I just was diagnosed with OCD and I’m still learning about it.. how do you stop from googling your symptoms and convincing yourself that there is something wrong with you? I’ve been doing this a lot recently.. in the past month I’ve convinced myself I’m having a heart attack, a stroke, and a pulmonary embolism. How do I stop this?
For me, it really comes down to learning to better be able to embrace the uncertainty surrounding what I fear. ERP/therapy (consistently) taught me how to do this, and in turn has provided me some relief from the mental suffering caused by OCD. Sometimes, when I’m trying to embrace uncertainty, I use the following statement, “I’m feeling anxious because ——, I can’t be 100% certain that’s not true now or won’t be in the future, I accept that uncertainty and am willing to live with it happily.” I then try to sit with the uncomfortable feelings produced without giving into compulsions. Overtime, with practice and consistent ERP, it got easier and my quality of life improved. I hope this helps in some way!
i experienced the same thoughts and what helped me was limiting my time on my searching app (i have an iphone so mine is safari) also telling my family to watch me and make sure i don’t google anything, or to help me distract myself. i hope this helps ❤️
@butterflyzombieee How do you keep your mind from wandering and convincing yourself that there is something wrong?
@Abump101 honestly, at first it’s really hard and your mind may wander. i don’t know if this counts as a compulsion, but when i was convinced there was something wrong with my heart, i kept the pulse oximeter on my finger. i kept it there until i felt okay to take it off. i did it every time i started to get anxious, and every time my heart rate was normal. i think seeing it as normal every time really helped me overcome it. it helped bring me back to reality. i don’t want to tell you to do this because i don’t know if even me doing this was a good idea, but i just hope you can find a bit of peace from my experience.
If you don’t mind me asking, were you showing any clinical signs of a heart attack? Sage/health can also be a factor. I have something I want to say about this, but I need to gauge whether or not you might be reasonably at risk for a heart attack.
@ecoogan07 Well I’m 24 and I’ve been dealing with chest pains for the past month. I’ve never had any health issues before. I already went to the cardiologist and they said my heart looks healthy and it’s just anxiety. But I can’t get my mind off of the pains in my chest I’m feeling. I still convince myself that there is something the doctor missed and they’re just dismissing it as anxiety
@Abump101 I deal with this as well a LOT. OCD causes me chest pains and then the more I focus on it the more I'm convinced I'm having a heart attack. Something my partner and I have started doing when this happens is going on a walk around the block without my phone. I focus on my breathing exercises and how the physical sensations feel. It helps calm me down and ground me, as well as makes me feel like I'm doing something good for myself and my body.
@aspenthetree Thanks for sharing!! I will definitely have to start doing this
I am doing talk therapy at the moment what's the best way to maybe ask about ocd I keep waiting to be told but nothing
@Anonymous Hi there! I would reach out to NOCD for their 15 minute free call. NOCD has therapist trained to handle OCD. I spent 4 years in therapy before I found NOCD, and it made all the difference! Talk therapy doesn’t work for OCD, and it can make it worse. Here is a link that has questions you can ask your therapist in regard to OCD. It’s important to get the right therapy, I spent 4 years in an ineffective therapy, my life changed dramatically after receiving therapy from a NOCD therapist. I’m here to say, don’t settle, life can be so much better. All the best!
@VGH Thank you so much for this where is the link ❤️
@VGH How much does it cost to do therapy through nocd?
@Abump101 Sorry the link is below in the next response. So the cost depends on your insurance, as well as your therapist that you choose. I also believe there is a sliding scale. It’s been awhile for me, but we did discuss all of this in the 15 minute free call. Another option that isn’t therapy but still very similar, and affordable https://jennaoverbaughlpc.com/empowered
lol, I got so excited for you to get the right help, I forgot to paste the link 🤦♀️ https://iocdf.org/ocd-finding-help/how-to-find-the-right-therapist/
I’m newly diagnosed with ocd. I tend to ruminate on mistakes I’ve made or things I’ve said, I often find myself trying to convince myself I’m not everything my ocd tries to convince me I am. I can’t control my thoughts half the time and it’s exhausting. I’ve laid awake night after night researching various diseases and illnesses trying to convince myself I’m not dying I don’t know where my ocd begins and ends at this point. I think I’ve always had a tendency to over think but the health ocd started more recently. I was diagnosed with nerve damage in my face and arthritis and I think that sparked something in me that makes my mind wonder to no end what else is wrong. Recently I’ve been struggling with the feelings of not being enough or being too much, I’ve been looking back at things I’ve done and said in the past and wonder why people put up with my shit and then I spiral into the inevitable chaos of my overthinking. I’m trying really hard to learn how to control it but I’m sure everyone here can attest as to how painful and aggravating that can be. I just needed to vent.
Hello, I’m in undergrad and recently was diagnosed with OCD. Its a very new diagnosis and it’s both been stressful and relieving to receive it. Looking back at my past I’ve been able to explain a lot of behavioral issues that I thought were simply attributed to me being “crazy”. It’s comforting to know it’s something that others struggle with and that there are set coping mechanisms and treatments for it. There are a number of thing of which I obsessively think about, and it’s been getting really hard to deal with all of them. The most troubling are my thoughts toward suicide. I can’t stop thinking about it. There’s not really any intent, it’s just like my brain has tuned into a frequency that plays in the background at all times. Usually though this leads to more dangerous behaviors, and so I always try to do any preventative work to keep myself safe. As for the asking for advice portion of this post, what do you all do to combat unending loops of thought? Because I’m so new to my diagnosis, my therapist and I haven’t found good strategies for me yet, outside of just labeling those thoughts as OCD in an attempt to delegitimize them.
so this all started not too long ago, for literally no reason at all. but one day i got a random intrusive thought about harming others and it freaked me out bad. since then i’ve been non stop focusing on it and im genuinely scared that i am, or gonna end up like those sick people that have documentaries about them. i’ve never had these types of thoughts before and after me and my mom looked a lot of stuff up we think i have OCD cuz a lot of the stuff it was saying was accurate to me. to anyone in here, does this sound like OCD to you? i’ve always been a nice loving person and these thoughts freak me out so bad and make me feel like i’m a bad gross person. it got to the point i don’t even like looking at myself anymore. i just wanna go back to normal man. another thing to add, when i would explain this to my mom even though i was telling the full truth on how crappy this made me feel it felt like i was lying almost? but i know i wasn’t deep down. i’m just scared that what if i act on something or get in my head too much you know?
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