Worried about my should pushing up against pillow

With a little backstory, I've been struggling with physical sleep issues that a medical hospital is trying to to help me with (sleep apnea, TMJ issues, etc.). Anyway, I guess my OCD knows that sleep is a problem, so it's created an obsession around it. I was laying on my two pillows, on my side, and had the thought "Hmm, my shoulder is up against the pillows, is this squishing the pillows in, bunching them up? Is the level of the pillows now unevenly distributed because of my shoulder against it? How soft/hard is my shoulder pushing against the pillow?" It's ridiculous, because I've slept this way my whole life. But now I'm hyper focused on how my body is laying against the pillows and having to have the pillows perfectly even, without any dents or flaws in them. This sucks because on top of the physical sleep issues, now I'm having OCD sleep issues. Im just so tired. I wish I could ignore it, but OCD gets so strong when I lay on my pillows now. Any advice? Anything to tell myself that could help? Thank you ahead of time.

Username: EstridEstrid

Date posted: 42w ago

What kind of behaviours are you doing when you have these thoughts? Do you adjust the pillows for example? If so, that's an compulsion. Do you start to argue with the thoughts to make themgo way? If so, thats compulsive. You have to stop all kind of engagement in the thoughts - show them no interest, then they will leave you with time.

Username: rinahello123rinahello123

Date posted: 42w ago

Yes, I do all of these things. It's very hard, because I'm very worried about my shoulder pushing horizontally into the pillow. I just imagine the pillow being bunched up where my shoulder is, making the pillow uneven for my head. However, it's probably been this way my whole life. I don't know. I've even looked up pictures of people sleeping on pillows and I think their shoulders push against the pillow when they're on their side.

Username: EstridEstrid

Date posted: 42w ago

@rinahello123 Good that you are aware of your compulsions. All of them make your anxiety grow. You have to stop them.

Username: rinahello123rinahello123

Date posted: 42w ago

@Estrid Yes, I'm trying to. I'm very anxious about my pillow being bunched up by my shoulder horizontally pushing into it while I'm sleeping on my side.

Username: EstridEstrid

Date posted: 42w ago

@rinahello123 If you let the anxiety wash over you without trying to stop it - your anxiety will fade away. I have experienced it so many times.

Username: OdackelOdackel

Date posted: 42w ago

you have to learn which thoughts to keep and which ones to dump before any extra mental effort is made on them. This is what the healthy mind does but the OCD mind struggles at. Just sit with the uncomfortable thoughts and try not to give in to them.

Username: ma1352

Date posted: 2y ago

Ruminating

I have always suffered from OCD. It keeps changing from one thing to another. I take medication and I used to see an OCD therapist who helped me tremendously. My new OCD is that if I wake up around 4 am, I can’t go back to sleep. I have been fighting it for two months. My psychiatrist wants to increase or change my med. I’m not sure about that. Do you have any suggestions how to deal with this? Lack of sleep has interfered with life in such a horrible way.

Username: stantheman69

Date posted: 1y ago

Ocd and sleep

Does anyone else worry and going to sleep so much that it's hard to go to sleep and stay asleep. Or how does ocd affect yalls sleep. I just found out that I had it after years of battling thought about my health and other things in my life now I'm obsessing over sleep.what makes it worse is when I have a clear mind after distracting myself I revert back to the slave mind and it feels again like a weight is in my mind.

Username: Buffbuff

Date posted: 1y ago

Sleep obsession

When I get really stressed I obsessed about that I never vill sleep again. I'm so fucking tired of it. It's hard because I have a lot of autoimmune diseases so logically I also know that I need sleep. Which making it worse because that tells OCD that I'm right. I do all the classics things, telling my self that I can go one night without sleep, that I can cancel the important thing tomorrow etc. But it doesn't not help. It makes it worse. It's not about sleep it's about me worrying about a lot of real stuff I don't want to think about so I think about that I will never sleep again. Any ideas? I know I will feel stressed and it will be a lot for me to handle tonight. But I don't want to give in to my compulsions. That's all. I want to take the fight. I just needed to tell some one and know I'm not alone. I've done it before with OCD so I know I can do it. It's just so hard when it's all in my head.

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Worried about my should pushing up against pillow

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