, so I end up desperately trying to filter my thoughts, and this ends up carrying into something like SO-OCD, even though I am confident that I am a straight male, and there is no evidence that I am not, I keep trying to prove to myself that I am straight to make the thought go away. I also get the fear that after I maybe do something and say something I know I maybe shouldn't have to someone, that when they leave, or I can't find them for a bit, they have gone to commit suicide. Likewise, I also get intrusive thoughts of me killing myself, even though I have no desire to, and this scares me a lot as well. I used to occasionally get these thoughts in chunks like maybe for 2 weeks and then I wouldn't for another few weeks, but they have gotten worse and more frequent this past semester. They are still not bad enough to actively effect my daily life and routine, but they definitely come frequently enough to distract me, disrupt what I'm doing and make me take a break, and it has dramatically effected my mood and mental state lately. Do you guys recommend any ways to deal with this, is this really severe enough to even call OCD? Would love to hear, thanks! ❤️
Hello everyone, I wanted to share something that helped me cope with OCD. I have been in therapy for years and different therapists have recommended I name my OCD like it’s a monster. I always had a hard time doing it. I recently tried a different approach and it’s helped me. I realized this week that my OCD isn’t a monster, it’s a younger/teenage version of me who has been through a lot. She is scared and angry and upset at the world, and when she presents herself within me, I talk to her. I don’t yell and scream at her because she’s already yelling and screaming at me (everyone hates you, this is dirty, etc). Instead I talk to her: “You don’t have to scream, you don’t have to cry, it’s alright, you’re right here and now.” Thought this might help someone. We can get through this!
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