Feeling “normal” again

By learning erp tools and learning how to allow thoughts to be there and not fight them, not getting caught up in trying to figure everything out, you will learn to live with the themes even when they do occur. Contact NOCD for a free 15 minute call to discuss further. They can offer more detail than I can here. https://www.treatmyocd.com/about-us/contact-us

It’s so common to feel like you’re faking your OCD, when things get better. This happens to me all the time. You don’t have to feel ridiculous. OCD is a very difficult disorder to live with. Shaming yourself won’t help. Once you work through a theme, congratulate yourself for getting through. It’s so hard! But look at your accomplishments! ERP therapy is the best way to combat OCD. You learn how to manage it, how to combat it, and how to reclaim your life. If you’re considering therapy and have questions, I’m happy to help.

So, any ERP work that you do for one theme should generalise to other themes. Whether it's health, existential, or religious themes, they are all stemming from the same faulty bit of the brain. As time goes on and you apply your ERP and it increasingly rewires your brain, you should experience less intensity and frequency of all the themes 🙂 Plus, experience is your teacher. Now you've identified that your OCD takes these forms, you'll spot the hallmarks of a new theme popping up quicker. You will recognise the familiar pattern of feelings and distorted thoughts sooner. Maybe not instantly yet, but it's certainly possible to get faster at identifying new OCD themes. Also, what you're saying about feeling like you're 'faking' when you come out of an obsession is really common - but it's actually got a positive side 🙂 If you have enough insight and mental clarity to see the OCD thoughts as the nonsense they are, at any point, it's a great sign for recovery! Rather than berating yourself for getting excessively worked up, you could use that knowledge to spur on recovery. When a new obsession starts trying to get its claws into you, you could say to it "I remember how harmless this worry turned out to be last time! This is just the same pattern again, so I don't need to react to you."

I totally relate. I remember after my first major bout of treatment, feeling that normalcy again was a borderline drug-rush. It felt like my hands had been out in the cold too long and now they were by the fire and feeling was returning to my fingers. So surreal in a beautiful way. I also agree that thoughts can seem so stupid in retrospect. All we can do is shrug and say it is what it is! Either way, glad you are feeling normal again. I know how beautiful that can be.

My themes fluctuate a lot in severity too. My main themes are also health and existential/religion. In calmer times, I definitely look back and think "wow, it's wild that I was so distressed about that, it's clearly a non-issue!" But when you're in the moment, it feels SO REAL!!! You can't necessarily prevent themes from coming per-se. They will always come up, and this is true for everyone regardless of if they have OCD or not. The difference is that when someone without OCD has worries about health or existence, they can move past it without latching onto it. When you have OCD, you latch onto it and obsess, and it's agonizing. What you CAN do is learn to change how you respond to these thoughts. That's how you prevent it. That's where exposure response prevention therapy (ERP) comes in! It's even got the word "prevention" in there haha. ERP has helped me so much to find peace from these distressing themes. You are not alone and I am here if you need to chat or vent with someone who gets what it's like to live with these themes.

Might you now, when not being tormented by themes, make a list of topics that have snagged you before? That way, if OCD tries to grab on in the future, and you have this list, it might remind you of the ways that OCD has tried to get you stuck in the past. It seems that people with OCD can "forget" what OCD grabbed on to before so this might be a helpful cue to keep in mind.