Daisy10

OCD is an anxiety disorder. Your anxiety is over-functioning, along with emotions such as guilt, disgust etc. Your thoughts feed your anxiety. Your anxiety feed your thoughts. It's more of a continuous circle than one directly causing the other.

Hey @worriedjohn, that's a great add on! You can continue to work even if the virus has spread!

Thanks everyone, I'm glad this resonated with you guys a bit. I've changed my blog url to https://thetriggeredmind.wordpress.com/ if you fancy having a read

Of course Emsie! Maybe have a read of my post about self-care, you might find it helpful

@Emsie Hey Emsie, Not at all. Think your OCD may have made you panic a bit there. I understood your comment and took it as a huge compliment. I've changed the site address to thetriggeredmind.wordpress.com is all. There's a couple more posts up there now if you need some reading material to distract your mind a bit

Hi, In what I hope will prove to be a successful attempt at turning a negative into a positive, I've decided to start writing a blog about OCD. I plan on writing any tips and advice I've picked up during my 24 year experience with OCD, from my therapist and books I've read. It'll also be for any musings I have on the topic of OCD (most of which are that it sucks and we all deserve to be flown to a private luxury island for the amount of stress we're put through day-to-day). Overall, I'd just like it to be something you can read to make you feel a little bit better about OCD and remind that you're not alone. Since I've only just started this blog, I would welcome any topics or thoughts you'd like me to write about. All suggestions are welcome and hopefully I can provide something helpful or at least something to make you smirk. The blog is: https://hellnocd.wordpress.com/ if you'd like to take a look at what's there so far. Thanks!

Hey, The response to this post has inspired me to start a blog. I've only just started, but this is the sort of thing I will be posting, so if you liked this analogy keep an eye on https://hellnocd.wordpress.com/ Daisy

Hey Ashley, you absolutely have my permission , I'm perfectly happy for you to use my username.

Thanks Emsie! I hope it helps a bit

I'm sure you've come across similar (if not the exact same) analogies but this came to me yesterday and thought it might be a helpful thinking exercise to share Imagine you are looking at a computer screen. You have a couple of windows open and are doing some work, nothing pressing but you've got things to do. This computer is your mind. Suddenly a window pops up out of nowhere in the corner. It's bright red and your eye keeps being drawn towards it. You try to focus on the work you need to do but this window is so red and angry and more importantly, you didn't open it yourself, it just popped up out of nowhere. It's intruding. I'm sure you don't need me to explain what this pop up is a metaphor for! You click on the [x] to get rid of it, but another window pops up. Again, you click on the [x] to get rid of that one and another appears. Before you know it your whole computer screen is awash with horrible pop ups and you can no longer see what you were working on before. The more you click on these pop ups, the more appear. Turns out this pop up is a computer virus and your screen has been infected. Little did you know, had you just ignored the pop up, accepted it was a little distracting and you'd prefer it not to be there, your computers anti-virus software would have got rid of it of its own accord. Your intrusive thoughts are these nasty pop ups. Knowing what you know about the nature of these pop ups (when you click on them they multiply and ultimately infect your computer) it doesn't make sense to click, does it? Don't let them infect your computer, allow them to drift in and out and your computer will stay virus free so you can concentrate on whatever it was you were working on.

PB is right, ruminating is a compulsion. You're resisting the physical compulsion of ringing but you're ruminating which is still feeding the OCD. The best way to fight is by not fighting at all. When the thought comes to your head that you should ring, just accept that the throught is there without fighting it or trying to get rid of it.

Hey Have you had a look on the BABCP website?