- Date posted
- 5y
- Date posted
- 5y
I’ve learned that anxiety is just a normal human emotion and therefore I “try” not to give it more attention than that. I see it akin to nerves before a party or performance of mine. So I accept it as normal and don’t grapple with it. It subsided by itself! Best...
- Date posted
- 5y
Who r u working with?
- Date posted
- 5y
Hey! I've been doing ERP since the summer (although not as consistently as I should). I'm so glad to hear that it's really helped with your obsessive thoughts. I also now spend a lot less time obsessing than I used to, but I still have that free-floating anxiety (particularly in the mornings) which then can lead me to start analysing the feeling and then all the obsessive thoughts come back into my head. My psychologist says this is called emotional reasoning, where you assume that because you feel something, there must be a legitimate reason (rather than just a feature of our mentally ill brain, that has trained itself to always be on high alert). My advice would be to practice anxiety-reducing activities such as exercise, breathing, mindfulness, good diet/no caffeine /good sleep pattern, and hopefully your anxious feelings will subside a bit. Easier said than done, of course! (I'm going to be spending my whole life trying to figure out how to live well and manage my OCD!) all the best!
- Date posted
- 5y
Who r u working with?
- Date posted
- 5y
I’d recommend listening to Eckhart Tolle as he talks in great length about not being captured by your feelings or thoughts, exactly what OCDer’s suffer from. Also I use an app called HeadSpace and I find the anxiety course to be valuable. A lot of OCD is a calling for a more spiritual solution, not necessarily religious, but spiritual, meaning it’s all in your hands. Of course we have a mental illness so a lot more acceptance needs to be applied.
- Date posted
- 5y
Yes, mine are still there and will always still be there because we have a mental illness. The key is to decrease the mental illness issues, not cure it.
- Date posted
- 5y
Who r u working with?
Related posts
- Date posted
- 18w
So I’ve noticed that my OCD has calmed down, I’m getting less intrusive thoughts but I feel more uncertain than ever. Is this normal for recovery?
- Date posted
- 14w
I read about ERP and have seen information about it on here. One of the goals is to say, "maybe I am this or that...ect." That terrified me. The thoughts and images that go in my head are disturbing and upsetting. I don't want to even think about saying, "maybe this or that." It's devasting to have these thoughts and question why you're having these thoughts. Doesn't the "maybe" make it worse? The one thing that helps me is that is to remind myself that these are just thoughts and I know I'm not a monster, even if I feel like one. Is ERP not for everyone? Has anyone else had a problem with the techniques used in this kind of therapy? I had cognitive therapy for years with an OCD specialist and that seemed to help a lot. Writing out the worst case scenarios would make me suicidal. Im having a difficult time not obsessing over the "maybe" after intrusive thoughts now. It doesn't make it better.
- Date posted
- 13w
So I've been working to address my OCD for about a month now. So far, I haven't been working on it with a therapist and have instead been trying to create my own exposure exercises. The primary obsession I'm working on is the fear that I'm somehow flawed or invalid on a fundamental level. The best way I can describe it it is that its similar to the feeling you get when you have germ OCD and you feel contaminated, except my whole existence and being feels contaminated, so to speak. I've identified a list of triggers, and a list of compulsions (pretty much all mental) that I've noticed myself performing. I started out by doing imaginal exposures and scripts where I'd write out triggering fictional scenarios and read them over and over, combined with mindfulness techniques to focus on my breath and bring myself back to the present when I noticed myself performing compulsions mentally. At first it worked to some extent, but eventually I started to feel like the stories I was writing about this obsession weren't triggering any anxiety anymore or a very low level. So I stopped reading them and focused solely on improving my ability to stay present and identifying compulsions as I perform them, and disengaging. Now, I'm at the point where it seems like my general anxiety levels throughout the day are lower, and the triggers I've identified are producing noticeably less anxiety. But that makes me wonder if somehow I'm just secretly doing mental compulsions without knowing it? Is only a month of rather disorganized and unstructured ERP enough to produce this much improvement? To avoid giving me re-assurance, I'd appreciate if you guys don't directly answer those questions, maybe just provide some possibilities or your own experiences so I can get a better idea of where I'm at. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks!
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