Has anyone beaten/managed health ocd?

@RMO2023 That’s what I’ve been trying to do myself, but I think I let it conflict with my therapy a bit. Like secular therapy means I’m not relying on God enough, and then it triggers me.

@HealingFromOCD ❤️‍🩹 I’ve been working with an ocd therapist outside of NOCD and I think he made it worse tbh. Every kind of positivity he’s told me that I feel it’s basically “reassurance”, including labeling the thoughts as OCD or just saying “I don’t need to worry about it now”

@Recoverer And I’m regretting it slightly

@HealingFromOCD ❤️‍🩹 *.

@HealingFromOCD ❤️‍🩹 It’s getting cooler where I’m at so I’m not able to get outside as much, as I also work from home too lol, but I do need to get into the gym, no doubt. It’s been more so I’ve been trying to hone in on my core beliefs too, like stop people pleasing, trying to understand and quit my unhealthy habits (being on my phone too much, amongst other things) but I think I’m realizing trying to do this on my own may not be possible.

@HealingFromOCD ❤️‍🩹 What kind of exposures are you doing?

@Recoverer I have several different health concern themes, but for instance, I have to say to myself over & over “I have ALS, I have ALS”, then I try to make my anxiety peek, stay with the anxiety, then try to wait til it comes down, all with out doing any compulsions.

@HealingFromOCD ❤️‍🩹 Oooof, yeah that’s one illness o haven’t ironically been triggered by much but definitely a scary one. I think I’m in the spot where I’m too afraid to “admit” it out loud in fear I’m going to make it come true down the road.

@Recoverer Oh I totally get that. It’s like we are superstitious about it. I’ve been there believe me.

@Recoverer What are some of your themes? What are you exposures?

@HealingFromOCD ❤️‍🩹 I’ve dealt with SOOCD and self harm OCD pretty bad but got through them through erp. It felt like those themes were more absolute though, you know? Like it was “you’re a different sexual preference or you’re not” “you want to harm yourself or not” and I was able to navigate around that. With health concern, it’s like I mentioned in my post, it’s something with my heart, then my head, then my lungs, my stomach, my privates, and it’s over cancer, heart attack, stroke, etc. This theme morphs into many different things and it’s hard for me to “out-ERP” it because health concern hits so many areas for me compared to my past themes. What drives it too is my body reacts to health concern with sensations over every body part I get triggered over. I get a sinking feeling in my heart, feel like I have to breathe heavier, I get a dull ache in my head, or I get an upset stomach, and I’m stuck on it. And lately, it’s been memory issues, where I hyper focus on trying to remember a name and it’s like I can’t remember it because I’m trying extra hard TO remember something. And I’m not even 30 yet.

@Nica How have you done it????? Plz help me 😭😭

@Recoverer ERP therapy, mindfulness, having a sense of humor about OCD…

@Nica What kind of exposures did you do?

@Recoverer That really depends on your obsession within the subtype.

@Nica Currently mine is with dementia and my heart

@Erin Causey Yup, anxiety can definitely wreck havoc on your body and even mimic “sensation” almost similar to a real illness. For example, with a fear about memory loss, you’re so focused on it that you become very distracted and can have some short term memory loss because your body is in such a state of flight or fight. It’s kind of like when you get a cut on your finger and you baby it while it heals. You’re going to be extra careful not to have it come in contact with anything that can cause you more pain while it’s healing. As in, if you focus on a body part or symptom a lot, you’ll observe it much more than you normally would and can exacerbate it more in your head.

@Recoverer Yes!!!! My brain has been telling me I’m having a hard time reading and it’s a brain tumor. So every time I read I’m hyper focused. Is that kinda what you mean?

@Erin Causey Where anxiety is concerned, yes. Obviously you have to live with a certain amount of uncertainty in this, because health can be tricky and sometimes the worst case scenario does play out. But you also have a sense inside of you where you’ll know if something is really wrong to where you need to see a doctor.