I am sure that by going to talk therapy that I actually didn't really need to go to I opened up the door for my mental health problems and the OCD that has come from that by talking about my previous grief and trauma and basically re living it all when I had already dealt with most of it in my own way
I've read that Talk Therapy is not effective at treating OCD and actually should be avoided. 4 Things Your OCD Therapist Should Avoid in Treatment https://www.verywellmind.com/4-things-your-therapist-should-avoid-in-ocd-treatment-5194864
Great article
@Joe87 For me personally, medication has helped the best but everyone is different. I feel like a broken record but I've been dealing with OCD for 30+ years and I personally find that higher levels of medication (200mg of zoloft for me) has helped tremendously. I've actually never done therapy but that's just a personal choice for me. They say the gold standard is ERP and medication for treating OCD. Hope this helps. God bless.
I learned a lot from talk therapy but for my Rocd it made it worse because I thought I was following my "intuition" but it was actually a compulsion to break up and check and stuff like that
Yes that makes sense. I have learnt and uncovered some things from talk therapy that I don't think I would of otherwise but I feel like for the few positive things it has given me and by that I really mean a few things it has also taken away a thousand positive things if that makes any sense?
@Joe87 I don't know, maybe its your words that make me think that this could be some sort of rumination of yours. You don't really know for a fact how it would have been, it's uncertain. Maybe your OCD wants you to ruminate on this topic, on the what if? In the end there are a lot of factors that come into play whether or not therapy will help us. It's not just dependent on one thing, e.g. the type of therapy but also the timing, the therapist, your own motivation and resources to succeed
@ROCDmensch I get what you're saying and I think the worst thing about OCD is that you can get to a point with it where you don't know if what you're thinking or feeling is a genuine thought and emotion that requires action or whether to just call it OCD. Like surely theres such a thing as positive rumination where you sit and think about nice things from your past or imagining nice things that you want in your future....some people call it day dreaming but its not too different to rumination if you think about it other than it's positive and makes you feel good. Does that make any sense Regarding intrusive thoughts I believe that everybody gets these and main differencd between a person with OCD and someone without OCD is that someone without will just recognise it as an intrusive thought and carry on with there day without it bothering them much further. I started getting intrusive thoughts for a few years before I started doing compulsions and sometimes they were horrible and even made me start to think a bit about 'why the hell have I just thought that' but the big difference back then is I was able to recognise it as an intrusive thought and quickly stop thinking about why I had the thought. I believe that by going to talk therapy it opened up the door to explore 'why I occasionally get these thoughts' rather than 'oh that was a horrible thought that came from nowhere, its more than likely because I have expererienced trauma and rather than thinking anymore about it I will just carry on with my day' I hope I've made some sense with that đ
It was my NOCD/ERP therapist that suggested I see a talk therapist. Iâm glad I did because of all the mental baggage I was carrying at the time. It interfered with the ERP therapy. I stressed to the talk therapist not to give reassurances when we went into my OCD issues (aka perseverance of thoughts). Talk therapy does have its place.
That's interesting can I aso whereabouts you are in recovery now then?
Yep, thatâs why itâs never recommended to do talk therapy. Actually, talk therapy doesnât help a lot of thingsâŚ
Thanks nica I have read quite a lot of your posts and replies to certain threads and I have to say that you talk a lot of sense on the subject of OCD and it seems like you are in quite a good place with your recovery from it. Can I ask you do you think that the decision to do compulsions is a choice? I ask that as I am finally starting to feel that I am beginnimg to work out how to do this and that i just need to make the decision and actually say to myself 'right enough is enough I am not going to do these rituals/compulsions anymore' and although it will be really uncomfortable at first if I persevere for long enough like a whole day followed by another whole day etc etc that eventually the anxiety and uncomfortable feeling will subside
@Joe87 The problem I have nica is whenever I have tried that in the past the longest I have lasted is about 15 mins and then I end up doing a ritual again becaise everything feels so weird and uncomfortable. Of course when this happens the cycle of self hatred, self condemnation and dissapointed just starts all over again. I am really beginning to see that my whole life is at stake here now though and feel like if I can just do a whole day followed by another whole day and another whole day that after so many days I will be feeling so much better. Maybe not completpey curee but better
@Joe87 Thank you! I do suggest ERP as that is the golden standard. And then if you have other mental illnesses, you should definitely seek a specialist for that too. I had to do trauma therapy first for my PTSD and then I did ERP for my OCD. I was doing talk therapy and it made it all worse, sadly đ
@Joe87 For me, I had a special sort of behaviour therapy which is called "schema therapy" which also includes a lot of radical acceptance/unconditional self acceptance ideas. It helped me a lot with my self esteem not as much with OCD though. I did erp on my own afterwards and it helped a lot. But I think eventhough erp is the "golden standard" it's not the only thing that helps you recover. You need to overcome irrational beliefs and accept yourself. Self compassion is a big part of recovery I think.
@Nica Nica would you say that the below is a form of practising ERP? Saying to myself 'okay this thought and feeling that I have or am having is horrible and makes me feel uncomfortable but it's there and it isn't going anywhere' 'maybe it's true and maybe it's not but I am not going to achieve anything by trying to work out if it is or not and nor am I going to achieve anything by doing compulsions' 'the thought is there but I am going to continue with my day'
@Joe87 Youâve described the experience very well. Itâs so hard to sit in this intense discomfort for prolonged periods of time but I guess thatâs what it takes. I guess knowing youâre not alone can help!
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Does erp work for you?
I did talk therapy for a year prior to being diagnosed OCD. It helped me acknowledge the impact certain experiences have had on me, but it definitely didnât help me move forward or overcome the mental/emotional road blocks I experience, most of which I think comes from OCD.
I feel like I've been doing good with trying to get better. Sticking to therapy as much as I can (with ups and downs). But I just feel somehow more blue than ever. Anyone else feel like that? My self talk is such a drag. Im trying to shake it.
I started using chatgpt for mental health advices and at first it was really helpful, I learned alot but then it made me drown in my emotions. I asked alot about acceptance, what is it how I do it and always it made me sit and stay with my emotions which made me hyper aware of them which made them stronger. But if i told him that he said I should focus on something else. But then I was avoiding it... not sure if its me or its really not helpful. Also I made that bad decision that I started asking about my suicidal ocd and be told me i might want to escape from the pain, not with death but my mind jumps to suicide cause it wants an escape, and this really scared me to a point that I was lying on the floor crying... Since im doing what it tells me i keep feeling bad. This whole week was a disaster, I know the "its normal to feel worse when you start to accept" well this is not like that, if it is then I wont recover cause this is brutal... the physical symptoms were worse then when i was fighting... so overall maybe it helped me but Im thinking of stopping talking with it cause it made my mental health worse. I rely on myself.
I had an "OCD episode" several months back from NOT doing the compulsion. Or at least not "resolving" / dealing with the intrusive thought. What if "Not" dealing with it creates an issue that never subsides or makes you worse? This sounds dramatic, but I literally feel and believe like I was psychologically traumatized by not doing a compulsion --- which for me has been ruminating and "problem solving" to "deal" with whatever "challenge" / intrusive thought comes up. When I wasn't able to "deal" with it properly in a kind of stalemate, the "anxiety" last for at least a month. And it was severe -- brain fog, sundowning, cognitive difficulties, I think maybe even disassociation. You could even call it a mental breakdown and burnout (from OCD itself). Even went to a neurologist 'cause I think thought there was brain damage or some sht. I'm STILL recovery from that. I feel worse cognitively, and even think it that episode pushed me into some type of clinical depression. So isn't that lovely that "not dealing with the OCD / not doing the compulsion" is actually a shtty choice (for me) as well.
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