And making it worse? I sometimes feel like I over complicate it and make it worse by feeling like I need the answers to all of the questions that I have in my mind before everything will be okay and I can move forward I also strongly feel that going to talk therapy at the start of 2020 made it a lot worse like it made me feel in my mind that okay I am going to get all of the answers now when of course it doesn't work like that
Talk therapy with someone who isn't trained to deal with ocd will generally make it worse as it usually focuses on reassurance. Its good for other stuff but not ocd. Aa for trying to figure out all the answers in your mind, that's ruminating and a compulsion. I'm guessing you'll get an answer and give it time, you're looking for another and another? I was doing this for so long before a diagnosis
I can relate. When I began letting go of searching for all the answers life became easier. I also tried talk therapy - it didn't help my OCD at all. Focus on doing ERP - reduce your compulsions step by step!
Absolutely in my case talk therapy made my OCD worse. However, it’s also how I ended up with an OCD diagnosis. She was reporting to the Psychiatrist and I was ruminating and I think I asked if she was sure I had ADHD so many times that I was getting embarrassed to ask but couldn’t seem to help myself. I found out through my own research with my family a shocking amount of either OCD traits in my family and one brother with absolutely major classic OCD. They put my family history together and how I had been in therapy and come up with it. Now, I think the therapist was surprised a little because ruminating can happen with other things too. Like depression etc. One thing I told him was that I can spend hours on a text or email. It’s not 100% of the time but often enough I knew it couldn’t be normal and wanted to know what that was and he said classic OCD. I would type and retype over and over until I felt like I got everything I wanted to say out and expressed correctly etc. Ruminating Research and Reassurance seeking are my big ones.
hey, i totally get where you're coming from. it can be really tough feeling like you need all the answers before you can move forward, and it's frustrating when things don't go as expected with therapy. 😞 you're not alone in this. you might wanna try "unstuck," which is this new AI-powered therapy tool specifically for OCD (just google "unstuck app for OCD"). my nocd therapist recommended it to me, and it's been a big help this past month. might be worth checking out for you too. 🌟
My thoughts and compulsive behaviors were terrible last week, but now it’s like they’ve almost disappeared. I have my first 90-minute session scheduled with my NOCD therapist for next week but now I’m wondering if I even have ocd or if it’s even worth it for me to meet with my NOCD therapist. Does anyone else have experience with this? Did it affect how long it took for you to seek treatment? I know myself and that most likely if I cancel my upcoming session my brain will latch on to some other thoughts and the circular thinking will probably return. But now I’m second guessing myself because with help on the horizon it’s like my brain has pushed all the anxiety to the side and I feel more “normal” than I’ve felt in a while. I also had a brief last meeting with an intern that I was doing telehealth sessions with through a counseling center and when I told her what my anxiety is like and that I suspect that I may have ocd, she basically questioned me and was like “are you sure?” She said “ocd has two components — obsessions AND compulsions, are you sure you have both of them?” And so since that conversation and since some of my recent thoughts have quieted down, I’m wondering if I’m silly for even being here. I also felt really down after my conversation with her because it made me wonder if there was just no one who can help me. I’ve tried talk therapy and I don’t feel like it helped. But maybe I’m just not trying hard enough. Interested to hear if anyone else has had similar experiences in the process of looking for help or if I’m the only one.
Ever since I started ERP I feel like my OCD is only getting worse. I have more intrusive thoughts and memories and they feel worse than they did before. Am I doing it wrong?
Sometimes I have so much going on in my head at one time - and I have layers of intrusive thoughts one on top of another - all together and sometimes I don't know or remember which one caused my anxiety but I have to go back and solve them or reproduce the feeling that came up so that I can "disregard" it properly. It gets so exhausting because I'm always chasing after random thoughts and feelings all about similar themes - that are constantly getting triggered - by silly things. The fear is - I won't know its ocd unless i go back and solve them. I think this might be a compulsion? Does sitting with the discomfort with this Also work?
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