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- 5y
- Date posted
- 5y
Been there... That is OCD. ERP with a dash of mindfulness was the only way out for me. Just some examples I experienced: Did I place the stamp on an envelope perfectly? Did my signature look good on an important document or greeting card? Did I say something to offend somebody and then play it over and over in my mind. Did I get overcharged at a store and, again, play that over and over. Did I send a text message with spelling errors? And, on and on.
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- 5y
Do you have trouble continuing to read through sentences because you fear you missed something? This is something I've been working on!
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- 5y
@MA30 Yes, I did, and re-writing too.
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- 5y
@Fear Strikes Out Did you do any exercises for these things? Obviously lots of opportunities to improve, but I am wondering if you set specific time aside to practice forcing yourself through the uncomfortableness of continuing to read, write, etc.?
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- 5y
After doing ERP in therapy, I gradually gained momentum to take the leap of faith to resist the compulsion of re-reading and re-writing outside of therapy as the circumstances presented themselves. Most importantly, I did not get down on myself whenever I did not resist the urge to compulse. I specifically avoided that kind of all-or-nothing mindset. With respect to resisting the urge, I utilized a mindfulness strategy whereby I viewed the intrusive thoughts that would lead to re-reading and re-writing as refuse floating downstream besides beautiful fall leaves in their variety of colors. It was MY choice whether to pull that crushed up beer can or candy wrapper out of the water (i.e., engage the intrusive thought). I pretty quickly began to learn that all of the underlying fears leading to my compulsions were mostly a figment of my wild imagination and not worthy of my attention or subsequent anxiety.
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- 5y
That's a beautiful picture. Mindfulness is something I'm still working on, but I'm glad you've found so much success. Enjoy all of this free imagination you can put toward the things/people you love!
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- 5y
Same! I catch things that others don't see and think about things that others don't think about...but it's so time consuming!
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- 5y
Same :(((
Related posts
- Date posted
- 21w
so i was on instagram and it came up with other signs of ocd then someone commented this doesn’t mean you have ocd now im stressed that its not ocd background - i had so-ocd for a few years then got treatment for it but am now on the waiting list for further treatment for other stuff but i dont have another theme which makes me feel like its not ocd my day to day life consists of touching the door handle every time you go past it or someone will die, and inability to send emails without re reading loads of times and getting other people to check because im scared i wrote something bad but the what if it’s not ocd thought is triggering me now and i don’t know what do
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- 19w
i’ve been dealing with this “thing” since i was 15. (i’m 23 now) if i have a bad memory that i have done when i was really young or just an intrusive thought i feel like i need to tell my mom or boyfriend. it’s been on and off ever since but since January hit it’s been an everyday thing about the littlest things. mostly about my relationship. an example is i was talking to someone random at my job and we were talking about taxes and when im in deep thought or just thinking i do a thing where i bite my lip (not in the sexual way) and i had a thought when it happened “was that sexual?” and i felt like i did something wrong and i went for a while thinking that until i told my boyfriend about it. or like my ex’s face has popped up in my head in the most inappropriate times and i feel the need that i have to tell him. (my ex was not a good person) i feel like im a prisoner in my head everyday, trying to justify thoughts or remind myself that its just a thought. i didnt know that this was or could be a form of ocd. it runs in my family but i’ve just never considered it being this. i always called it anxiety or depression but i always felt like it is more than that.
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- 16w
i’m a new user on this app, I downloaded it just cause I was curious, I don’t really know if I have OCD. Because in school all I learned about OCD is things being out of place and having it to be perfect almost like perfectionism, but I’ve just recently realized there’s a whole kind of different types of OCD, some things I struggle with daily is a fear of bad things happening or almost like an impending doom of when is it gonna happen? I’m always in my head thinking feels like I’m having multiple conversations at once. Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like I’m having a conversation with myself. I have horrendous anxiety about everything and anything talking to people being around people. It just feels like it consumes my everyday life and I don’t know what to do. I can’t clearly remember anything from my childhood and some things I feel like I may be imagining I just don’t really feel like a person. I’m always thinking the worst in my relationship over analyzing and stressing out thinking of scenarios or thinking, my boyfriend‘s cheating on me. It almost all feels out of my control.
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