- Date posted
- 37w
Advice?
I’m having a big OCD relapse and would like to hear anyone’s tips on how to be present and healthily deal with these intrusive thoughts and the “need” to preform compulsions. Thank you!!
I’m having a big OCD relapse and would like to hear anyone’s tips on how to be present and healthily deal with these intrusive thoughts and the “need” to preform compulsions. Thank you!!
I'm sorry to hear that you're experiencing a relapse. Focus on your breathing or use mindfulness techniques to bring your awareness to the present moment. Techniques like the "5-4-3-2-1" grounding exercise (identifying things you can see, hear, touch, smell, and taste) can help anchor you in the now. Instead of trying to fight your intrusive thoughts, acknowledge them without judgment. Understand that these thoughts do not define you and recognize they are part of OCD. When you feel the urge to perform a compulsion, try to delay it for a few minutes. Gradually increase this delay over time. This can help reduce the anxiety associated with the compulsion itself. Use cognitive restructuring to challenge irrational thoughts. Ask yourself what evidence you have for and against these thoughts and whether they are realistic. Find activities that you enjoy or that require your full attention, such as reading, drawing, exercising, or spending time with friends. Engaging your mind can distract you from intrusive thoughts. Resist the urge to avoid situations that trigger your anxiety or compulsions. Gradually facing these triggers can help diminish their power over time. Structure can provide a sense of stability. Try to maintain a daily routine that includes self-care activities. Remember to believe in yourself and your recovery. You can do it, just as you did before.
Thank you so so much for your kind words and advice!! This was very helpful🫶
You're welcome 🙂. Wish you a speedy recovery.
Use the SOS button. Take care of your body - sleep, nutrition, exercise. Learn basic mindfulness - stay grounded in the here and now. Sometimes when it's really hard I have to speak out loud to help myself be present in the moment - "now I'm brushing my teeth, I feel the taste in my mouth of toothpaste, now I walk out in the kitchen to make some tea..." Practice practice practice - and it takes time. We have to remknd ourselves that we have an disorder and we don't will fall for the tricks. Compulsions make it worse. Check Jenna Overbaugh on Insta - she is great.
I been dealing with OCD my entire life but recently I been finding it really difficult to find the slightest relief. I know it’s not good to do but I been trying not to think of the thoughts but of course they come back even stronger. Does anyone know what I could do in the meanwhile ? Thank you
I’ve been stuck in this cycle for the last month or two and am not sure how to get out of it. Basically, I will work on ignoring the thoughts and not responding or engaging plus limiting/completely eliminating compulsions. After a week or two of constant work, the amount of intrusive thoughts in a day goes down. The anxiety each thought causes also goes down with some, but not all, thoughts passing without notice like they would for a normal person. The thoughts that do stick cause anxiety and make me want to ruminate or do other compulsions but I make sure to limit them. After a bit, I’m in a pretty good head space. This is usually when it goes down hill. I’ll start to question if I even have ocd because some of the thoughts (once again not all) pass without notice. The difficulty resisting compulsions goes down and so does the anxiety, only increasing the questioning. I spend a while questioning if I’ve ever had ocd in the first place and then something sets me off or the questioning itself becomes a trigger and I get stuck back into the same ocd cycle with constant rumination, anxiety, and other compulsions. This lasts for a week or two before I know I need to stop and try and work hard to get back to ignoring the thoughts. And the cycle just restarts over and over again. Does anyone have any tips to stop this from happening? It’s really harming my recovery as every few weeks I dive back into the same negative place I was.
This is a repost, only because the last post had no responses lol. Please if you have any advice share. I’ve been trying hard to sit with the feeling of anxiety. Actually that’s the problem, recently I’ve been trying to sit with the thought (and I’m able to for a few hours or until the next morning) and then my anxiety comes back so strong and it’s like I need to clean everything off. I see images of gross laundry getting on everything or my hand and then I need to clean everything off to un contaminate it. Sometimes the thought happens later at night so I just sleep through and the next morning I will wake up with intense anxiety about contamination. That happened yesterday and I had to clean everything off and since then I’ve been traumatized so I’ve been doing compulsions like avoiding the bathroom and being around people so I know I couldn’t have done anything wrong. Actually recently my biggest compulsion has been recording every time I get up to go eat, etc so that I know I couldn’t have done anything. Any advice or help???
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