I need some advice on this, I was diagnosed with OCD a few years ago and I managed to be free for a few years by don’t giving attention to the thoughts and by giving my full attention to the outside life and not was going on inside my head. After stressful event OCD is back and again I feel that is something else. I am currently for the first time on CBT therapy but I am still on the early stages. My therapist told me that changing my attention to something else when the OCD is at its full blown is good technique but eventually I will need to face the thoughts and try to challenge them. The problem is that the moment I turn inside it’s like I have a train of thoughts that self doubt everything. When I am on this state I cannot challenge anything on the opposite I doubt that I have OCD and I try to understand if my symptoms suggest that I have something else and the fear and anxiety gets worse. I fear that I have something else and that I am a bad person. My big problem is when I am working. I work in an office and I need to sit in front of pc for 7-8 hours. The moment I start working these thoughts kick in and I feel that I cannot find any escape. I cannot do something else to turn my attention somewhere else and find my self doubting and searching was going on with me. And slowly slowly I get so scared that I come to face where I pass something like an anxiety attack. Is there any technique that it can help me to avoid what is happening to me, do no reach the levels of anxiety attack. I try to hear loud music, to concentrate on the pc but it didn’t work. I feel like I am trap somewhere that I need to sit still and just suffer with the thoughts until I reach the level of the full blown anxiety attack. Thank you for listening, any advice is well appreciated.

If I were you I would tell your therapist this. He will have suggestions you can do to take control when these moments happen.

I have very similar symptoms. I agree with your doctor. Although very difficult, facing the scary thoughts is likely your best bet. My therapist has taught me to think whenever a scary thought comes to mind, or a doubting thought comes to mind to say in my mind “Yep, maybe.” You will know that you are really just saying this to yourself for the effect, but the point is that you are also actually allowing the fear to be there and agreeing that “it could actually happen” and by not fighting it with a compulsion or whatever, you are basically doing an ERP and an ACT.

By not paying attention to them requires technique you must learn. Mindfulness teaches you this. Learn to meditate and learn to accept your issues.

I paid for a few therapy sessions and it was then that I realised that I don’t need help in coping with this. It actually becomes a blessing in disguise, OCD. Once you learn how to handle, cope, etc... with it and you’ll tackle anything life throws at you. You will beat this. I’m living proof of it. It’s hard, but life is hard and it has many imperfections. No one on this planet is perfect, absolutely no one. Good luck with your life and be persistent with everything you do.

Yes as paradox as it’s seems sometimes your worst curse can become your best blessing. Thank you for all your support, I need to go for work. Have a great day and stay strong!

Many thanks I will try to do it today and see how it goes and I will also talk with my therapist about this. Thank you both for your advice!

Thanks again everyone for your advice. I am currently reading the book ‘The Mindfulness Workbook For OCD’ and it’s very helpful. I don’t know if anyone of you experiencing this. Sometimes when I have bad days and I manage to not give attention to the thoughts I experience only the feeling of fear. It feels like a big wave of anxiety passing through by brain and body. On that current time I have this urge to turn inside and start the rumination of what is going on with me, the urge to figure it out, to understand what it seems to be an anxiety attack and urge to give meaning to this feeling to explain it. And behind this feeling it always has a constant feeling of huge fear and panic. Yesterday I had this crisis again in my work but I manage to not analyze it and to accept it as symptom, it was not a nice feeling, but after 1-2 hours it went away without really understanding how. The point is that I understand that the more I react on these feelings the more I analyze them the bigger the crisis it is the more I suffer. It’s like we need to find more hope more power in our most frightening state, it’s defenetly not easy, but accepting this fear without engaging with it, is let more helpful than trying to analyze it and understand it. Sorry if it doesn’t make any sense, and thanks for the support. Have a great day!

Thanks a lot for your comments, its actually very difficult to not engage with these urges especially when your are on this panic state, but I agree with you, I prefer to give me full power on not engaging with it, and accepting without analyzing, rather than turning inside and start doubting because as it seems it’s only make this feeling worst and giving it more power. I really thank you all for your comments, today I have a session with my therapist so hopefully I will be able to work more in my acceptance of all of these symptoms and learn more on how to not react on them.

Thanks a lot, I also had survive OCD, and was free of it for a few years, and I also had the same insight. That OCD can sometimes be a monster but it can also become a blessing. Through OCD I learn to face all my fears, I learn to open up to people, to ask for help, to understand that’s ok to not be perfect, to forgive myself and other people and really love and apreciate live and small moments. Now through a stressful event my OCD is back and again I felt lost, l felt that all tha had work that I did the last years was lost, but it’s a phase that is will pass and hopefully one day soon I will have the same view as you are experiencing now. The one thing that I realize, it’s that when you have OCD you cannot hold things inside, unresolved issues, because your OCD attacks these issues, so my blessing is with OCD is that although I suffer a lot I always need to work and heal any issues inside me. When I heal these issues OCD starts to fade away, I don’t know if it makes senses but this how I overcome it the first time.

JoshJRS - I am wondering your opinion? I have always thought that really bad OCD, which I have, and always have, has to be every bit as bad as having a lifelong disease, or anything along those lines. Is that your take?