- Date posted
- 5y
- Date posted
- 5y
Evaluating every physical sensation is a form of compulsive checking. I dealt with this when I feared I had fleas. I would feel an itch, and check my body over and over. I wasn't able to stop checking cold turkey, so I would set myself limits until I could stop. You can check only once an hour, then cut back from there, or whatever limit challenges you to an appropriate degree.
- Date posted
- 5y
I am currently dealing with this. I just hope my worst fear doesn’t come true. I hate this.
- Date posted
- 5y
Yes! This is my main theme, although ERP has helped me tremendously. One thing I can say— exposure, exposure, exposure! Try to do one each day if you’re feeling up to it. Since you say that you focus on your bodily sensations, make yourself complete a body scan and passively observe the feelings in each part of your body. Do it over and over again until it becomes so repetitive that it’s annoying! Trust me, you’ll get bored. Also, thoughts are NOT reality. Just remember that.
- Date posted
- 5y
I also sometimes purposely make myself feel uncomfortable and challenge myself to not take the “victim seat” and face my fears head on! For example, sometimes I will purposely watch triggering content, such as young people with cancer, to see how much I can handle. I used to do this repetitively in therapy until it caused me very little distress. It’s all about retraining your brain and disabling the faulty pathways that your OCD has instilled in it.
- Date posted
- 5y
If you have anxiety regarding your heart, wear a heart monitor. Do exercise and get your heart going and watch it. Keep doing it until your anxiety gets to virtually 0.
- Date posted
- 5y
If you aren’t currently able to do formal therapy, please consider reading the book “Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts: A CBT-Based Guide to Getting Over Frightening, Obsessive, Or Disturbing Thoughts.” It helped me so much when I was really struggling. It’s available as an e-book too. It does a great job of explaining how much of a liar OCD really is.
- Date posted
- 5y
thank you all so so much. this is honestly the biggest reason for my anxiety cause my anxiety is all physical. i’m gonna try all of these things 💙 wishing you all well!!
Related posts
- Date posted
- 21w
I am having a real hard time with meta-ocd and thoughts about feeling depressed and be like this forever. Or the thought I never feel normal again or never feel connected to normal life things and normal people. The intrusive thoughts are here like the whole day and they are all about my mental health. And I obsess about how I feel and what I feel with everything I do. It’s so hard to explain. If someone- a therapist or someone who dealt with this has tips or word of encouragement right now, that would me great. I feel like everything I want to learn myself about ocd and coming to this forum also is a bit compulsive. It is so confusing 🫤
- Date posted
- 17w
Anyone know any ERP techniques or specific exposures that help with health anxiety OCD? I’ve heard such great things about ERP for other subtypes but I can’t think of any for health related OCD. I’d appreciate any advice!
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 8w
Hey, everyone! Really struggling with my health ocd, again :/ I am stuck on the fear of a brain tumor as I have been having tension (I think) headaches lately. (Which I’m sure my anxiety is making worse due to holding my body tight). I am just feeling quite discouraged and could use some encouragement.
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