- Username
- Emmaaaahh
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Reading what specifically?
Yes! It’s difficult to even get through a few sentences or sometimes even a sentence without an intrusive thought disrupting my flow of reading. I’m just starting out with therapy so I don’t have any great solutions, but I found that if you try to accept the thought as just a thought, as well as the uncertainty of it, it helps a lot! Good luck! Out of curiosity, what are you reading? Is it for school?
I love to read!!! Sometimes I go to read a book but the topic is too similar to my life or relates to something uncomfortable and I usually put it down, and my OCD tells me not to read it or something bad will happen...but I have tried to make a habit of circling back to it and usually by the third time I pick it up i'm able to read it. I was always taught to not do things that make me uncomfortable, so the OCD tries to win and beat me. I'm trying more to sit with the discomfort and tell myself its it's just the ocd....usually it works but not always.... Then I get really proud of myself once I have read something uncomfortable and then its it's not as scary
I am so happy you are learning to sit with that discomfort, despite what you were taught. It can be difficult to unlearn things like that, but it definitely sounds like you're doing a great job :) I love reading too!!! I honestly have more of a problem not trusting my own memory, so i tend to overthink when i read and re-read paragraphs and sentences multiple times. It's interesting how OCD can manifest in so many different ways, even if it's around similar things!
Reading anything really! Like I find for me I don't trust my memory and have to go back and re-read things... I also find intrusive thoughts will interrupt and I will have to start a sentence all over again, or else I won't like remember it properly or something? it takes me like forever to read. currently I'm trying to read a chemistry chapter for school and it's not going so hot unfortunately... trying not to beat myself up about it! :)
Same here! Trying to understand covalent bonds.
You know, I have just bought one thousand and one nights. I remember one time that OCD was really bugging me, and I took it and read a few pages. It always helps to escape to some kind of fantasy world where your problems are nothing.
That's a great idea! Maybe I will switch between reading chemistry and reading that. I'm honestly just not really interested in chemistry which makes it harder I find, but maybe I can trick my brain into being engaged in a book that interests me first, and maybe the flow will carry over! I find the pressure of having to read the chapters or I won't understand the content kind of fuels the OCD behaviours if that makes sense
@EMMaaaa It does! And yeah chemistry isn't the best subject. But it depends, is studying chemistry an urgent matter for you? If so, you can check out crash course on youtube. If not, try and buy some nice books! Also I don't know how one thousand and one nights is in English because I'm Egyptian and I read it in Arabic. But you have harry potter, lord of the rings, a lot of novels really.
@HopefullyOptimistic Yes I love Harry Potter! Maybe I will try reading Lord of the Rings, the movies are amazing!! Also crash course is a life saver tbh lol
@EMMaaaa Yeah! I always try and listen to some music, it helps a lot. What's your favorite artist?
@HopefullyOptimistic Whoops! Who's?
@HopefullyOptimistic My favourite artist has got to be Green Day ? I love punk, but I've also been super into Gorillaz lately as well! Who is yours? :)
@Emmaaaahh I love Gorillaz! But my all time favorite has to be the Weeknd. Green day are awesome too! If you're talking about bands then Maroon 5.
@HopefullyOptimistic Omg Maroon 5 is the best I feel like I know all their songs ? the Weeknd is awesome too do you have any songs by them that you recommend? I haven't heard a whole lot by them to be honest but it sounds like you have a great taste in music!!
@Emmaaaahh Aww thank you! If I have to pick, I'll choose Call Out My Name, Starboy, and Earned It. His other songs are great too, especially collabs.
@HopefullyOptimistic Oh and one more song, called Sidewalks. He's with Kendrick Lamar on this one.
I have to read for school a lot right now since I'm having my finals exams and it's really bad when I have to stop every 5 minutes :(
Yeah I feel you :( it's really interfering with my studies right now and I'm scared cuz finals are coming up soon!
@EMMaaaa My finals are ongoing a d I'm here having a bad anxiety attack with my HOCD :(
I agree!!! And as soon as I think i have it all figured out...it shows up somewhere else!!!! Thanks for your post. It's always nice to talk to others that understand OCD;)
How does OCD get in the way of living your life? What are some things you can do to drop the worries?
How has everyone else's OCD progressed throughout their lives? Has everyone else always had severe OCD or did you live regular lives beforehand and encounter one point where it went from 0 to 100. Where are you now in your OCD Journey? I'm very curious as to everyone else's stories and have left mine below if you’d like to read it. From what I can remember, I went relatively undisturbed by OCD the majority of my middle/late childhood, only having about 1-3 thoughts a year that weren't super bothersome but did create a level of distress uncomparable to regular intrusive thoughts. They were mainly about my health and about my parents safety & wellbeing. The earliest memory about my OCD that really stood out was back in 5th Grade, when I hit my head on a swing set and immediately began reciting every moment leading up to injury as well as every math equation I knew to make sure my memory was still intact. The greater part of my adolescence was essentially the same and resembled what I believed to be a normal life, just with a couple of OCD thoughts sprinkled throughout it. I was able to function pretty well albeit depressed and somewhat anxious. It wasn't until I was close to my highschool graduation that I experienced the worst panic attack(at the time) at the idea that I would hurt my parents. It was so distressing because the thought felt so loud that I believed it was genuine which only caused more distress. I was so scared that I would act on the thought that I discarded all of my sharp objects and locked myself in my room. That was my first ever severe reaction I experienced due to OCD and was back in May of this year. I actually learned what OCD was the same night and realized that many of my newly found fears including mold growing in my walls and my parents disliking me were also caused by the OCD. Unfortunately learning that it was probably OCD wasn't enough to quell my fear and I engaged in a bunch of compulsions in the months to come, worsening my OCD In the process. June was alright. July was worse(I only had like three topics for obsessions which sounds great now). Late July-Early August was my tipping point . Things went from worse to profoundly terrible in a short period. I found this app late August which was great because I had grown exhausted. September was pretty bad but not as bad as August. Now it's October and life is somewhat good now. I've become more knowledgeable of OCD (big thanks to this app and my therapist) but I'm very far from done. There's still this looming sense of anxiety that follows me everywhere. I have like 20 obsessions now, some being larger and scarier than others but those smaller ones are still apparent. But, the fear has decreased as well as the mental compulsions that came with it. My mind is quieter now. However the anxiety has stayed the same. My heart still drops whenever my worst obsession is triggered. Headaches, brain fog, sweating, rapid heart rate, sense of being paralyzed, racing mind are commonplace in my life but I've learned to sit with the physical discomfort (not that it makes it any less terrifying). Anyways, I'm here now which is cool. I’d like to listen to others' experiences to get a better understanding of OCD and maybe feel a bit less alone. feel free to ask any questions.
I just found out I have OCD last February. I'm ashamed to say I had a really stereotypical idea of what OCD is and was very surprised to be diagnosed with it. I keep trying to learn more about OCD but every time I sit down to read something, watch a video, listen to a podcast etc... I can't stop myself from pausing just to fall into a thought spiral for hours, analyzing my brain and thought patterns and my whole childhood and past relationships and just everything. Ughhhhhhhhh. Any resources or tips for combating this, if this even made any sense lol, I have been very stuck on my brain today yikes (p.s. do you like my pfp? she's my dog, daisy. I love her very much)
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