- Date posted
- 6y ago
- Date posted
- 6y ago
The key isn’t to ignore because when you ignore, your obsession gets bigger and bigger. Instead try to face the fear and anxiety. An exercise that works is before you take part in your rituals, set a timer for 5 minutes and when that timer goes off, then you can go forth with the rituals. It doesn’t give you as much temptation urges then just trying not to do them at all. You want to do them after a certain time. Be sure to increase your time but seconds or minutes every time. Hope this helps. Eventually it will get easier to let go of the anxiety around whatever you obsession is.
- Date posted
- 6y ago
i feel :/ i don’t know how i could possibly ignore or resist the compulsions to check my environment when i’m alone when the intrusive thoughts are basically telling me i’m going to die or am in danger every 5 minutes
- Date posted
- 6y ago
Exactly. I feel so contaminated.
- Date posted
- 6y ago
And keep a diary where you write down the time, the thing that started your compulsions and your rituals. It will help pinpoint what things set you off the most, and slowly start waiting more time for those. For example I used to wash my hands every time I touched fruit. Pinpointing it and not thinking it was just another thing from the kitchen helped me, I started with 5 minutes, then six, then seven etc. When I reached ten, half of the times I was forgetting about washing, and now I can eat and touch fruit without freaking out?
Related posts
- Date posted
- 19w ago
I can't stop thinking about ending my life. I feel like I'm not even living, I'm just surviving. Everyone is capable of being a person and functioning and I'm just stuck here avoiding everything. My psychiatrist said my ocd is severe and it will all take time and I'll start erp and I'm already on medication but I just feel so depressed and like I won't be able to handle erp and it's already too late for me. I feel inhuman, it's debilitating. My major theme is just fear or contamination, I can't even make myself a meal I can't touch anything in the kitchen. I get stuck in the shower for 2 hours and when I don't shower because I'm depressed I feel like a walking germ. My hands are a mess, my school work is shit, I avoid and avoid and I'm just so tired of "living" like this. My psychiatrist said they don't have any therapists available right now like.... excuse me? What do you mean u don't have any 😭 I honestly don't even know why I'm typing this becuase nothing helps, nothing ever will. I'm so deep into this I can't get out, my room looks like shit, I can't live in this body anymore, I really can't. I let everyone down, I am and will be such a dissapointment. I don't have any dreams or goals or passions I just wasn't made to be here. I don't know how or who to ask for help like there's nothing anyone can do, I'm already on meds. I can't keep being like this, seeing everyone judge me for acting insane.
- Date posted
- 15w ago
I cannot for the life of me stop ruminating or checking how I feel about thoughts or focusing on thoughts or creating more thoughts. I feel like I’m losing my mind. I want to scream. I try not to ruminate about the thoughts, but trying not to just makes me think about them more. I try not to check, but somehow, I still check. I want to let a thought sit in the background, but the more I try not to focus on it, the more I end up focusing on it. I don’t want the thought to expand because that feels like engaging with it, but I can’t just stop it from expanding. It feels impossible. People keep saying I’m in control of my compulsions, and maybe that’s true for the physical ones. But when it comes to the mental compulsions, I swear I have no control. It feels like I’m missing something that everyone else seems to have, like there’s some tool they’re using that I don’t have. Controlling mental compulsions has never felt possible for me. I’m starting to fear them. And every time someone says I’m in control and can just choose not to do them, I end up beating myself up even more when they happen. Or when I *choose* I guess. I don’t know anymore. If this is my fault, if I’m responsible for this, then what does that make me? I feel like a monster. I am at my wits’ end. How am I supposed to control mental compulsions when it feels like they control me? I freak out when they happen. They don’t bring me relief, they just make me panic. I want it to stop so bad.
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- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 12w ago
Each night I go to bed determined to stop compulsions and start beating this disorder. Then I wake up and it smacks me in the face first thing and I’m doing a compulsion before I know it. I told my therapist that I would try to handle it like we do in session, but I’ve already failed. It seems like I can’t bring ERP into my “real” life.
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