- Date posted
- 19w
People with HA
Do you resolve one symtpom only to be left with a new one? How can I deal with that? It's almost like one went away and another began.
Do you resolve one symtpom only to be left with a new one? How can I deal with that? It's almost like one went away and another began.
All the time :( ocd is switching to a different fear. It can feel really frustrating or discouraging, but it doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong , it actually means you’re making progress! The key is learning to respond differently in general, rather than getting stuck in the content of each specific fear. Over time, as you build that skill, the symptoms lose their power. ERP and response prevention help with this a lot
Absolutely! Even though it’s so *ANNOYING* - you can find comedy everywhere! I gave my ocd a “name” - might sound weird but it’s something I was taught to do in therapy to take some of the blame of “having” ocd off myself. Clem - that’s my “ocd’s name” Sometimes I’ll choose to accept a symptom - then suddenly I’m hit with 50 different symptoms at once. So I just shake my head and let ”Clem” have his little tantrum. This may not work for everyone, but it works for me - gives me a little laugh when I’m down.
One of the things about OCD is regardless of the theme or topic, the answer is the same…ERP. Exposures and sitting with the unknown while allowing the thoughts to be without giving them your attention.
Unfortunately yes I have gone through so many different types of OCD however the good thing is that the way to tackle each theme is the same through ERP so once you have that down you will be okay and if you need extra help you can always restart therapy I had to do that recently because my theme changed but it’s getting better
my OCD is doing what it does best and it’s randomly selecting themes. Once I’m not scared or react to one it bounces to another. And then i temporarily forget all of my coping skills for that theme. Rn it’s fixating on the time I had a panic attack and it’s trying to make me have one again
My soocd sufferers and recoverers, I have a question! This is my second spiral and while I hade some manageable background noise before, the spiral literally “clicked” into place a few months again and it’s been awful every single day. I’m on meds and doing some light ERP/ACT because my anxiety was so bad I lost so much weight, but I wake up feeling ok and there’s no “click” back to normal. Is there supposed to be like a moment where it’s all over or is it gradual bc if anything I “feel gay” and more accepting of that. Anyone else?
I had my first serious anxiety related episode back in April and then once in May. My husband had lost his job due to health reasons and spent six weeks looking for work before he finally found something. It was up to me delivering for spark to make the bills. The stress built up and in May I had a panic attack that put me in the hospital. I started Sertraline, had some rough side effects but still noticed a positive change in the anxiety. I still felt crappy every day, but less and less crappy, if that makes sense. (Nausea, heart palpitations, weak, anxious). The month of June was great, no huge panic moments, no racing heart, etc. In one day I went out of town by myself, drove on the interstate, (that’s always scared me), went to the dentist and took my son out to lunch and dined in. It was great. The next day, I argued with my teen all day, it exhausted me and I was dreading spending an hour that evening talking to my therapist. I was just too tired, you know? About twenty minutes before the appointment my anxiety ramped up. Racing heart, trembling, feelings of dread. Normally I can get it under control with breathing techniques but I didn’t have time to before my appointment. Luckily my therapist had overbooked and called me to cancel, so I just rested for the rest of the night, but that’s been six days ago and I’ve struggled ever since. The day after that I was weak and shaky and could feel my heart beat, the day after that I was tired and really beating myself up for what felt like a failure to me, and the last couple days it’s been on and off heart palpitations (my heart rate isn’t going up high, I’m just super aware of my heart beat) and it’s very uncomfortable. My family keeps telling me it’s because I’m stuck in my head and I know that’s true because I spent hours outside in the heat doing garden work yesterday and instead of feeling even worse I felt amazing for the rest of the night and I’ve felt pretty good for most of today. So I know in my head that anxiety recovery isn’t linear and that anxiety hangovers are a real thing and that i just have to be patient for a few days after an attack, but sometimes it’s so hard to think like that when I’m in the middle of feeling so crappy and shaky and weak. Does anyone else feel discouraged like this sometimes? Is what I just described similar to anything anyone else has experienced? If so, what were some coping techniques you used?
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