i feel like i HAVE to react to my thoughts in order to feel okay and secure, and by reacting i don't necessarily mean doing time-consuming compulsions etc but even making a disgusted face or shaking my head is enough. it kind of reassures me that i don't agree with my thoughts and that I'm a good person. i was wondering if anyone else's had this.

yes exactly

yes i completely understand, ocd really sucks man.

im happy for you, by the way what is radical acceptance? ive never heard of this term before

@feethebee Sorry for the delay in response. So radical acceptance is something it took me a while to truly understand. At face value the concept is simple. If you have an intrusive thought that gives you anxiety/you have anxiety in general, just accept the feeling and don’t give it power. Sounds simple, but for me I was confused by it. When I initially started it I went about it like, “Okay, i’m accepting it, why won’t the anxiety go away? Why am I still getting these thoughts?” This isn’t acceptance. I used to wake up in the mornings and my first thought would be, “Man I hope I don’t have anxiety today.” Or, “Man I hope these thoughts don’t weigh me down today.” This also isn’t acceptance. It wasn’t until I just truly accepted the fact that everything i’m going through is anxiety related and not dangerous was when I noticed progress. Before this, I would have an intrusive thought or feel my anxiety setting in and immediately go on the defensive and try to figure it out. This is the anxiety paradox. Now, when I feel things that bother me, my internal dialogue goes something like, “Okay, this is very uncomfortable, but it’s just anxiety. There’s nothing to figure out. Just observe it. Oh, yea that’s a scary thought. Oh yea, I feel a little disconnected. Eh whatever, it’s just anxiety. Through this approach i’ve made significant progress in recovery. The last couple days were kind of rough, but what preceded them was multiple days of feeling almost back to normal (setbacks are to be expected in recovery and it’s important not to dwell on the bad days.) Another important part of this is to stop thinking that one day you’ll wake up and all of your struggles will be gone. This is a trap that kept me in the loop. I would constantly compare how I felt on a given day to how I felt before my anxiety sat in. Instead, just focus on getting a little better each day. Do your exposures and just let the anxiety be. Don’t fight it, just feel it.

@JBC94 So disregarding all the thoughts and labeling them as such: OCD, anxiety, and nothing that's actually real?

@BigGip09 Exactly. For me personally, this took me a long time to truly understand. Even as I type this i’m feeling my anxiety driven by intrusive thoughts. But i’m relabeling them and just observing. It’s very uncomfortable, but that’s the key. Assurance seeking, avoidance, etc do provide us with the temporary relief. But it also digs us into a deeper hole.

@JBC94 I feel like it's harder since most of my worries are from real events

@BigGip09 I’ve heard that term a lot but I don’t really understand it. What do you mean by “real event ocd”?

@JBC94 Your ruminate on intrusive thoughts based on events that actually happened. Typically it latches onto events that happened years ago or months ago, for me it has done that

@BigGip09 Oh I understand. I’ve not personally had this struggle to my knowledge (i’m sure OCD will try and cook something up for me). But if it does, I feel like radical acceptance could still work here. A lot of our problems are that internal dialogue that we feel compelled to do when the thought kicks in. Diffusing that internal dialogue is a starting point I believe.

@JBC94 My real event is always focusing on sexual things I did like sexting back in high school or the porn I watched or that time videos of children came up when I wanted to look for videos of girls my age or something I searched on a porn site once I just don't know how to accept it and move on from it

@BigGip09 Gotcha. See, this is another trap that OCD and anxiety uses to put us further from recovery. What I mean by that is it distracts us with whatever theme it chooses and makes it seem more complicated than it needs to be. So for you, you’re weighed down with intrusive thoughts of stuff from your past. For me, it was a combination of harm ocd, suicide ocd, pedophile ocd, etc. The OCD will attach to anything to keep us on our toes and attempt to blind us from what it really is. It’s just a heightened state of anxiety friend. You fix the anxiety, you fix literally everything else. This truth is what gives me hope when I hit those weird days. I didn’t have hope for a long time.

@JBC94 My themes are a combination of real event, harm, perfectionism, sexual, and POCD is it means anything. At the time I didn't look at the searching incident like I do now but OCD is latching onto this event saying I wanted to see the worst of the worst when it came to porn but this was months ago and I honestly can't remember a lot of things but I did remember crying after doing this because I just wanted to get so far away from hardcore porn as possible. It's seriously bad for me and my health and it's been a problem ever since I was exposed to it. This is a recent thought and it's came up a few nights ago which gives me the impression that I should disregard this as an anxiety/OCD kinda thing really.

@BigGip09 I've had friends tell me all the time that I shouldn't worry about my thoughts and there's nothing to get worked up for since these are minors mistakes that don't define anything but ocd makes that pretty much impossible to agree with

@BigGip09 Learning that there’s not a fight to be fought is so hard! Like the thoughts go totally against who you are and what you value that you just feel like you’ve got to do something to disprove them. All this does is keep us in the loop. Another realization that’s kept me moving forward is understanding that when we’re in a highly anxious state, we’re literally not thinking straight. Not in a dangerous way, but a worrisome way obviously. Once I embodied that, going along for the ride got a lot easier.

@JBC94 What I mainly want to do for myself is try my best to get away from sexual things and masturbating altogether. It's not easy at all. Nearly impossible where I'm at now. I want to be free of worrying and I want to do no more sexual things. Which means I'm probably gonna have to use instagram way way less, lol. But my main point is, I want to believe my friends when they say I shouldn't worry and it's not as bad as my OCD is making it out to be. Do you think I'm alright? Will I get through this?

@BigGip09 One major thing I learned recently is that if you alter your life in any way because your ocd tells you to, then you’re giving it the power it wants. As for your question of, “Do you think i’m alright?” I’m not going to answer that. What you’re doing is seeking reassurance and wanting me to give you some validation. I know that when you read that it’s going to spike your feelings of anxiety. When they do spike, just let them be! Feel them, embrace them, beg for them to stick around. You got this.

@JBC94 I don't really know if I'm altering anything in relating to my OCD. Most of it is sexual and I want to stop engaging in sexual practices like watching any forms of porn or masturbating. I feel like it would be better for me.

@JBC94 Thank you for this post been feeling anxiety the last day or so and I know to accept but then when the feeling comes I’m like ok I’m doing that but it comes back so still and that brings in more anxiety

yeppp it almost feels illegal if i don't do it lol