- Date posted
- 43w
- Date posted
- 43w
I know its hard but accepting the possibility of being a "monster" isnt agreeing that you like the idea of it, its not agreeing that you want to be bad, and its not agreeing that you believe it to be true. It is just accepting that if it were to be true, it wouldnt be the end of the world and you can keep on living your life. The only way out is through. I know it seems like the opposite of what you should do but if you can accept the possibility, then the fear won't have power over you anymore. You dont need to keep spending your time proving to yourself that you never had ill intentions because even if you DID, that would be okay.
- Date posted
- 43w
@komorebi11 Okay I see well basically I am talking about ACT, acceptance and commitment therapy. I have been watching on the "OCD recovery" youtube channel the testimonies of these people who recovered from their OCD suffering by learning to unconditionally accept life, themselves, and others. I think the philosophy behind it was first invented by author Albert Ellis and he says we can get ourselves there by getting rid of our irrational beliefs like the idea that things we dont want "must" not happen and "must" not be true. Or that they would be objectively "unbearable" We also need to lose the labels on ourselves like say the idea that "I am a bad person" we would need to remove all the irrational parts of the statement until it becomes more like "I did some things that I regret in my past and don't approve of." That way we remove the objectivity of it since its a subjective concept and humans cant be rated. We cant be summed up in a single world and our own worth cant be earned or lost. And we are absolutely not reducable to the worst action we have done, as much as our ocd tells us we should just assume that we are, in order to "prepare" lol. So we end up with instead of "I am a bad person and I shouldn't have done those things therefore I am damned" To "I have done some things I regret that I don't approve of and therefore, I have lots of painful feelings right now and am afraid of having more painful feelings about this in the future." Notice how once we remove all the impossible aspects, it gets way easier to accept. You can accept that you are a fallible human being who has done some things that you wish you didnt do and that you are scared right now. Btw the definition of accept we would probably use is really just: "Receive willingly something given or offered" So it just means whatever life throws at us, we say "bring it on!" We just dont accept the irrational beliefs about it. You can also then accept that even if you continued to have the irrational beliefs and fears for the rest of your life, that wouldnt make you damned or anything either. It would make life harder to manage but not impossible. You could still take things day by day even if you suffered with this ocd for the rest of your life. Once you can accept what rationally is and what rationally could be, the fears will actually die down since where acceptance is, fear isn't. It doesnt mean that this process is quick and easy, if you watch the channel I mentioned, people often say it can take like a year and a half. But it does work. And you would still have ocd so themes that would try to pop up but you can wacka them down with acceptance and you wouldnt "suffer" with ocd in the way that the vast majority of people with ocd do on this app and such. And I just wanna add, this works for literaly everything and every type of OCD fear. And there is no fear that is actually unacceptable even if it goes beyond what society says is acceptable, that doesn't matter. I hope this helps I know you said your fear is more than ill intentions like idk if its about a past behavior or something but yes even past real event behaviors need to be accepted and it is okay and good to do so.
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