I am feeling sad and frustrated today with myself. I have been in therapy for two months and had my meds upped two months ago too. However, my job is extremely stressful and I have been dealing with a set back. I keep getting told to set boundaries or even quit but financially I can't and can't afford to lose my medical insurance. Anyone have any tips on how to deal when stress makes the OCD worse?
This is something I've been struggling with too lately as I've been through some major changes in my life. You aren't alone :) I find that when I'm stressed, I have to take a 2 part approach. First, I have to be much more accountable with my ERP and not make exceptions for compulsions. It's so hard, because when you're stressed, you want to do compulsions more than anything. But they will make the situation so much worse and only serve to increase your stress levels. My therapist and I know that when I have a stressful situation coming up in my life, I have to stay much more on top of my ERP than usual. Second, I have to allow myself to have the experience of being stressed and frustrated. OCD wants to eliminate ANY discomfort we could possibly feel from life, but life is full of discomfort, and if you always try to feel good, you will live a miserable life. Allowing myself to feel stressed and uncomfortable is what helped me find better, healthy coping mechanisms for stress, like working out, making art, and opening up to friends/family. That way, you can actually treat the root cause of the stress instead of putting bandaids on it. I hope this helps :) OCD can be a real monster, but you are stronger than it is, and I know that to be true!
It does help a lot and makes a lot of sense! I just feel awful because the stress and OCD have nothing to do with each other at all.
I’m so glad everybody has a comfortable job where they can pay for therapy. But I’ve realized my ocd has gotten worse at the job I’m currently at and I don’t want to quit because the job market is never hiring and I always have bills to pay like every freaking week on top of that I’m still in college. I think being stressed is making my ocd worse.
Hi! I’m new to the NOCD community, but I’ve been dealing with OCD since I was 12. I’m almost 29 now, and my biggest issue is health anxiety. It’s gotten to the point where getting work done is nearly impossible because i can’t stop spiraling. I’m lucky that i work remotely, but also makes it easier to be in my own head… Asking for advice - how do you all deal with the intense anxiety and are able to make it through a 9-5 work day? Any suggestions on how I can actually be productive? Thank you!
I’ve recently been struggling a lot with OCD. I have had OCD for a long time I just didn’t realize it until more recently. About seven months ago I developed panic attacks one day randomly at work. I thought I was having a heart attack and went to the hospital where they told me it was just a panic attack and I assumed I would snap out and be better within a few days. However it didn’t. Here’s where it gets scary, I was staying at my then boyfriends house while dealing with blurry vision, anxiety attacks everyday, and more (unsure of what was going on). But at some point I saw my bfs (pew pew 🔫) on his table and it sent me into an anxiety attack after sudden thoughts that I was going to hurt myself with it. I begged him to put it away when I’m not looking so I didn’t know where he put it. He did. These thoughts lasted for about four days but began to go away. (I thought that was it and I would be back to normal). Unfortunately though I ended up moving back in with my family when we couldn’t get my panic attacks under control in time for me to get back to work and pay bills. However, coming home brought up a lot of trauma from when I was kid. My anxiety got worse but I didn’t have those thoughts again. About two and half months ago though, I got sick and went to the hospital where they gave me steroid pills and a steroid shot but sent me into some kind of psychiatric event. Ever since then though, I have been suffering from harm OCD, I have had moments of intense anger that I usually have to completely walk away and go on my own because of how intense they are, and it feels like it’s getting worse. Today I felt fine until about and hour and half ago where I started to dwell on the fact that my suicidal thought was influenced by my OCD and at the moment my OCD is at the worst it’s been. This caused me to get suddenly really depressed and I started crying thinking about how I can’t handle this. I then saw a post talking about how suicide rates are high for people with this form of OCD and it made me question if I am mentally strong enough to pull through this. I fear that at times I’m getting worse. I have good days but I have a lot of bad days. Unfortunately this sent me into such a bad panic attack I went over to my nanas crying about how I can’t deal with this. I took a 0.25 mg Xanax which helped calm down the panic attack portion of it but my brain is still uncomfortably active. I guess I just need hope. I’m so saddened by this. It’s like my life took a total 360 in 10 months and got even worse since the steroid shot. Idk what to do about it. I can’t stop the spiral. I talk to two different therapist weekly and start more next week, making it 5 times a week. I feel no improvements…
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