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sebviathan

Date posted: 37w

Im just so fucking exhausted

by having to remind myself "I'm not supposed to care about that" in order to try to fix my ocd thought patterns and it's like... the things I'm supposed to "not care about" is my whole fucking identity and everything that matters to me in my life. I'm basically having knives stabbed into my back constantly and being told that the way to solve that problem is to ignore it. Like okay I've been doing my best to ignore it for YEARS and it won't work, it's only been getting worse and worse, even if I get it to stop for a while it only ever comes back worse and every single time it feels like it COULDNT possibly get worse but it DOES. I feel like I'm just so tired and I'll never ever sleep. Like, I'm literally not even safe from intrusive thoughts in my dreams. It's everywhere all the time getting in the way of any chance I have to feel happy and I cope but I'm fucking tired of coping.

"Pure" OCD

djflorio

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 37w

I understand your frustration. Maybe a shift in perspective can be helpful. I would say it's not about forcing yourself not to care about the things you're thinking about. It's about gradually training yourself to not care about the THOUGHTS THEMSELVES, by coming to understand that they are nothing but thoughts. The crux of all of this is that we think that the thoughts are the problem, when they aren't. A thought doesn't become intrusive until you try to push it away. The resisting and pushing away is what you want to address. To use myself as an example, I used to have tons of intrusive thoughts about suicide. I'd be bombarded with images of how I might do it, how my friends and family would react, all the similarities between me and a celebrity who killed themselves, etc. It felt like because these thoughts were there I had to constantly check to see if I was suicidal. Any time the idea of death came up, any time I was in a mood that could even kind-of-sort-of-somehow be described as "depressed," I'd be flooded with anxiety and catastrophic thoughts. I'm over that theme now, but it's not like I "don't care" if I may ever kill myself, it's that I don't KNOW. The reality is there's no way for me to be 100% certain about that because I can't predict the future. I've come to understand that uncertainty is unavoidable, and no amount of thinking will change that. Through training myself in mindfulness and experiencing exposures without doing compulsions, I've come to understand that I can indeed handle the anxiety I feel when those intrusive thoughts arise; I don't have to push them away or try to get rid of the anxiety. This understanding has naturally led me to not care about those intrusive thoughts, which has made them less important to me, and thus they are no longer actually intrusive and arise less often. That's what's meant by not caring. It's less about forcing yourself and more about coming to understand that thoughts don't carry the weight we think they do. This is something that is best learned through experience rather than logical force, which is why therapeutic techniques like ERP are so effective when done right. Hopefully this perspective is more helpful for you.

sebviathan

Date posted: 37w

The thoughts carry literal weight though. How do I make myself not care about thoughts that I feel in my whole body?

djflorio

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 37w

@sebviathan - Feel that weight fully. Notice how it physically feels and give it the attention it wants. You don't "feel" your thoughts, you feel feelings. Maybe those feelings are triggered by certain thoughts, but the feeling isn't the thought itself. In my experience with mindfulness and meditation, I've come to understand how much extra stuff our thoughts put on our feelings. Often things get mixed up as well. What you think is fear may really be anger, what you think is anger may really be grief, etc, etc. Back to my personal analogy, what I thought were clear signs that I was suicidal was really a deep fear of suicide, a fear of hurting others, a fear of death in general. The endless cycle was perpetuated by my unwillingness to feel those feelings. As you take the time to really allow your feelings to arise and notice them, you become more familiar with how you truly feel deep down. That's where all the good information is, and that's where you can gain clarity for how to move forward. Maybe it's a lifestyle change, rekindling a relationship, building a support network, changing your priorities in life, or just simply being more present. Any of these real changes start with not resisting your feelings. Thoughts, on the other hand, will never be satisfied. If you give them so much weight and power, you'll be stuck in their cycle. The thought of, "maybe I'm going to kill myself" used to feel like a huge weight in my chest too, which made me think the thought itself was the problem. But it wasn't, it was my relationship to that thought and my reaction to it that was the problem.

BiancaIsGrowing

Date posted: 19w

@djflorio You don't know how much you just helped me. You saved a life today. Thank you

Michelle444

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 37w

Im so sorry. OCD really does suck. Sometimes I wanna throw my brain away.

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Date posted: 23w

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Anonymous

Date posted: 16w

Feel lost and without hope

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Vee <3

Date posted: 14w

So my OCD has been bad lately. I’ve been ruminating and obsessing over my sexuality again. And it just keeps getting worse. I hate it so much. I try to sit with the discomfort but then my ocd does the backdoor spike. And the groinal response is what keeps me looped. It SUCKS. I am not attracted to men, but my OCD is trying SO hard to convince me that I am. There have been days where I’m just so mentally exhausted that I “accept” what my ocd tells me and I just walk around a hollow, lethargic shell. But then I rethink it and I feel better. It feels like I can only find my TRUE self when I tire my nervous system out enough that it literally breaks down and has me suicidal and hopeless. And then accepting my OCD’s “truth” (that I’m attracted to men) feels like a burden and a chore. I woke up today from an OCD dream, tried to go back to sleep, and my stomach kept cramping bc I was so anxious and ruminating over my intrusive thoughts. I’m starting to doubt it being OCD anymore. My brain is too tired to fight and cry about it anymore.

Sexual Orientation OCD

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