Heard some interesting things to try yesterday. 1. Put your obsessive thought into words. Now sing it to yourself to the tune of happy birthday 😂 2. Pick one word to sum up your obsession. Say the word as many times as you can for 30 seconds. 3. Write your thought down in a notebook. Look at it as if someone else wrote it, as an outside perspective. Then, let another page fall over it and write the next thought. Do this over and over for about 10 minutes.

As a 20+ year OCD vet and OCD conqueror. I wanted to share some tips and tricks that help me. 1. A thought is not the same as a belief. You can think something, and not believe it in the slightest. 2. Thoughts DO NOT represent ANYTHING. They are not indicators to who we are as people, they are pop up ads for the brains computer. 3. We DO NOT control our thoughts! The average person has about 60,000 ( yes, 4 zeros) a day! NONE of which are controlled. 4. We DO have control over which of those 60k thoughts are important. i.e. thought A. I could murder my entire household- survey says? not important ( because yea, sure, you could, but you probably don't really want to) thought B. i need to do my laundy-survey says? important... unfortunately, i hate laundry. which brings me to number 5. 5. Emotional reasoning ( where you let your feelings impact your decisions) is a COGNITIVE DISTORTION. It is a flawed thought process and should NEVER be used. "wanting to do something" does not mean you SHOULD do it, same and sometimes NOT wanting to do something doesn't mean you shouldn't do it ( picked what is important) my brain might tell me i WANT to break up with my husband, ( unimportant) and it might also say i don't want to get up and go to work in the morning ( important). 6. YOU-ARE-IN-CONTROL. Not to be confused with HAVING control. We don't control our thoughts, we control which ones are important, we don't control our feelings or emotions, but we control how to react (or not react) to them. We don't control our OCD, but we can control how it affects our lives, and that can mean that is has all the power, or none. 7. If the action you want to do ( confess, get reassurance, check, analyze, avoid, re-do) are to gain relief from anxiety, IT IS A COMPULSION. DO NOT DO IT. Sit with the anxiety and train your brain to realize its not dangerous or important with ERP ( this takes time, but practice makes perfect) 8. Know your enemy. NOCD has a HUGE amount of articles and information on ALL subtypes of OCD and how to respond and how to treat them. OCD is MUCH easier to combat when you understand how it works. 9. BE PATIENT. BE KIND to yourself. Prioritize healthy habits, a healthy body is better equipped to handle OCD. Good sleep, whole foods, sunlight, social interaction, exercise ( walking especially). When the mind feels weak, make the body strong. 10. You are not alone. OCD is classified by the World Health Organization as one of the top 10 most distressing disorders. Reach out to people, seek medical help. Medication is not evil, it can be life-saving, TALK to people. Bonus Tips * if the question is " What If" its OCD. * Total certainty does not exist, be content with 99%* *"But this feels different, this feels like its not OCD, that its real*- emotional reasoning... its OCD. Hang in there. You got this. Im here for any advice, questions, or support. Today is a great day to have a GREAT DAY.

Remember thoughts are just thoughts, feelings are just feelings. We generally cannot control our thoughts or feelings, and even groinal responses. No matter how much you want to, they just happen and they 100% happen more when you’re worried about them happening, instead except it. Say “that’s just my silly thoughts again” or whatever it may be, say oh it’s just that silly thing again. Don’t try to work it out, don’t try to ignore it, allow them to come but don’t solve them. Just expect that they’re there . The best advise I was ever told is OCD is like a drunk person, they start to say silly things such as “omg I’m such a silly person” or “Ong you’re so great you’re the strongest person alive” you don’t actually believe what they say because they’re speaking nonsense, but you most likely will reply with “oh yes you’re right” because you’re trying to just please them, but it doesn’t mean you agree with them. You’re just trying to “shut them up” basically. For example if you kept saying “no I’m not” “not that’s not true” “no don’t be silly” the drunk person would carry on saying “no yes you are” etc etc… this is the same with ocd, the more you try to argue with it and say “no this isn’t true” the more it’ll say “yes it is” however if you just say “yes okay you’re right” (even tho it’s not) it’ll start to show ocd that you aren’t picking a fight anymore, you’re just excepting it and it’ll start to get easier. Trust me you aren’t alone in this. Ocd is scary. But you can do this. Some other techniques that have helped me massively is this… When you’re getting these unwanted thoughts etc, name 5 things you can see around you, 2 things you can smell or 2 things you like the smell of, 3 things you can hear and 5 things you can feel, such as touch your hair etc and describe how it feels, etc. this is a way of just distracting yourself. It’s a very good technique for ocd and I went from getting 20 showed a day due to my ocd down to 3 showers a day…. From using this. It works!!! Or take deep breaths that also helps people You aren’t a bad person, you’re just suffering with ocd and that doesn’t make you a bad person

Last week I fell into a bit of an existential spiral, which hasn't happened for a long while. Now that I'm mostly on the other side, I think it's important to reflect on the lessons I learned from it. I hope this is helpful for others who find themselves in their own spiral, existential or not. 1. The thought, "I'm never getting out of this one," will always be there, and it will always be a lie. Whenever I fall into a deep existential spiral (which is pretty rare these days), it *always* feels as though I've uncovered some horrible thought that I'm never going to be able to get past. As if I've finally found that one existential thought this is going to ruin me for the rest of my life. When that happens, allow the thought to come and go just like the rest of the thoughts, and take some time to reflect on how you've been there before. For me, it helps to sarcastically agree with it: "Yep you're right! THIS is the one that'll do me in." 2. Keep doing what you do A major difference between this spiral and past ones is that I forced myself to not cancel any plans because of it. I played at an open mic, accompanied my friend on mandolin for his performance, and I attended a run group, all while experiencing an existential crisis. I definitely think this shortened the length of the episode. I proved to myself that I could do some pretty demanding things despite the thoughts. I was also able to reflect on how when I was forced to be present (such as while performing), the existential crisis totally subsided. Which brings me to... 3. Trust in mindfulness I absolutely get it; when you're in the middle of a spiral, the idea of just "bringing yourself into the present moment" seems laughably unhelpful. This time in particular, it really felt irresponsible to *not* attend to the thoughts. It genuinely felt like I had to *solve* these existential questions before I could move on to anything else, including the present moment. But when I reflect on the times that I felt the most at-ease, it was always when I was present. It was during the 10 seconds I took to breath and notice my surroundings. It was when I disengaged from the thoughts and allowed them to come and go. It was when I smelled the fresh air after a thunderstorm, or during a conversation with a friend about her breakup. It was when I named the feelings and emotions I was experiencing, and welcomed it all. Existential thoughts are supposed to be about reality, but when you're lost in them, you aren't actually *in* reality. They're only scary in the virtual reality of the mind. And finally... 4. Yes, the compulsions are the problem I did a LOT of research last week. I watched videos, Googled, and even dove into ChatGPT. The compulsions were obvious, and they were never enough. Every answer that made me feel a little better was followed by doubt less than 15 minutes later. In the moment it genuinely feels like you HAVE to keep doing the compulsions, but you need to trust that that's exactly what is making you feel worse. In order to stop researching, I just had to...stop researching. It was hard at first, but eventually the spiral stopped spinning, and the longer I waited between compulsions, the easier it was to move on.