- Date posted
- Yesterday
Advice needed on dealing with obsessive worry
Hi all! I am very new here. I was diagnosed with ocd a year ago, but was never able to get treatment and recently stumbled onto this app. I am not sure what category to put this in because I feel very confused right now. I have so many thoughts my brain feels a bit blank. But essentially, I am on a vacation with two of my closest friends, and one of their parents. There are have several things throughout the trip that have been heightening my anxiety. Right now I feel obsessed with thoughts around how the people around me feel about me, and about whether or not I am 'performing' well if that makes sense. It's an excruciating cycle because I know the worse I feel, the worse I am to be around, and then that exacerbates my anxiety. But I can't get rid of these thoughts about my behaviour, how I feel I've been unhelpful throughout the trip and about my friends and their family hating me now, or thinking worse of me now. I feel really upset with myself too because this trip, while being really fun, has also made me feel like a lot of the mental health progress I have made has been undone, and I've fallen back into behaviour I've worked really hard on improving. This is all to say, does anyone have any advice on how to regulate these kinds of emotions and deal with the bombardment of thoughts? Of course I want to be reflecting on myself and my behaviour so I can be a good friend and responsible, but I also recognise that this bombardment of thoughts is not helpful, and that a lot of these are intrusive thoughts. My sense of reality feels a little distorted and I feel slow and am finding it difficult to remember things. I am not able to calm down and I feel really disconnected from myself and what I think would be helpful for myself. Any time I do successfully calm down, I immediately have thoughts of 'well what if it doesnt matter and the damage is already permanently done' which just ends up eventually restarting the cycle. Thanks for any advice!!