I’ve got Pure O and my compulsions are tricky to identify sometimes. But how should I feel when I’ve successfully resisted them? Trying to sit with the anxiety and the dread!
I like a recent analogy I heard of not ‘clicking ‘ on the thought. Sort of like not opening up a folder with the ocd story inside and examining it. When you’re doing an exposure, you’re sort of opening up the folder deliberately, and agreeing with the ocd fears instead of trying to disprove or solve them. Ideally, you would feel some level of anxiety, and resist the urge to compulse/solve. Sometimes for me the anxiety and dread is so strong that doing an exposure is unnecessary. In those moments, you can (and this is really challenging) treat them like really big exposures. The amount of learning your fear system will undergo in these moments when you resist compulsing is massive. Generally when I resist compulsions I feel anxious, but fulfilled, knowing I’ve used courage and will power to do something good for my ocd that I will benefit from in the long term. In the short term though, it might feel worse. Hope this helps.
@Simon Also, plan A would be agreeing with the fear and ‘not clicking’ and focusing attention on something else. Since that’s sometimes (usually)too difficult for me, Plan B is deliberately facing the dreaded ocd story without compulsing.
@Simon Thanks Simon, appreciate this response. Okay totally makes sense. Also cool to see another filmmaker out there with OCD. I’m a DOP.
@Matt93 Awesome! I’m a big fan of cinematography
Heya! I was diagnosed with Pure O (although I recon I have more compulsive tendencies than first realised with my diagnosis) and I’m not sure if this will help but here are some of the compulsions that took me a long time to realise were compulsions, by identifying it may be easier to intentionally resist them. -confessing, having to tell somebody else what you’re thinking about -mentally replaying, after having an intrusive thought intentionally rethinking it over and over to try and figure out what ur means, if it’s true, if it was really an intrusive thought —reassurance-seeking, googling questions about your intrusive thoughts, asking others ‘do you actually like me? ‘Do you think I’m a bad person?’ I found it really helpful to do meditations where I mentally watch my thoughts fly by, not interacting with them or allowing them to mean anything, watching them pass like clouds
@obsessivequeer Thanks so much. I recently realised confessing is one of mine also. It’s so hard cos you want to be able to talk about it but I also don’t want to do compulsions.
Everything feels so real. I think learning about non-offending pedophiles has really screwed with me. I feel like I’m not even doing compulsions anymore like I genuinely cannot remember if I do them or not and the groinal responses are messing with me. I keep having intrusive dreams and I’m in that half asleep state and I feel nothing after that or I feel weird like a good weird, I don’t know. It’s a really weird feeling when I get those thoughts but I don’t like them, I don’t think. All I know is, I keep seeking reassurance and I feel like I don’t have OCD because the way I feel, like the way I get worked up isn’t the same as others. Whenever I try to watch a show, like 9-1-1 or daily dose of sunshine, I feel like I’m watching something I shouldn’t be. Or if I’m just on my phone, I feel like something is going to happen. I feel red flags whenever I’m on my phone, like somehow cp will appear. I know that OCD is the doubting disorder but my god, this is just crazy. I feel like I’m going crazy. Everything is just nonstop, it’s so constant and I’m genuinely scared that I’ll do something when I get out of my room. I don’t know anymore, this whole OCD thing is just making me lose my mind.
Hello! I'm new here and new to OCD. My therapist suggested I might have OCD due to my tendency to ruminate endlessly on doubts and fears. These thoughts are indeed intrusive and I can't seem to stop them. The thing I'm kind of stuck on is that I can't see where the compulsions come in. Unless the thoughts themselves are compulsions. Can anyone relate to this?
Feel guilty for not giving into compulsions like rumination and confessing? I feel guilt for having an intrusive thought, trying to shrug it off or just giving it a few seconds of thought and moving along. This sounds like improvement but I still struggle with the anxiety and the guilt. The shame. I’ll be okay and then I’ll remember I have OCD and my stomach will drop and I just want to curl up and cry.
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