Hello all, I delayed a compulsion today for 5 hours, but my anxiety never went down. It kept getting worse and worse until I finally did it. Is this unusual? Is this normal? How long of a delay is typical for it to go down naturally?
Resisting compulsions and doing ERP initially tends to feel a lot worse before it gets better. This is a common experience because our brain isn’t used to these new behaviors and our OCD is screaming at us to resume doing compulsions. Keep up your great progress! 👍 You’re doing amazing work
@OneDayAtATimee Thank you. I just have a faith problem in it actually getting better, because of how long I’ve been stuck. No choice but to give them up though! No one wants to spend their life doing them. I appreciate this comment.
@Crook You’re so welcome :) We’ve all had that same fear, at 1st you just gotta blindly trust in the ERP process and when you start to see little results from continuously resisting compulsions, it gives you boosts of confidence. You got this ❤️
@OneDayAtATimee Yes! Love those confidence boosts/wins/empowerment from that ERP work!!
This is something that is helpful for me: Once I Decide to do the courageous work of no longer giving into the complusion (overthinking/rumination/solving/fixing, ect)...it's like it keeps coming back knocking on my door and I must keep resisting doing the complusion...I expect it to yell at me as it yells you are avoiding and must think about the thing again! But freedom comes in weathering the storm & continuing to not take the compusion bait. I remind myself that, that uneasy/ocd feeling (that feels like I am actually doing something wrong/bad by not doing my compulsion) I get when not giving in to the complusion is actually proof I am on the right track! There is much more freedom when I can exit the cycle & Decide & put a line in the sand of not giving in to my complusions...and put my trust in The Lord's Strength (and not my own). I hope some of this can be an encouragement! Keep going! I am proud of you! OCD Sucks!!
@Kalidescope Thank you for this! I do need to place my faith in the good Lord! I know it will be hard to do this, but I want a shortcut lol. I realize there are none. I just need to keep faith and drop these compulsions for good.
@Kalidescope Oh, do you have any tips on how to stop ruminating and overthinking? That is my biggest problem.
Oh and this...to receive & remind yourself: You have permission to not lean on your own understanding & you have permission to trust the Lord with all your heart!
@Kalidescope Thank you for that. Proverbs 3:5-6 is the Bible verse that my late grandmother picked for me when I graduated high school 🥲. So I think I was meant to hear this from you. I also really like your line in the sand comment from earlier. It’s time to draw it.
I think reframing the pain of not doing the complusion is a biggie for me. Realizing it actually means I am withdrawing from it... Like especially after I have given in to a complusion and am trying to get out. Knowing, expecting the ocd monster to probably knock on my door 20 times...
Also this....Rejecting the whole conversation of doubt and fear & shame & fixing & checking & accusation and choose to live in the protection of God's love, favor & faithfulness. Nurture and protection. Periodt
Okay....So a weird tip that I heard that I adapted for me... Relaxing your brain & actually thinking about the base of your brainstem...it like can help shift my mental energy from my frontal lobe to the back... which personally can help...Weird, but worth a try...
Can it feel like you're enjoying the thought in the moment but then later, hours later feel anxious and do a compulsion?
Resisting compulsions feels so wrong and dangerous, I’m trying my best but the anxiety of doing so is immense. Especially because my brain is still not allowing myself to believe that my obsession is OCD, it wants me to believe it is a threat, so even calling my compulsions “compulsions” is making me anxious because that is me calling this whole thing OCD and not real if that makes sense?
When I catch myself doing compulsions mentally during exposure sessions, it seems alot of the time like the realization that I was just doing a compulsion is more distressing than the actual trigger I'm trying to expose myself to. It feels defeating having to admit the prompt at the end that I performed a compulsion yet again. I still think I've made progress overall, and generally speaking I don't think I'm performing compulsions as much as I used to, and my distress has also gone down noticeably (not completely) but exposure sessions have been kinda tricky for me from the beginning since its all mental. Additionally, I am a bit concerned that I could start using exposures to rid myself of anxiety rather than expose myself to it properly.
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