How long do you guys have to sit with a thought for it to go away? I have sat with thoughts for days and days before and the anxiety was crippling to where I couldn’t eat or sleep. Until I asked. And especially something I’ve already asked about before that upsets my husband but my brain was like did I hear him right? Yada yada. That’s about where I’m at right now. I feel so sick from anxiety
Youre focused on it going away. Thats why it wont go away. Thoughts go away when we stop giving them any meaning. You get a thought one day that you might’ve done something terrible in your past and then your mind adds meaning, maybe I have, maybe Im a bad person, maybe I deserve to be in jail? And there starts the rumination cycle. All because I gave the thought meaning. Stop attaching meaning to the thought. Thoughts cant hurt you. They are just thoughts.
When it comes to my physical obsessions I have not yet found the answer to that. I, too, have gone days without performing a compulsion and was unable to eat and live normally. As for pure O intrusions a few minutes, though repeatedly throughout the day.
@Guest1488484 Pure O is the worst for me and it’s impossible without seeking reassurance for me it seems
@KAW1007 I managed to overcome my pure O purely by ignoring it. I did not expose myself to nor agree to anything, I simply did not react. Now, in turn, I suffer from the most nightmarish physical obsessions.
@KAW1007 I would get a burning, warm feeling in my head, a sort of dizziness and a feeling of illness and fear when not responding to an intrusion. This passed after a few minutes, but it would always restart every time the intrusion returned. I did not speak to it, I did not challenge it, didn't say no, didn't counter it, and most importantly I did not purposefully distract myself, which is a compulsion.
@Guest1488484 Yeah I get a huge pit of anxiety in my gut. How do you consciously stop ruminating? Or what do you do to not distract? My anxiety has been high at the max for 2 days now and I don’t know how to get it to die down. The thought repeats in my head all day and it spirals worse and worse too.
@KAW1007 I remember feeling this way very clearly. When I think back on the way I suffered, I would be trapped in fear and unable to get over it, the intrusions would consume me entirely, I would feel ill and like I was drowning. The intrusions would be the only thing on my mind the whole day. The fear was overwhelming. I would do a compulsion, resisting, refusing, pleading, which gave me relief, but the intrusion would challenge me anew every minute and I would drown more. So I decided I wouldn't say anything. I would watch it, and it would kill me not to perform a compulsion. The fear would be worse to the point where I wanted to do the compulsion or die. But I didn't. I watched it, and the fear faded. It will keep going. It will keep returning. To this day I struggle with the same intrusions. But I can ignore them. That is the difference. Do not purposefully change your train of thought or focus. Let your focus naturally rest on the intrusion, as it normally does. Just watch it. Don't say anything.
My OCD has been terrible the for the past two weeks. I have a fear that I will never be able to get out of the thought loop. I am hyper aware of my thoughts and it disturbs me. I haven’t been able to eat for 10 days. I force myself. I haven’t been able to sleep for more than a couple hours. Then I wake up and ruminate for a couple hours, until I’m exhausted. I’m also afraid I’ll never sleep well again. And I’m afraid I’ll never eat and enjoy my food again. I’m afraid I’ll never be able to stop thinking about this enough to enjoy my family ever again.
My ocd gets so loud in the silence and right before bed when there’s no distractions. I always struggled with anxiety since my teens and guided meditation used to help… until OCD. First time trying guided meditation with OCD I had an intrusive thought of “what if you actually lose control and can’t follow these instructions?” And got even more anxious 🫠🫠🫠 had to stop, and haven’t tried to meditate ever since. Just curious to know. Sometimes I feel like I have the worst type of OCD. It will latch onto anything to make me anxious!
Hi, last year I had a trigger with my little cousin that made me spiral. Then that thought lead to another and lead to another thought and another one and so on and I've been feeling stuck (with ups and downs) over a year now. I hit rock bottom in July/August and that lead me to going to the psychiatrist. I am taking meds now, but I still feel bad. It doesn't take as much time of my life anymore but it is constantly back there in my mind. It's the feeling that I'm ignoring and undoubtable truth that soonest or later will come out, or that rejecting, or that I'm resisting. That's why it's been impossible for me to do ERP, because I think it's going to make me want to touch myself and if I do I'll feel bad. And then it feels like I like the thoughts, not only physically (groinals) but mentally??? It's like a brain fog that I can't tag between pleasure or confusion. And that thought leads me to thinking about the alleged "non-offending" ps and if that could be me. And that thought leads me to think OH MY GOD I can't BELIEVE I am a girl in my twenties obsessing over this I can't believe this is my life.
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