- Date posted
- 1y
Suffering
All my days are pretty much consumed by real events I obsess with. I don’t know how to stop. I don’t want to lose my life, but I’m also tired of living like this.
All my days are pretty much consumed by real events I obsess with. I don’t know how to stop. I don’t want to lose my life, but I’m also tired of living like this.
my heart hurts for you. the best thing is to find ways to keep yourself present, breathing exercises really helped me. set a timer and box breathe, think in and out as you inhale and exhale. when thoughts pop up, label them "thinking" and try to focus on your breathing again. guided meditations have taught me a lot of simple ways to break rumination
@Grenoble hand on hobbies help too. gardening, arts and crafts, even just giving a little extra attention to pets. it's never easy, but the thoughts get a lot more manageable with time
@Grenoble I ruminate so much I can’t tell the difference between what’s an accurate memory and what’s not.
@Anonymous what helped me most is finding ways to focus on the present instead of trying to figure out real and false memories. memories are so unreliable, it's an impossible task. find ways to sit with the uncertainty and eventually it won't be so painful
This is a hard position to be in. I was in a similar boat and I can say that the only way forward is through. What I mean by this is you are going to have to put in hard, consistent work to get to the point where OCD strengthens you instead of weakens you. Stick with your therapy, keep looking for solutions, and TALK MORE. If you want a place where you can collaborate with others and continue these conversations you should consider joining my community. https://www.skool.com/the-ocd-advantage-7537/about
@Anonymous My memories are just so distorted I can’t tell what’s true.
@Anonymous - I understand that feeling. I really think the way to unscramble an internal mess is to make it external, from there you can handle it more tangibly. Aka, communicate every ounce of your thoughts and feelings. I am here for you.
Never feels like I can fully put my mind to rest. The problem with OCD for me is once I'm over one worry there's another buried deep into my mind that I'm not fully over. The two events I'm not completely over is when I tried to help a 17 year old with POCD when I was 19 and the topics unfortunately were detailed and even then I explained to them I wasn't comfortable with talking to them. I guess I just had a hard time saying no to someone needing help but it eventually made me so uncomfortable that I stopped talking with them altogether at some point. Then the other thing is being so worried that I committed a crime because my elbow touched someone's behind when I didn't want that to happen at all. I didn't want to listen to my OCD by saying move my arm or something horrible is going to happen so I didn't and then something bad actually did happen. I thought it would just be a light touch while zipping a bag up but then it was worse than I ever wanted it to be and it was so awkward and I hated it. I feel like I just won't be able to get back to the way I was before OCD started all of this. Aside from that I've just had extreme health anxiety but am too afraid to reach out to a PCP even though I need to. Something deep down is telling me I should do this but I'm just so anxious and embarrassed about sharing things to them. I can't even enjoy the things I used to do because this is constantly just messing up my life. I'm hoping I get a start of positivity next time I see my therapist. This just sucks. Feels like others around me are doing so much better than I am and I'm just kind of stuck on these same problems and feeling absolute shame and guilt from the past over and over again. I'm just so sick of dealing with this every single day so I just use escape whenever I can. Even that doesn't really work. I just wish I could go back in time.
I’m stuck in a loop, I can’t stop avoiding the thoughts by watching tik tok, I’m paralyzed on the couch, I’m searching for clues everywhere that something bad is happening I don’t know how to go on like this anymore my fears are so strong so present they feel so real. Any mention of the future sends my whole body into panic. My arms go numb, I can’t keep living like this i feel like I’m going crazy
I feel like my life isn't my own anymore. I live by OCD's rules. I can't ever switch it off. I spend most of my day mentally reviewing and constantly checking myself. I have to do things in a certain way or i dont feel safe. All this time that i've lost and for what? Idk how I let thoughts have so much power over my life and yet here I am. Every day. I can't even get away from it in sleep because i have dreams about it and I wake up anxious if i manage to get any sleep at all. I'm so over it all.
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