thought.amnesty

@lilyflower no problem my pleasure ? Mark is great, set about building great mental health with his guidance and grow out of the disorder. He has an awesome book too called ‘The Mind Workout’ which is all about doing recovery exercises!

PolarBear is right we really need not to give you reassurance, however much you think it would help. It really would make things worse. Try to look at how you are interacting with uncertainty in the rest of your life and look at cutting out other compulsions you may be doing to fuel OCD. I really recommend Mark Freeman’s videos on YouTube for more great content about recovery from OCD. As much as possible try to keep your physical health away from OCD. You have a referral for a clinic. You’re brain won’t help you anymore with that. But you can start interacting with uncertainty healthier in all aspects of your life. Good luck

It’s just a thought like any other. Our brains throw them at us to get us to react to them. The trick is here to live with the uncertainty that you may or may not have ocd and then do something you value. This is a really good recovery trick and has helped me a lot it’s only uncertainty it can’t hurt you

I think a useful way to look at it is to keep cutting out compulsions wherever you find them. Cut away the tentacles and then the roots of the disorder. The themes are actually superficial, however perilous they feel. It’s the patterns of avoiding uncertainty we need to look at. You will get there, keep cutting out one compulsion at a time whilst adding in things in life you care about I well recommend ‘The Mind Workout’ by Mark Freeman for a guide through that process

Yes, I would also say just try altering any beliefs you may have that having certain thoughts are a bad thing during sex. If you hold a belief that certain thoughts are bad during sex your brain will simply be on high alert for them and will therefore likely throw them up too. Whereas, if you hold the belief that any thought can pop up during sex, you can be free knowing you can place your concentration on areas that you care about in that experience. Don't give yourself a hard time for having thoughts and a brain, it is very natural to have both those things

Well done! Great for you to have that insight already. Will be good to spot where you “just make sure” throughout your life or try to be certain about things in your head. Then you will start to get a grasp of all the areas where you are interacting with uncertainty poorly. You can do this step by step

Hello :) yes it sounds like there is an uncertainty there and you are reacting to it, which is the OCD pattern. It is most likely that there are situations throughout your life where you are repeating the same pattern and performing compulsions. Getting distracted and obsessed by this one fear keeps you trapped in that loop. Overcoming OCD will be about cutting out compulsions in all aspects of your life. To do this I would recommend getting a referral from your GP for CBT, in particular for exposure and response prevention (ERP). Also, I have found Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) skills to be particularly helpful for OCD. Books I would recommend are: 'The Mind Workout' by Mark Freeman and 'The Happiness Trap' by Russ Harris. Mark Freeman's videos on Youtube are awesome and so helpful too. "At home" tips I would suggest would be starting small meditation and mindfulness practices. And trying to do tiny healthy steps whilst you have your fear going on in your head. Showing your brain you don't have to react to that fear and can carry on living your life is so good for you :) Hope that all makes sense

Good luck l hope it goes well. Feel free to ask anymore questions

Hello there, sorry to hear your son has been struggling so much. I would say a good place for him to start is to start to recognise that all rumination is rumination and that is a compulsion. So if he catches himself thinking (which will be all the time) he can bring awareness to that and just keep doing that. Just bringing awareness to it can help to slow it down a little. Then with that awareness (not getting angry with himself when he notices it, his brain is simply used to being hyperactive) he can bring his awareness more to the present moment. Mindfulness of his 5 senses: what does he smell, taste, hear, touch and see in this moment? Follow his breathing in and out. And then have a list of activities that he values doing by his side and keep training his brain to be aware of his thinking, then commit to being present and/or doing valued activities. It will be so so challenging but after a while it can really work. In the meantime he can build a list of the current compulsions he is doing now and start to cut those out. I would also recommend the book 'The Mind Workout' by Mark Freeman and his YouTube videos about recovering from OCD instead of simply managing it. They have been of great to myself.

You are right life does go on It could be useful to discover what the root fear of all this is. What would be so bad about your friend hanging out with someone else? Why? You could be dealing with a core fear here which your brain will keep throwing different scenarios at you about. One of my core fears was not being loved. I still have to keep that one at bay by showing my brain it does not need to worry about that now. I say "Yes, I will never be loved but now I will do something that I value...". This is a common Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) technique which Mark Freeman (highly recommended dude on Youtube) discusses. Especially useful for you may be his video about root fears. Also, have you tried CBT? If not the exposure and response (ERP) component of that is shown to be incredibly effective for OCD recovery. You can do this! Stopping that ruminating and re-directing your mind onto a healthy activity will be the first step in the right direction

Thanks guys

Yeah I've had that in the background. Has been a good opportunity to let that stay there whilst I engaged with my day. My OCD obviously stated it was imperative I checked. But I didn't and I have carried on regardless. Done some healthy stuff good day!

i think that makes exact sense man! your brain knows it bothers you, so it is trying to help you by checking it is still happening. each time you react it comes back again. you need to show your brain that this image can be there whilst you do healthy things with your girlfriend. welcome it in. if it makes you anxious why not try welcoming in that anxiety too? try having that experience with no resistance and then act in a way that aligns with your values. you can do it

I have been on medication on and off. I certainly feel like it has helped me during difficult times. Unfortunately I would also say it has put me in a bit of a drug loop as there is a dependancy on it to be part of my recovery. The last two times I have gone off it I have not felt well. Having a really good crack at evidence-based therapies such as ERP (CBT) and/or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) would be preferable at first if you have access to them. That way you can learn skills without the crutch of medication. Still, like I say, medication has been a useful component on my own journey. Fluoxetine 20mg seems to work for me. Although it has had some effect on reducing libido, nothing major. Hope that helps

Hi Peter, sorry to hear you are struggling with this. I think you are ruminating on what would be a compulsion. You know checking was a compulsion. Live life how you value it as a guide. If you were living by your values, what would you do in this situation?