- Date posted
- 5y
- Date posted
- 5y
I hear you. It sounds like there is still quite a bit of resistance to what the worry is suggesting, which is motivating you to ignore it. Treating our OCD isn't about ignoring, pushing down or avoiding the thoughts because we are afraid of them. You're quite right, that doesn't work. It needs to be about allowing the initial intrusive thought or worry to happen, but refusing to follow it up or respond to it with any more thoughts. That means not arguing with it, disagreeing with it, thinking about the consequences, or doing other compulsions like analysing, researching, memory/feeling/sensation checking, or seeking reassurance that the thought isn't true. I can see that you are trying hard to get the thoughts to leave you alone and you find them distressing now and you don't want them even though they can feel so urgent and important. I'm proud of you for being willing to not have the thoughts, and for looking for ways to treat your OCD and get rid of the thoughts rather than looking for a final answer to your obsession. Try something for me: let the thought happen, and sit with the feelings it causes instead of distracting yourself from them. Let the feelings happen in your body rather than resisting them. They can't hurt you. It doesn't matter whether you believe the feelings are contextually accurate or appropriate or in opposition to your personality. Feelings are never "wrong", they're just feelings. They don't say anything about you, and what's more, you have OCD and OCD causes feelings which don't make sense and aren't appropriate/rational. But feelings themselves are a fact of life, when we get them we only have two options: resisting them or feeling them so that they can pass back away again. So let the feelings happen, and actually focus on how they feel physically. If you take away the thoughts which go with our feelings, our fear, anxiety, guilt etc all physically just feel like tension. It's not a very pleasant tension, but it's not extremely painful either. Focus in on those feelings triggered by your thought, zoom into where they are, really feel them. And notice that it doesn't harm you. When you get your intrusive, habitual thoughts which are engagement with/responses to the initial thought or worry, let them go by bringing your attention back to how your body feels. If you need an extra thing to take up your focus when those thoughts happen in addition to your body-feelings, you can make up a nonsense word and repeat it over and over in your head. Keeping that focus on the parts of your body where you feel that tension, letting the feelings be there. The urgent thoughts come, let them go again, focusing on your body and your word. No resisting the thoughts, no pushing them away, they go away on their own naturally when you are focused on your body and your word. If you find you've become distracted and have started obsessing again, just bring it back to your body, not getting angry at yourself for thinking, just gently returning to your body and your word. Or returning to your body and to reading this comment, if you like. Whatever helps you to stay mindfully aware of the sensations in your body rather than responding to thoughts. Do this method for as long as you can: until you feel significantly calmer and the thoughts have reduced to stopping, or until you have completely digested the physical feelings and are left with a sense of peace and clarity. This is, from what I can tell, possibly the best way to do ERP. It allows the thoughts to happen, but gets you processing the emotions they cause rather than responding to the thoughts or attaching meanings to them. Over time it strips them of their ability to suck you in. You gain confidence in your ability to handle any emotion life throws at you, and to separate feelings from facts. You become a more flexible person. I had a *bad* sexual OCD which was cured entirely by doing this method the whole way through, only twice. It took over an hour each time. I also used this method to process a backlog of suppressed guilt and pain from a trauma. It worked stunningly. It feels scary to do but you will not lose control by doing it, allowing and digesting the feelings won't make your fear come true and won't make you accept the triggering thought as the truth. They're just feelings. You can do it.
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