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Does anyone find that sometimes they can’t tell if they are feeling better or if they are ruminating or doing internal checks and compulsions to feel better? I sort of go back and forth on this, some days I am really able to let thoughts kind of roll through my head and when I’m doing it right it creates a lot of anxiety in my body, but my mind feels more empty and more quiet but physically people around me can tell I’m in distress. Then Sometimes I think I’m feeling better because the anxiety feeling in my chest is gone and my body feels light and people think I’m in a better mood but then I realize I’m reassuring my self over in my mind and on those days my mind feels so full and loud and like I’m in a battle but those are the days that are easier for loved ones around me. I am a people pleaser on top of this so it’s easy for me to slip into the rumination and internal compulsions to make others around me feel more comfortable. I don’t know if anyone else goes through this kind of back and forth but it’s so draining. Also if anyone has any good material my wife could read to help her understand this stuff more that would be really appreciated

The past month or so I have been in and out of OCD spirals. I’ll have a couple days of spiraling and then a couple days of being better. Then a couple days spiraling and then a couple days doing better. Today is one of those days where I can feel the anxiety under the surface and where I am monitoring it to see/keep it in check. Yesterday I was good, I had good dialogue in my mind, I was content with making mistakes in the past, but being a better human and person these days going forward. I can feel the ebb and flow of it today where the anxiety spikes, my internal dialogue say “am I going to freak out”, “confess this”, “say that”, “don’t say that”, “I’m a bad person”, “I’m a good person that is learning and growing every day” etc etc. Then the anxiety comes down, my mind feels clearer, less noisy and less physical feeling, and I feel like I don’t care about the OCD and me as much. Just been feeling the ebbs and flows of OCD over the course of months and days, and even within the day itself.

Ruminating is such a sneaky compulsion. It feels like the only “reasonable” thing to do in the moment because your brain is screaming at you that something is urgent, important, and absolutely essential. It’s like your mind is sounding sirens, telling you that you have to think it through right now because everything looks so black and white in the moment. The trap is, if I don’t ruminate, it feels like I’m just ignoring reality and living in some magical fantasy world. But the truth is, even when things feel the most logical and crystal clear to me with OCD, they are almost always totally irrational to everyone else. Someone said something on here that stuck with me: “nobody ever ruminated their way to certainty.” And that’s it. Rumination is just an attempt to feel certain, but with OCD there is no such thing as enough certainty. The more you chase it, the longer you stay stuck. The work, as uncomfortable as it is, is learning to sit in the uncertainty and stop feeding the cycle…even when everything in you is screaming to figure it out. That’s the way forward.