I'm sorry about the loss of your friend. Be kind to yourself, I find when there are things going on in my life, OCD can get noisy again. I like to think of them as lapses. I definitely have periods of time, a day or several days where I will have a thought and want to do compulsions. Often, my lapses start with a similar thought, "Maybe it's not OCD" or I may feel that it is a legitimate concern and sometimes it is. Usually, I catch it pretty quickly, recognize that it probably is OCD. Then, I have to make the choice to allow the uncertainty to be there. If I catch the thought and label it as OCD quickly (without doing any compulsions) I find the anxiety and urge to compulse quickly dissipates. If, however, I have performed some compulsions (including rumination) it takes longer for the anxiety and urges to dissipate. I have gone through the cycle enough to know the anxiety will go away :) I think the thing that helped my recovery the most was to realize I was going to be triggered. I was going to have urges to do compulsions. It's a subtle thing, but by accepting the triggering event, truly accepting that it happened, and allowing all the emotions/feelings that follow, I was able to move forward Of course, it doesn't feel good while you're moving forward. There is always doubt and uncertainty. I got better at accepting the doubt and uncertainty, without the shock and anger that a triggering event happened. My last official day of therapy with NOCD was May 1 of this year. I've definitely been triggered several times, but I expect it, try to not react too much, allow time to pass, and keep doing value driven activities with an attitude of "Nope, no thanks OCD, not going back to that lifestyle!!!" Hope this helps, sorry I got so wordy :)
