- Date posted
- 5y
- Date posted
- 5y
Yeah, the avoidance is getting pretty bad for me too. I’d stopped taking walks for a while and recently started again, and the thought hit me that maybe I will have to compulse in some way. So I almost felt like avoiding it completely. But today I went for a long walk, with some bad stumbles on the way, but felt better in general.
- Date posted
- 5y
Yes! It’s like it grows exponentially, attaching itself not only to concepts, but also to situations, places, time of the day. I can’t stand one cafe now just because I had an OCD episode there. I’m trying not to avoid anything, but it’s exhausting:(
- Date posted
- 5y
Haha! Yeah I agree, when I feel normal it gives me this positive confidence which helps against the OCD. Recently I’m also doing Buteyko breathing too, which seems to be helping relieve anxiety. Accoring to some practitioners symptoms of OCD can be completely gone after 6 months of doing the breathing.
- Date posted
- 5y
Yes. OCD will indeed latch onto anything you care about most in life. However, avoiding situations, people, and places that you have triggers built within will only hurt or hinder you in the long run. It’s one of those things in OCD like any exposure: Initially, you are bringing on the anxiety. You are welcoming it. Only with the sole goal to weaken the pathway or thought process in your brain every time. I struggled and still struggle with HOCD. Through practice and working with a specialist and facing the fear, I took what was bothering me 98% of the time and weakened those thoughts to honestly below 10%. An amazing feeling. Just to put it in perspective, that took about a year and a half. And that was my strongest OCD content I have ever experienced. Remember, the content is irrelevant. I’m here to tell you all through experience that OCD will morph and latch onto things that you may never see coming. So rather than attacking what the content is year to year, go after the core of OCD.
- Date posted
- 5y
Thanks a lot for sharing Ty! I’m envious of your success. If I may ask, can you give a simple example of how you went about the treatment for your HOCD. Even though I don’t have a lot of HOCD at the moment, I’m very scared to get treatment for it. I’m finally calling to book a meeting with a psychiatrist tomorrow, so would be good to know something.
- Date posted
- 5y
I’ve recently started to take walks too! Allegedly, that should help with anxiety. But right now it’s just an exercise in willpower and ‘being normal’ for me, which helps already. I’m using this app for counting steps and everything. I’ve noticed that being busy and acting normal makes a huge difference for ocd. But when I’m too tired to go on or when I have a head cold, I get lots of free time and OCD is like missed me?
- Date posted
- 5y
Yes all the time
- Date posted
- 5y
Wow great insight @Ty94. The ‘welcoming anxiety’ part sounds powerful. I’ve used this approach out of spite when I was having intrusive dreams. I was so sick of them that I actually said to myself some evening: okay bring it on dreams! Let’s see the worst you can do! I dare you! And of course the dreams happened at some point, and I was like: it’s the best you can do?? So my attitude totally changed and now I don’t get these dreams, or maybe I still get them, but don’t remember them since they are not disturbing me anymore. But to tell the truth I felt totally confident that dreams don’t mean anything to begin with, and with other concepts of HOCD I am not so sure.
- Date posted
- 5y
Ejgh, That’s awesome that you are seeking treatment. I’m telling you man, you will reap the benefits. Just go in very open minded is all I can tell you. Don’t be afraid. Dig deep and talk about what is really going on. OCD is real and if you have a specialist working with you, nothing you tell them will be new news. Like all OCD themes, HOCD is hard to talk about (especially for a man I think haha, no offense ladies). But I’ll tell you one thing, I did my homework and studying on OCD along with the practice, CBT, exposure therapy, etc. So, I encourage you to learn up on what you deal with, in a way for me I use that as a form of exposure/facing the fear. Remember, OCD is so much more than the content it presents in each of us. It’s a mental disorder. Goodluck, and keep updated on here ✊?
- Date posted
- 5y
Scaredbunny, Hell yeah. Sometimes the best thing to say to this stuff is bring it. That’s interesting, I’ve never really dealt with the dreams part of OCD.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 24w
I’ve had many types of OCD, but I gained control over them over the years, but a new one has started to arise. Do y’all ever have scary thoughts about something you might do? Recently I’ll get extremely uncomfortable no matter where I am because I can’t stop thinking about “what if I screamed really loud in my lecture class tomorrow?” And other stupid stuff like that. Also, this one is kind of funny, but sometimes when I use the bathroom I pause before because I think “what if I’m actually in class right now?” I also cannot control the thoughts about past embarrassing moments. I know everyone does, but I will become visibly uncomfortable and harp on something from years ago. This happens all throughout the day. Also, does anyone else do things that resemble tics when you get these thoughts. Like when they happen I’ll curse under my breath or like jerk my head a little bit. When I’m in public I keep it low key but when I’m alone sometimes I’ll physically get up and pace or something when those thoughts happen. Just curious if anyone has had these experiences
- Date posted
- 21w
Often times I find myself spiraling out in the morning about all sorts of things. When I try and catch myself and figure out what I am obsessing over it’s like it goes away. I haven’t moved. I have been sitting frozen on the floor because I can’t go to work because I am behind on work and I hate being late and I hate being messy but I am frequently late and my room is cluttered and full of stuff. I want to be good and move and go to work but I don’t know what is coming today and I hate my job so I know I will get bored and when I have nothing to keep me busy and engaged I like start thinking and taking an inventory of what is going on and then I will feel a sensation and what is the sensation? How did it happen? And I know that I will pick up the bad emotions in the office and get contaminated, I was really worried about things like this as a kid too I cried because I had to touch dirt in kindergarten. I know I am this way and I have been this way for a while but at the same time I think I might just be normal and like I don’t know why I get stuck in thinking like this. Then I begin to doubt that OCD is real because everyone has a brain with wiring and everyone gets stuck in thought sometimes. I feel disabled from whatever this is because I am stuck. I literally cannot move because I don’t know what’s wrong and I know I have to go to work even though I feel like every moment I spend there is making everything worse because other people are so stressed and I get it from them. And I don’t feel ready because I just feel off and something is wrong and I just don’t know what to do because if it’s OCD or not OCD everything anyone knows about me is coming from me and I worry that I am often masking all the thinking I’m doing because thinking all the time is rude and inconsiderate and inconvenient for those around me, but I can’t stop. I just don’t feel right, right now - and I want to know WHY?? Why is everything off all the time? How do I even know that I am not making up the experience of OCD in my head to cover up something really wrong with me and now I am taking on the symptoms of OCD like an actress, because this could be something that I can latch onto as a final hope for explaining why I am stuck. So stuck so deeply and terribly stuck sitting on my floor next to my bed just scrolling to avoid thinking because any time I start thinking I am left with no answers or help or anything just this swirly feeling. I know I am trying, maybe not my best, but as much as I possibly can. I want to be a Special Education Teacher but I have so much so so so much doubt and uncertainty about every decision I make and everything I know that I can’t get there right now. I can’t do anything right now until it feels ok and then I will. It never feels ok. I know I have to be ok not feeling ok about it. I can be unsure and still be ok. I know it’s just my thinking and my body but I just can’t get past this feeling. And then I know that because I can calm myself and be ok even though I spent 2 hours of my life today already feeling stuck and spinning around and around and around in my head - I don’t feel sure about my OCD and I think it’s a bit of a scam made up by people to cultivate pathology around deep human thought because one day I might figure it out and we all think a lot.
- Date posted
- 17w
I'm really struggling to figure out where my OCD ends and where I begin. I’m scared of most things—not in a panicky way, but in a deep, cautious, worst-case-scenario kind of way. Example: I haaaaaaaaate my spectacles. I’d love to do Lasik, or even just wear contacts, but the idea terrifies me. I’ve heard about the tiniest risk of blindness or infection, and once that thought is in my head, it takes over. I picture the worst, and then I don’t act. TRIGGER Also Lasik involves cutting TRIGGER which petrifies me. I’m stuck between wanting change and being too afraid to make it. The same goes with wanting to travel but being scared I'll be trafficked or someone will plant something in my bag & I'll get arrested overseas. No amount of praying will fix it. Does anyone else feel like their OCD makes them freeze in everyday decisions? Like you can’t tell if you're just being practical or if it's the OCD gripping the steering wheel again? Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's not OCD but my personality, that's what I'm trying to figure out.
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