- Date posted
- 35w ago
Compulsions
How can i reassure myself (comfort) if i am angry and upset about having compulsed when i am not supposed to either compulse or reassure myself?
How can i reassure myself (comfort) if i am angry and upset about having compulsed when i am not supposed to either compulse or reassure myself?
You kinda have just keep going and try again to not do the compulsions. It takes hard work to stop doing compulsions it will not happen over night. Let it go if you miss up and just try again. With ocd you can be hard on yourself and get mad if you are not make progress fast enough. But just keep trying and you will slowly improve. With ocd you want to fix things right now but sometimes things take time and patience and you have just wait and keep working on it.
I'm not a therapist, but I've questioned myself about this before as well. What made me feel more comforted was simply accepting the fact that I have compulsed. It was me realising that this is the reality and no amount of self-blame and insults will help. When i realised that it's okay to feel angry and upset about it, I felt better and more at peace. Another thing that comforted me (especially with the anxiety that came with performing conpulsions or having obsessions) was accepting uncertainty. Telling myself "maybe so, maybe not. It's okay to be uncertain" helped me :) We're in this together :D๐๐
@cherie/hachi Thank you
@jgumucio No problem! And remember, thoughts are not morals :) You aren't crazy either
@cherie/hachi Needed that; thanks.
I am not looking for reassurance; I am looking for legit answers.
Feel guilty for not giving into compulsions like rumination and confessing? I feel guilt for having an intrusive thought, trying to shrug it off or just giving it a few seconds of thought and moving along. This sounds like improvement but I still struggle with the anxiety and the guilt. The shame. Iโll be okay and then Iโll remember I have OCD and my stomach will drop and I just want to curl up and cry.
sometimes, to try and prove my fear wrong iโll be like โ okay, let me think of this REALISTICALLY. would i REALISTICALLY feel this way or do this thing? โ then i come up with scenarios in my head on how i think i would realistically ( or logically ) do something but then my feelings go against that thing i thought of then i start getting anxiety and start to fear that i would actually want my fear to happen or that iโd feel a certain way that proves my fear true. itโs basically just checking how i feel about something i think of to try and prove my fear wrong, checking my emotions or checking how i think iโd realistically feel towards it.. but then i may react โ unrealistically โ it goes wrong and i freak out
When I was a child, before I knew this was OCD, I struggled with constant "magical thinking" compulsions (don't step on the crack or mom's back will actually break, etc). When I later learned this was OCD, it almost immediately solved it. Any time I got a magical thought, I would say to myself "that's just an OCD thought. ignore it." and it just stopped coming! Like seriously it fixed the magical thinking stuff forever. But of course the OCD has resurfaced in other ways. So naturally, I've tried to use the same strategy since I had so much success with it previously. But I wonder sometimes if telling myself "that's just OCD" is almost functioning as a reassurance compulsion? I hate how meta this gets. For example, I have ROCD that comes and goes. So sometimes I'll get a thought like "what if i'm still in love with my ex?" and then I'll tell myself "that's obviously just an ROCD thought" and will feel relief, almost like reassurance. But it comes back. So is telling myself that it's OCD a reassurance compulsion ?? It's just so weird because it worked so perfectly as a kid with the magical thinking thing.
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