My OCD

[Ben Dark]

Any tips or suggestions for how I am feeling, I am going through a very stressful situation at moment, and OCD is incredibly hard to manage, I often feel tired, can't sleep on a night, up and down in moods, I could be really high and feel great about myself then

suddenly I feel really down, also I worry I am a bad person about mistakes I have made that's making me think I am a bad person all the time, only way to put all this that everything gets on top of me, any suggestions 

 

cheers Ben 

[taurean]

1 hour ago, Ben Dark said:

Any tips or suggestions for how I am feeling, I am going through a very stressful situation at moment, and OCD is incredibly hard to manage, I often feel tired, can't sleep on a night, up and down in moods, I could be really high and feel great about myself then

suddenly I feel really down, also I worry I am a bad person about mistakes I have made that's making me think I am a bad person all the time, only way to put all this that everything gets on top of me, any suggestions 

 

cheers Ben 

Stress makes us more vulnerable to OCD. 

So focusing on how you can ease the stress will help you then cope with the OCD. 

Try applying a little risk management to your risks of being stressed. 

Risks can be :

Avoided 

Managed - reduced, controlled, getting help with 

Handed over to others 

How much of what is stressing you can you address in those ways. 

Re sleep, look at the current thread on that for some help. 

 

[Ben Dark]

Cheers Taurean, any other suggestions would be much greatful 

 

cheers Ben 

[taurean]

Have you learned about "The Four Steps"  process for tackling OCD intrusions? 

It's helped me a lot. You can find a summary of the steps by going to the main OCD-UK website and using the search field. 

[paradoxer]

5 hours ago, Ben Dark said:

Any tips or suggestions for how I am feeling, I am going through a very stressful situation at moment, and OCD is incredibly hard to manage, I often feel tired, can't sleep on a night, up and down in moods, I could be really high and feel great about myself then

suddenly I feel really down, also I worry I am a bad person about mistakes I have made that's making me think I am a bad person all the time, only way to put all this that everything gets on top of me, any suggestions 

 

cheers Ben 

Here's my contribution - don't set yourself up to be a good person, it'll only get you into trouble. If you can, tell yourself you're a bad person (and tell yourself  'so what').  

[taurean]

17 minutes ago, paradoxer said:

Here's my contribution - don't set yourself up to be a good person, it'll only get you into trouble. If you can, tell yourself you're a bad person (and tell yourself  'so what').  

I echo that. Neutralising like that just strengthens OCD 

But indifference is a great concept to adopt to tackle OCD - it will tell us black is white or white is black, it will turn true and worthy character values on their heads, but if we don't listen to it intrusions will eventually fade away through lack of interest. 

Edited August 22, 2016 by taurean
Clarification

[paradoxer]

3 hours ago, taurean said:

I echo that. Neutralising like that just strengthens OCD 

But indifference is a great concept to adopt to tackle OCD - it will tell us black is white or white is black, it will turn true and worthy character values on their heads, but if we don't listen to it intrusions will eventually fade away through lack of interest. 

Absolutely agree. Indifference will do it. OCD gets royally confused when met with disinterest. Sometimes, though, I think it's also all right to be aware that bending the proverbial coat hanger back a bit further is a possible option. 

Edited August 23, 2016 by paradoxer

[Ben Dark]

Paradoxer don't know what u ment by your post sorry ? 

[Ben Dark]

On 23/08/2016 at 00:04, paradoxer said:

Here's my contribution - don't set yourself up to be a good person, it'll only get you into trouble. If you can, tell yourself you're a bad person (and tell yourself  'so what').  

Don't no what u mean by that sorry paradoxer. 

[paradoxer]

Ben, hello mate, What I was saying is that OCD will often attack you for being 'bad'. If you can let go of that notion of being good or bad, it can help sabotage the OCD. Instead of worrying about it - tell yourself that you don't care. If you stress out about trying to think of yourself as good, OCD will never be satisfied, and always find fault. The way to disarm OCD is to take the opposite approach.  

[taurean]

Almost - remember, if we counter it directly with an opposite thought, we are neutralising and just STRENGTHENING the OCD. 

But, if we treat the intrusions as simply "silly mental chatter - just my obsession speaking"  we can like paradoxer says, slip into a "maybe, maybe not" indifferent approach. 

OCD will be suggesting things which are contrary to our core values, exaggerations of minimum threat, repulsions, revulsions. 

A disarming approach is fine, a neutralising one is not. 

[Ben Dark]

Thanks taurean and paradoxer for your posts, do you also struggle sleeping

[Ben Dark]

????