- Date posted
- 1y
Strategies to manage OCD
Hey everyone, I’m still pretty new to OCD and was wondering if anyone has any strategies that help reduce OCD symptoms that are not compulsive.
Hey everyone, I’m still pretty new to OCD and was wondering if anyone has any strategies that help reduce OCD symptoms that are not compulsive.
Hey, glad you're here, there is a ton of great info here as well as on NOCD's YouTube channel. What helped me initially, and still today, is I pay attention to my behavior. Am I in my head trying to figure something out, solve a problem, make my self feel better or certain? If I am, I label it OCD rumination which is a compulsion. Then I redirect my attention to something I value (maybe something small like playing with my dog or spending time with family). Every time the thought pops back up, I label it OCD rumination and then redirect my attention again. I just keep redirecting my attention and not engaging. If the behavior I notice is not in my head but something I'm physically doing like asking for reassurance, I also label that "OCD reassurance seeking" and again I keep redirecting my attention to something I value. I know it's a lot, but keep reaching out, it gets easier with time and practice. Have you reached out to NOCD for therapy? Therapy with a specialist trained to deal with OCD is what gave me the tools to recover. Take care!
@VGH Thank you for the feedback! From a point of genuine curiosity, how do you keep labeling a thought/behavior as OCD from becoming a compulsion? Also how does this differ from “thought stopping?” Once again I really appreciate the help. :)
Hey, no worries, I’ll try to explain it 🤞for me it feels different. For example tonight I had to change medicines for something unrelated to OCD. I have health anxiety OCD and medicine is a trigger for me. I used to do a ton of compulsions around these kind of things-googling, reassurance seeking, checking directions (literally reading them many times) etc. So this morning when I woke up it popped in my mind about the new medication. I wanted to check and ruminate, but here is where I said to myself “nope, not going there, this urge is probably OCD” then I moved on with my day. It kept popping in my head but it kept labeling and moving on. The labeling didn’t make me feel better or more certain, it really was just a reminder for me to not get caught up on compulsing. Kind of a cue to move on. For me things that become compulsions are things I do that offer relief from the distress. Labeling a thought offers no relief, in fact, moving on often feels worse because I’m allowing the uncertainty to be there. In my case, with the medication fears, when I labeled them as OCD and moved on My anxiety increased, what if thoughts started. However I didn’t engage with the thoughts. Engagement would be a compulsion because it would be an attempt to figure it out or relieve distress.My therapist explained it to me like this: what is the function of the behavior? If the function is to relieve uncertainty and distress it’s a compulsion. For me labeling functions as a cue to move on. Labeling isn’t thought stopping in that I’m not trying to not have a thought, I’m just trying to not engage with it. Hope this makes sense.
@VGH I really appreciate this. I think it’s starting to make sense for me. Also, I liked how you were able to distinguish behaviors. For example, understanding that you may be reassurance seeking at times and stopping yourself. You have a lot of good insight. Thank you again. :)
So after my ocd has become more prominent, it gets harder to fight through these compulsion’s everyday. I don’t go to therapy or take any medications and to be honest I am very lost in my journey on how to navigate life with ocd. I don’t want it to take over my life. I want to be able to feel like I can live without a weight on my chest and to finally feel like I can breathe. Any suggestions or words of advice is more than welcome.
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.
I’m a good man and I know that. My OCD revolves around relationships. While dating someone a truly enjoy, I find myself needing to compulse everything on my mind or else I feel like I’m being a liar or keeping secrets. I also am pretty confident I suffer from false memory ocd. I don’t like to put a label on things but I’m 99.9% sure I do. My compulsions a lot of times come from things I’m not even sure are real. The more thought I put into them, the more I start to believe they are real. One of the worst compulsions I had in my relationship was I had a thought “what if I find my ex more attractive” and “what if I thought the sex with them was better”. I ended up compulsing these things to my gf. After lots of time to think and get a ahold of myself I was able to remind myself that these things weren’t true and I was just in a downward spiral. There was a 2-3 month period where every time I was relieved of something then I would instantly think of something else. These compulsions have caused insecurity in my gf and I feel like a terrible person. Never meant to hurt her at all and was just trying to find a sense of relief. While I know it is not true, I can’t fix things with words and I feel terrible. I would love to hear from people with tricks and strategies that can help. I love my gf and want to fix things and understand this is not a relationship fixer app but I would like to know what are some ways you are able to deal with these kind of things.
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