I'm feeling intense anxiety and some sadness. A year ago today my big bro died of covid. I wish I could spend more time with him. I would gladly take his place if I could. Anxiety is separate. It's not about him. Just this fucking OCD

Hey. How are you doing?

@j420 Hey! Was just thinking about checking in to see how you’re doing- I’m doing better so far- by practicing mindfulness I’ve been able to really cut off my rumination compulsion which was still feeding my OCD (especially after some heavy exposures). That was my biggest compulsion- it’s also been really helpful not being so immersed in OCD content including this blog. I never realized how bad my rumination was until directing my attention elsewhere with tons of practice it’s made a huge difference. How have you been doing? Any more exposures?

I’ve learned to not check in with how I’m feeling which fuels the uncomfortable feelings. Hyper awareness or focusing on your emotions is considered part of rumination compulsion. I have my shaky moments still too. Let the thought be there, but don’t touch it. I suspect you may be ruminating more than you think- I had to review the definition which is : Anything that has to do with the process of recovery, anything to do with your theme, anything to do with how You feel about your theme or additional feelings. Once you stop yourself and become mindful- OCD will loosen its tentacles. I’ve even started a rumination tracker to identify how much I ruminated- I ruminated way more that I thought. Now, I’ve cut it out significantly, and it was crazy what that difference made so far (hopefully I can keep it up). Look up rumination focused OCD from Dr Greenberg - his articles helped me identify it. Also, Alie Greymond’s YouTube videos on rumination or Pure O. Really helped me. Exposures will cause you to ruminate too, but once you can engage in an exposure and direct attention elsewhere, you’re now the boss and practicing the response prevention part of therapy which is what matters. I didn’t recognize that earlier I was just exposing myself and ruminating afterwards which defeats the purpose of the exposure. Hopefully that makes sense.. hard to explain via text.

@Atlas_21 Yeah I know. Hard to do through a text. That makes sense. Your awesome😊😉

@j420 You are too Justin 😊- keep pushing through- it’s really like mental gymnastics and outsmarting the OCD I’ve come to find out. Once you crack the code, you can habituate and learn to respond vs react. I can’t read through the blog anymore- I only respond to your messages honestly. Too much “I’ll never get better” mindset and it triggers the rumination compulsion and feeds negative automatic thoughts which the OCD latches onto like white on rice. I’ve been %30-40 better without it. Reject the OCD narrative by not looking at it :)

@Atlas_21 What would you say I do to not ruminate. I try to recognize my anxiety and let out be. But I'm not doing a good job of letting it be. I'm sorry if that triggers you. It's just so hard for me right now. Although today I left with cause the anxiety was horrible but then I can't back to work. It felt like a small win because I came back to work

@j420 I left work and then came back

@j420 That’s a great win I would say! Good job showing up despite OCD trying to hold you back- you taught your brain to push through. In my understanding, rumination is when you follow the thought down the rabbit hole- you have the usual “what if” obsession thought, but, that may lead to another connecting what if thought that triggers same or larger anxious distress response- like a spider web - one thought leads to another then another and you are now telling yourself an OCD narrative- just stop at the obsessive singular thought. Thinking about your theme and whether or not your doing exposures right or if you’ll ever feel better and also noticing if you’re feeling different or the same with an accompanying obsessive thought falls into rumination. Talking at length about OCD struggles to those around you is rumination. Idk if you do any of those things, you may not, but for me, I fell big time into this category and am very strict with myself. Idk if this answers you question well- when I have a break I will send link to the site that helped me with this concept. Mindfulness will help you practice redirecting your attention to cut out rumination. It took me over 30 days to really understand this concept due to need to habituate.

@j420 Also, here is the site that really helped define rumination for me, and most importantly, how to redirect attention. Dr. Greenberg isn’t a fan of mindfulness, but, he doesn’t have the appropriate understanding of what it is and how it can help. I argue that mindfulness will help you redirect attention once you recognize how you ruminate. It’s worked for me anyway. Let me know what you think, it would be nice to analyze the content with another fellow OCD sufferer :) https://drmichaeljgreenberg.com/how-to-stop-ruminating/

@Atlas_21 Sorry to bombard you with all this content- Here is the other video that defines it. She has really helped me track and eliminate my rumination too, which has lessened my anxious distress. https://youtu.be/NBE9cq2vxIg

That’s all we can do sometimes and that’s ok. We gotta look out for each other as part of the recovery process. I appreciate your support and friendship too. I still have my moments that’s for sure. But there’s some rays of sun leaking through those clouds ⛅️ 😊