- Date posted
- 5y
- Date posted
- 5y
Avoidance is a compulsion, and it’s SUPER common for all OCD themes. When you say avoidance makes your OCD “go down”, what you actually mean is that you temporarily feel less anxious, but in reality, your OCD is actually getting worse. It strengthens that message you’re sending to your brain that these thoughts are real and important and dangerous. Part of recovery is purposefully exposing ourslelves to these triggers. This makes our anxiety heighten in the short term, but ultimately reduces our OCD in the long term. If you already have a lot of avoidance behaviors, cutting them all out cold turkey is probably too much too fast, so go slow, work with your therapist to decide what level of discomfort you can reasonably handle, and only do it when you can resist all other compulsions.
- Date posted
- 5y
it is hard but have you ever come across a trigger after avoiding it? the anxiety that comes with is soo much worse after avoidance. that’s why it worsens it. plus, with avoidance you aren’t actually giving yourself the chance to just live. you’re only cutting yourself off from everything else more and more
- Date posted
- 5y
It’s so hard Jaz. As I mentioned , for awhile I got over avoidance then suddenly I saw fresh blood by my foot. Dealing with that was sooo exhausting that I could not leave my house. Now I don’t have the courage to go back and use the bathroom. I use such a far one and even that is not great. It’s taking so much of my break time to go there.
- Date posted
- 5y
it’s ok if you have to start over exposures again, recovery isn’t linear
- Date posted
- 5y
I just wanted you to know that I would’ve absolutely flipped under these circumstances and would do the same thing. I broke into tears when my new job even MENTIONED blood borne pathogens.
- Date posted
- 5y
You are right. I didn’t mean to say avoidance makes my ocd go down but rather it’s actually the compulsions. And lately I noticed my fear of leaving the apt is getting worse and worse which I cannot bear to have since I have school and a job. But the toll of my compulsions is so hard too. It’s 1.5 hours a day and then some days it’s 2 hours.
- Date posted
- 5y
Don’t worry, I’ve had compulsions last up to 8 hours a day before. Cut them down suuuuper slowly. Tomorrow, try just 10 min less. And do that for a week or two. Check in with yourself. At first it will make you more anxious, but if you stick to it without more compulsions, you’ll see improvement.
- Date posted
- 5y
I’m glad to hear it worked for you. I’m trying but the fear of disgust is too much but I know I have to do this so I’ll try less and less
- Date posted
- 5y
Ceej for me it’s just pure grossness and disgusts. I actually know it’s quite hard to catch illnesses from blood and especially not from the ones on the bathroom floor from that time of the month but regardless I find it still sooo disgusting and the thought of it really grossed me out
- Date posted
- 5y
And by that I mean it’s hard to catch illnesses from blood just by looking at it or being next to it but still the disgust overpowers me
Related posts
- Date posted
- 24w
Im having a OCD specifically contamination OCD flare up all month and I don’t want to feel this way going into March, I’ve thrown out clothes, towels, stayed up for hours doing compulsions, washed my hands till they crack and bleed, I have washing pilling up cause I’m so overwhelmed by all the extra things I’ve added cause I thought it was contaminated. It’s completely draining me to the point where I’ve become sleep deprived and are avoiding part of my home because they are deemed contaminated to me…I only moved in a few months ago, I had a roach problem and using baits and insecticides really messed with my ocd too. anyone have any tips or tricks to make this easier? I wasn’t doing this bad in January :( thankyou in advance :)
- Date posted
- 24w
Not super ocd related but I will be staying at a treatment center for mental health soon and I'm looking forward to nit being stuck at home where I have loads of ocd triggers. I know avoidance isn't the best and honestly leaving home for a month or two might make it harder to deal with when I come back but honestly I need a break, I feel trapped here and my mum hates dealing with me and my shitty brain so it's best for all of us if I go away for a bit. Am I the only one who's contamination ocd is worse at home because I hold more value over my room? Like everywhere in the house and even parts of my room are infected but the clean parts need to stay clean but if I'm in public on a random chair I don't care because it's not my chair
- Date posted
- 17w
I had avoided a lot with school specifically, but I did do it in other areas of life as well. School for some reason has been the biggest trigger that sends me into avoidance and it has been for the longest time. Does anybody relate? If so, what did you do to help besides therapy? In high school I used to sit in the bathroom stalls for hours so I could avoid going to classes. I was struggling to keep up because my OCD makes me perfect my school work so much so to the point where I’d never turn it in because I’d never be satisfied with what I’d produce. I’d get so incredibly frustrated with myself and the fact that I could never meet my own standards, never mind the rubrics given. I took ages analyzing all my writing, all my answers, all my google slides and I burnt myself out. So I stopped trying. I stopped turning in work because I’d never be satisfied. I’d cry because I felt I wasn’t good enough. Then I’d be missing assignments, getting them done but not submitting them because I was too ashamed. So, I avoided classes because I’d be in trouble or be called out for not getting anything done. Unfortunately this habit bled into my first year of college last year, and OCD coupled up with depression, made going to the dining hall and attending classes even worse. So I avoided it all together. It’s so hard being a freshman in college, so so hard. I unfortunately failed out of that school but I tried to medically withdraw either semester. No, I wasn’t partying, or drinking or smoking or hanging with the wrong people. I was a college freshman struggling with ocd and depression. I’m trying to not make excuses for myself either because I’m well aware this is my fault and I’m trying to reverse it now at community college. Right now I’m trying to get those Fs turned into Ws from my old school so I can fix my gpa. I want to transfer, I want to be a forensic psychologist, I want to be independent, I want to be ok. It’s gonna take me so long to transfer from community college but that’s on me. I’m willing to put in the work. I’m so embarassed, please help me.
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