Managing Stress

Welcome to the app! I'm sorry that you're also struggling with OCD, but I'm glad to see you seeking resources and community while you learn to navigate the disorder. It can and is very difficult to manage sometimes, but difficult doesn't mean impossible and you **can** manage your symptoms to a point where they have a negligible impact on your quality of life. Above all else, try to keep this in mind! When it comes to managing stress and anxiety, I have advice that may sound unpleasant now but comes in handy alongside ERP: you just have to "ride the wave" of the emotions. Since they're connected to your OCD, the best way to manage them is to not feed into them—this comes with time and experience, but this is the most consistent way you'll be able to manage them. Additionally, the typical advice you see can be helpful as well: doing activities that you find enjoyable, peaceful, and fulfilling; doing intentional self care, like taking a warm bath or a nap; going outside when the weather permits, getting fresh air, and feeling the sun; and really any other generic advice can help (if you find that it helps you). It's important to remember that nothing is going to work 100% of the time, so your goal shouldn't be to find the magic cure for your stress or anxiety—something calming you down 40% is better than 0% from doing nothing! With intrusive thoughts, the advice I give will be echoed when doing ERP and on this app a lot. What you do when your intrusive thoughts are particularly bad is, well... nothing. You don't feed into them by ruminating, you don't ask the internet or others for reassurance, you don't try and force yourself to calm down or "not think" something. Intrusive thoughts are just thoughts, and not all thoughts are useful or need to be paid any attention to. Your intrusive thoughts are the ones you ignore! The more attention you give to them, the more anxious and stressed out you'll be, and that's what you want to decrease. Instead of focusing on your intrusive thoughts, regardless of what they're about, the best thing you can do *instead* of feeding into them and the OCD cycle is to do things that you value and align with the life you want to live. None of us want to spend our lives stressed out, physically unwell, and anxious all the time, right? So instead of doing that and letting your OCD fool you into living your life in accordance with it, do things that you like, matter to you, or fulfill you in some way. Sometimes the things you do can also function as ERP as well! For example, I struggle really badly with ROCD centered around my feelings towards my fiancé. So when I'm dealing with a particularly bad day for my intrusive thoughts where I'm struggling to not get stuck on them, I will go out of my way to spend time with my fiancé instead of pull away from him in favor of being avoidant and ruminating on and arguing with my intrusive thoughts. I'll ask to cuddle or for a hug, hold his hand, and thankfully for me my fiancé notices my mood changes and will sometimes suggest us going out of the house and doing something like dinner, a drive, or something similar. This ends up being ERP, because I'm being exposed to my intrusive thoughts and being in a position where I reinforce to my brain that I don't need to do compulsions for the thoughts, and it's also nice quality time which helps me live my life in alignment with what matters to me (which includes my relationship and fiancé). I promise things will get better, but you have to commit to ERP and doing the very difficult work that it is and what OCD needs to be combated. It is hard, but it is so meaningful when you start to have multiple days in a row where the intrusive thoughts *don't* disrupt your entire day! Remember to be kind to yourself, OCD is one of most debilitating disorders a person can have, and remember that it's okay to have bad days and good days. Recovery with OCD isn't *not* having intrusive thoughts, but being able to live with them and ignore them like the other thousands of thoughts we all have every day. If you ever need help, everyone here on the app is here to help and will understand your struggles. Hang in there!