I'm trying to get a general idea of what the community believes. Yes or no answers only please. Once I get a good number of replies I'll follow up with info. Is your brain who you are?
No. We are not our thoughts. If you are spiritual you understand this. We are the awareness watching our thoughts, who we really are is the observer. So our OCD thoughts don’t reflect who we are as a person
No. Not in the slightest. It's one of the hardest conclusions to come to and grasp imo!
No
This might be a little heavy reading but “The Mind and the Brain” by Jeffrey Swartz, an OCD researcher, gets into that question!
https://youtu.be/qcrGlUHlu4M?feature=shared Found this and watched a minute. It's clear he knows what he's talking about. Never heard of him before so thanks for sharing
@Wolfram He has a “4 step method” for managing OCD which is a little different than the ERP approach done by NOCD, but the principles relate and I think anyone could find his method useful in some way. He talks about that in his book “Brain Lock”
Yes ~looks around thinking im the only one who doesn't believe I'm a kidney~
I'm surprised more people haven't said yes like yourself with what I see posted on here daily. Why did you say yes? Why do you think the others said no?
@Wolfram I said yes because I am my brain. I don't like the things it says sometimes 🤷🏻♂️ and those things do not define me but it is me none the less. It has done good things even despite the ocd thoughts. I think they said no because we are taught we are not our thoughts (that's very different than not our brains) but to be accurate we are our actions which come from thoughts that come from the same brain that have the wanted and intrusive thoughts. To live with ocd we are suppose to accept the ugly things not separate them to another identity.
@Will86 Our brain is a part of us. Not all of us. At the same time we are a part of our brain but not all of it. It's a tool. Imagine it as a control center for your body, everything operates from that room right? But who's the operator? Sometimes there are glitches and errors that nerds to be fixed, and it isn't down to the operator's fault. As people with ocd, we try so everything like everyone else but can't unless we rewire our brains and repair our control centre. The mind and soul are separate to the brain. They need to be educated and trained to in order to do that. Recovery is difficult because the tools we have are faulty. You know ocd is irrational but the brain is not responding to your commands. Make sense?
@Wolfram Needs* we try to*
@Will86 Also just to add, ocd is a brain disorder which is a fault in processing information incorrectly. We are not that glitch either or the reactions that follow, however we are still responsible for it even if we feel we don't have control. It's out responsibility to get better.
@Wolfram Bit confused... are you attempting to correct me by separating mind and brain while trying to define ocd?
@Will86 We are not seperate from the brain, but we are not our brain. Ocd kind of highlights it as any kind brain disorder does. I wouldn't say correct, just offering a different perspective.
@Will86 Maybe watch a video with the guy mentioned above. He explains it better
@Wolfram Mind- where our consciousness resides. Brain - the organ in which where our mind resides. In me is where my brain resides and since it houses the mind which is the center of my consciousness which is who I am I feel I am allowed to disagree. Also I am not broken (you mention needing repaired or fixed) even if it feels like it sometimes. I have a disorder of thoughts (ocd) which I have learned to live with yes by taking responsibility for my mental health and learning (rewiring) how i live with these "glitches". Trying to split things apart didn't help me it was a way to place the disorder elsewhere to better cope and not learn to be okay with my "glitches". If that's what you need I am not qualified to tell you not to do it.
@Wolfram Sure I'll check it out.
@Will86 You're of that the same mindset with ocd as my mother and that's OK. It hasn't held her back in life. She's a therapist and deals with patients who have ocd, just like her. We all have different recovery goals. If that works for you then all the power to you. I know 2 other people who are the same. For me, I personally believe I can get rid of it and I've already beat the stats before with ocd. Just because it's not been done or record before doesn't mean it can't be done. The improbable is not the impossible.
@Wolfram I don't like the word impossible :) remission is very much possible...for some. Some of us don't reach that state but that doesn't mean don't stop trying. It's when we stop trying we give the keys over to ocd to do the driving. I did that once and it was a mess.
@Will86 I'm aiming for full remission for the rest of my life.
@Wolfram That is awesome and I am doing the same and it's pushed me to crazy new areas I never even wanted to go but I don't like the idea of fear winning so I keep facing them. around 2 min 30 sec into the video he says we are our mind which he explains is seated in the brain. My thought school doesn't seem too far off so far lol
Our*
Guys, does isolating yourself from society make OCD worse? Because I go out these days and I feel like my questions are illogical. Because it seems that alone, everything becomes bigger. It seems that we disregard everything. So something that you would or wouldn't do doesn't seem to have an answer because you don't consider the other. Is this real? Because for example, one question is whether I would take advantage of someone. But the question is, does that someone exist? It's not something that's in my head. In real life, we're all human and you see them that way. So your debt is answered with no. Because that's how you are, when placed in society. You would only do some harm if you didn't consider this, but that would be your values, right? So OCD asks some questions that disregard things, right?
When I say I feel like I like a thought, I don’t mean the OCD is telling me like a thought or that I concluded that from a physical sensation. I mean, I genuinely feel like something in my brain lights up and it feels like I like it mentally. Whenever I hear people talk about liking thoughts (excitement, arousal), I always see things about groinals or heart flutters. Physical things. I don’t think I really ever see people talk about the mental sensation if this is even a thing. I just wanna know if anyone relates to this or has found an explanation for this because seeing it from an analytical point of view seems to help me sometimes. This is so, *so* especially hard for pocd themed thoughts :( Anyone relate?
First-time poster in the community here, but I had something really eating at me. I’m not sure if it’s an OCD symptom or not, but I feel like my brain has developed a coping mechanism over the years, and honestly, it bothers me daily that I can’t control it. I’ve been seen as a pretty smart person by my peers, and I can be smart, but I keep getting a reaction to thinking too much. I’ve noticed that on most days, I simply can’t think. I’m not talking like “I have so many solutions to this question”, but instead, it’s more like “I don’t know the answer, and if I try to find it I’ll be wrong” or simply I can’t recall the information. However, I’ll get these waves of what I call “kickstarts” where, all of a sudden, everything is so clear to me. I feel everything that I’m numb to, and at first, I’m glad to finally feel capable. But later that day, often several days that week, the fog is lifted and all of the terrible thoughts start to flow in. I’m in a loving relationship, and she’s given me no reason to second guess, but thoughts of her finding someone better than me always show, and thoughts that I’m not good enough, with thoughts that I can’t get to shut up long enough for me to do anything even remotely productive. I believe that paired with my depressive habits, OCD has really kicked my a** for my entire life, and the mental fog that has developed as a coping mechanism bothers me just as much, even causing obsessive thoughts that I am a poser, or a fraud, of a person. Thank you guys, if you read this long-winded rant, I just had to tell someone that it was bothering me before it exploded.
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