Holy crap how do y’all not engage with your thoughts? I try to ignore them, and my anxiety skyrockets, and then I’m spiraling out of control. Every time I think I get over one thought another comes in and I’m not doing well at all🙃
It's counter intuitive but you just have to go through the anxiety and not try and get rid of it or the thoughts. Just try and accept the thought as a just that. Accept the anxiety and do your best to get through it. It goes against all we want to do but that's what has to be done. I hope you are working with someone here because they will guide you and help you through everything.
Don’t ignore them. That makes it worse. You need to learn to accept them without assigning any meaning to them.
I know that a lot of people say sitting with the anxiety is the only way and that it true to some degree, but improving OCD also comes from changes in perspective. The more you catastrophiez your thoughts the worse they become. So yes ERP works but you also should research how OCD is tricking you and keeping you stuck. That’s just what has worked for me so far I’m not a professional.
100% agree. Knowing the tricks ocd plays is important. Like how it only attacks what is important to us and goes against our values. There is a reason only certain thoughts or whatever stick and other wash away. I have never heard anyone say my ocd centers around how awesome things are or what if everything is ok. For some, like myself, that research and learning can turn into a reassurance seeking compulsion.
Lol I get this so much. To me, it helps to separate myself from the thoughts and think “I notice I am having the thought that…”. And just stay there. It’s a thought. It may or may not be real, it may or may not produce anxiety. Just stay with it and don’t avoid it or run from it as others have commented. Sending loads of patience your way, keep going, it will get better!
Guys I need help. I feel so alone . Basically I have this compulsion where I feel the need to write everything but this stems from me being anxious about EVERYTHING. Like my mom came in my room and I was irritated and snapped, immediately regretted now I keep writing “don’t be mean to mom next time” but I keep thinking about it. Then I think about how I finally left my house today and all the surfaces I touched that could’ve been contaminated and now I’m writing “next time don’t touch this and this”. Then I think about all the things I need to be doing for this week and I’m writing “don’t forget to do this and this” even though I’ve written it 5 times already. This is what happens everyday btw. My brain always thinks about something I need to be doing and making me anxious that I’ll forget it which is why I write it down on my notes app. I’m sooo mentally exhausted I need help pls!! Anyone have any advice ? I used to think I need to stop the writing but really I need to stop the anxious thoughts coming into my head . People say I need to accept the thoughts and let it go but that’s too hard for me
I struggle so bad with intrusive thoughts. They can be so bad that I'll cry because I KNOW that's not how I feel or want to do. (Too embarrassed to say what they're about) I'll constantly try to figure out why I have them, and constantly figure out what they mean, causing me to constantly circle around and around. I had to get on anxeity meds, which helped a little but the thoughts still happen. How do you help yourself with this? How do you know that you're just not some physcopath? 😅
OK, this might sound really dumb, but when you guys get intrusive thoughts, do they just come once and then go away? I’ve heard that repeatedly thinking about an intrusive thought is considered ‘checking,’ but it doesn’t feel like I have any control over how many times it comes up in my head. It’s not like I’m trying to check anything—it just keeps showing up, almost like it’s terrorizing me every time. I can’t seem to stop it from looping, stop remembering it, or prevent it from coming up. Every time it does, I feel horrified, and I already know it’s going to horrify me. I don’t think I’m actively trying to see if my feelings have changed, so is this still considered checking? How do other people get an intrusive thought and just move on? Doesn’t it pop up a million times for them too? I always thought that was normal, but now I’m hearing this could be a compulsion, and I feel really confused, scared, and lost. Is this why my OCD feels so extreme? Because I really don’t feel like I can control how many times the thought pops up.
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