If sitting with discomfort is the solution, why am I not comfortable with my house that I've been sitting in with discomfort for these past 3 or 4 years? I'm trying to trust the process, but I trust and wait and wait some more. It feels like a contractor that tells you a task will take 6 weeks, but 6 months later he's still there.
Forgot to include reference to the title. It feels like I'm in hell and am only able to wait, and then wait some more.
Same thing happened to me. It’s cuz your response hasn’t changed. You’re doing exposures and not changing your response or delaying/not doing your compulsions.
I found this podcast episode to be particularly helpful. https://kimberleyquinlan-lmft.com/ep-304-what-does-it-mean-to-sit-with-emotions/ Sitting with the discomfort doesn't mean that you sit around and wait for the emotion or uncomfortable sensation to go away. It means, you feel the feeling, then do whatever you want to do with your life. Go jogging, read a book, journal, hang out with friends, listen to music, eat something tasty, try something new, whatever you want!! You referenced feeling like you've hired contractors but they haven't built anything. Well, what do YOU want them to build? What is it that you want to build today? What are you waiting for? OCD tries to keep us small, but you are more than your OCD. ERP is a confusing time for sure, but it can also be so very rewarding. Good luck!
Similarly to Honeyshark, I was thinking it might be that you're still wanting to avoid the discomfort or distract from it. Thats something ive noticed I do that is a sneaky compulsion. Like I'll ruminate on something and it will bring a lot of anxiety and then I'll try to avoid it by listening to an audiobook or scrolling on the phone, when what I really need to do is just face it and really be ok with feeling the discomfort and then move on with my day without trying to get away from the actual discomfort. Hopefully that makes sense. Its such a subtle shift and I don't always do it right away but it usually helps when I can just face it head on and know that I can survive discomfort. My therapist has me write out worst case scenarios and I think this is a good active way to face that fear and then commit to afterwards just allowing the anxiety/fear to be there and respond to it with something like "maybe, maybe not", or "yep, that's true", or "I'll deal with that when the time comes", or whatever response seems to work well for you.
so I've been trying to do what my therapist said while she's on vacation for a few weeks and do some of my routine exposures. One of them is watching tv and not looking away when there is children on screen. I tried sitting through a preview of a shows first episode that featured a young girl in a Victorian outfit with blonde hair, and he had very ghostly white skin and powder pink lips. It was a ghost show, which is the kind of genre I usually like, so I wanted to try and enjoy the clip. And my therapist always told me to "not appraise the thoughts, our goal isn't to avoid them, but to let them pass" but as I kept watching, I kept getting mental voices telling me that "she's pretty you want to kiss her" and I felt almost frozen in my seat? I felt a kind of anxiety I haven't felt in years, but I tried to continue to watch the clip and let it pass, but I couldn't. I felt this mental need to go back and "check" to really be sure if I was attracted to her, I pictured kissing her and idk if it even counts as an intrusive thought atp? I felt like if I were to have the thought and then prove myself I was grossed out by pushing it away I would feel better, but it didnt. My brain just kept telling me that I wanted her and it was very much on purpose to test to see whether I felt that way or not and it did and I kept feeling that horrible form of anxiety that makes your face hot and I don't think I was really TRUELY attracted to her but it's like a fucked up twisted form of attraction that's false but feels real at the same time? Idk if that makes sense... idk, I'm trying my best but I feel like I NEED to think the thoughts, letting them pass isn't enough. Or like the thought will stick in my brain and it'll keep going like a mini movie playing in my head and it feels like almost like I'm fantasizing even though that isn't what I want to do. I feel like I have no choice but to push them away or else I'll have a horrible realization... idk... I've been struggling with this for 5 years now. I don't even know how to properly articulate how I feel in those moments it's so confusing that I don't know how to describe it to my therapist. How do people just lable their feelings on things so effortlessly? Why is it so hard for me? Idk I don't really want reassurance bc it won't help but I just want to feel like I'm not alone in this.
I read many articles about this, cause i dont know how to accept thoughts, and i hear "just let it come in, let it make you feel bad, let it make you feel anxious or depressed. So in my entire life, everytime i will have a negative thought, intrusive thought or disturbing thought, i let it make me feel how it wants. Im in a depressive season right now, i have many disturbing thoughts, i have to accept all of them to come in my mind and im acknowledging every thought and letting them make me feel how they want? Poeple are angry here that i ask this many times but i dont see any progression there...I tried to do that and gave me a huge depressive feeling and i started to panic. Now im overthinking if that depression means something deeply about me or not... and also if i find some thought patterns, should i change them? Or just dont engage in them? Also not engaging for me sounds like avoidance,.cause i avoid to engage in it. This "sit with it, accept them, work through them" doesnt make sense to me. When should i say this is an ocd thought in dont have to figure it out or this is something that i have to think about?
Can someone give tips about living in uncertainty?
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