Accepting your thoughts reduces distress a whole lot.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how OCD changes the way we see ourselves, but I recently realized that I am not my thoughts. Just because a thought pops up doesn’t mean it’s true or that it defines me. I’ve started learning how to see OCD for what it is—just a disorder trying to trick me—and I’ve become stronger in dealing with it. Has anyone else here had a similar realization? How do you handle these thoughts when they show up?

Here is what I say to people: I wish I could make it stop. I really do. I also wish I could stop tinnitus. What is tinnitus, you may ask? Well, have you ever gone to a loud concert and after it had a ringing in your ears. Or, in movies when a loud explosion hears, first it is often muffled, and then there is a very loud ringing sound. Well, I have hear that sound for over 30 years. Turns out the medications I took as a kid for allergies and all the antibiotics I was on for Strep had a side effect for some people - tinnitus - that sound that I have heard every decade, year, month, day, hour, and second, for the past 30 years. I have learned to live with it. As I type this, it is REALLY loud, because I am paying attention to it. But, in a few minutes it will fade into the background, and, while I will hear it, I will not pay much attention to it, and therefore I will go on with my night. I will listen to music, practice my story for the MOTH radio hour, and work out. I will clean up the kitchen and load the dishwasher, and I will eventually get ready for bed. I will go to bed hearing that sound, and fall asleep for a few hours until tomorrow morning when I start the day all over again. I cannot make the sound stop. There is nothing to do for it - no surgery or medication. Just learning to live with it, and that is what I have done. It is the thing that I hate the most in my life, and, if granted three wishes, it would be the first thing to change. For now, as I have for 30 years, I will live with it, and I will ask you to live with your noises in your head - the thoughts, the images, and the urges, and we will practice together accepting that things are not always as we want them, but we can handle that. We got this.

I see a lot of posts and comments here along the lines of... "the thoughts/urges aren't you -- they're just OCD." Though this is often true and comforting, isn't this just a form of reassurance? The way to beat OCD is by accepting that the distressing thoughts MAY be true/real, a.k.a. "from you" or "not just OCD." By brushing distressing things off as "just OCD," you excuse the thoughts and therefore feel reassured. Obviously it is good to be aware of what OCD does to you and know when you're experiencing a spiral, but crediting all distressing thoughts to OCD is a way of finding certainty about them. What do you guys think of this? Am I right or wrong? This is just the way I think about it, but I see the "this is just OCD" thing so much on here and I often wonder if that is a form of reassurance.