Compulsively using ai for reassurance

I have exactly the same problem. I feel guilty too, im against generative ai but I also use it to get reassurance :( i've tried to do it less but haven't managed to stop (or not really even do it less, especially when i get really triggered). But i've also tried to not be too hard on myself, ocd is difficult and if you otherwise don't use ai, that's already great and using it is a symptom of an illness and doesn't mean you don't care about the problems of ai. Maybe it could help to try to frame it as something you should stop because it's harmful to you and focus on that instead of feeling really guilty. But stopping is totally difficult :/ I need to keep trying too

I have found this too! I’ve send it a paragraph telling me not to give me reassurance and to use ERP/act sort of answers so its helped a bit but I then sometimes go on a new thread if I’m not being reassured and want to be 🙈

I've suffered from doing the same thing; I'm glad to see you want to stop though :) I would try using website blockers on your phone/computer. You can find them by searching extensions on your computer or apps on your phone (I know Apple has a built in Screen Time function that allows you to limit them there). I know even after that it can be hard because of the AI overviews that come up when you search stuff though. Since you can't turn them off on Google, I switched to Firefox and made an account there where I could adjust the settings to never give me an AI overview. Even in general it can be a good practice to write down the compulsion-related questions you want to search and tell yourself you'll do them after a certain amount of time. Sometimes you even forget and you end up not doing the compulsion.

Exact same issue. Gemini. Then I delete the thread, then start again. I ask it to check probabilities, is it the medication, etc etc. It’s defo not a stupid question, I know a few people who do it

Not sure if this is good advice or not, but I tell myself when I really want to google something, ok, if you still want to google it in 5 minutes, go ahead. Then 5 minutes later, I'll either have forgotten, or I'll see if I can go another 5 minutes

I have been using AI way too much. I deleted Google off of my phone. Today is the first day in a really long time that I haven’t researched minus a streak of like two days a couple of weeks ago. I try to tell myself that AI gives responses that are supposed to side w me and that AI is not God it doesn’t know everything. Today I have went around and around ruminating but I haven’t researched one thing. I am trying to break the researching cycle bc it just feeds me more information and gives my ocd more ammunition. Then I will work on rumination. One day at a time.

Thank u guys for your replies I’m going through a bit of difficult time and getting insight from people who struggle like me really helps me feel less alone.

I struggle so much with this is so terrible

I do this, and then I freak out that I’m talking to an artificial intelligence, and I’m like “what even is reality” and then I freak out over the future of AI 🙃