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Questions about cbt!! Please help


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Hi everyone hope your all well :clap: first of all! And has you know Ive only starTed cbt and i have a few questions to ask!! 

The first one is

how does cbt lower the amount of intrusive thoughts you get because I can't see how it does has mine are back to back at the moment and don't seem to have none of my own normal thoughts at the moment I just wondered how cbt would correct my thoughts?? Has I feel like I'm losing my mind here!! 

the second questions is does your ocd is ever trick you to wanting to act on your thoughts example you get a intrusive thought and I'm like say back I don't want to do that then I have thought back saying  yes you do then I say no I don't then I get a thought yes I do it's like arguing with your own mind :bash: driving me nuts today this is getting worse!

and the question is how do you know there intrusive thoughts ?

and lastly why do you have to invite them thoughts in ? Because mine are scary so scary and I think you invite them in is like your wanting them!! 

help would be gratefull in the start of my recovery 

many thanks 

x

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Hi Heidi,

Happy to try and help if I can.

5 minutes ago, Heidi18 said:

how does cbt lower the amount of intrusive thoughts you get

It's not something that will happen immediately, in fact CBT does not really aim to 'stop' or 'lower' the thoughts, the purpose of CBT is to help you change the way you respond to the thoughts. When (may take time) the therapy starts to help you do that, then because the thoughts no longer scare you, the frequency of them automatically drops off and they become non-noticeable.

Does that make sense?

 

7 minutes ago, Heidi18 said:

does your ocd is ever trick you to wanting to act on your thoughts example you get a intrusive thought and I'm like say back I don't want to do that then I have thought back saying  yes you do then I say no I don't then I get a thought yes I do it's like arguing with your own mind  

Yep, I think this is pretty common with OCD. The problem is with our OCD it 'feels' so real, so when we get an unwanted horrible intrusive thought, the fact it feels so real means we convince ourselves we are capable of acting on it. 

 

14 minutes ago, Heidi18 said:

how do you know there intrusive thoughts ?

If they're unwanted and unpleasant then they're intrusive thoughts (from an OCD perspective).  Technically, a thought of winning the lottery is am intrusive thought too, but we don't worry about that because it's a pleasant intrusive thought.

 

15 minutes ago, Heidi18 said:

why do you have to invite them thoughts in ? Because mine are scary so scary and I think you invite them in is like your wanting them!! 

It's not that you choose to invite them in, it's just that the focus of your OCD is so strong you end up thinking of them all the time.... it's what we call the 'pink elephant' effect. If you are told to imaging a pink elephant, then suddenly told to stop thinking about it, most people end up with an image and thought of a pink elephant in their head.

So if you have a fear of contamination with OCD, you will guarantee you see every contaminated item on the street. If you have a fear of hurting children you guarantee a 100 children come out of nowhere and brush against you.    Our OCD focus is specifically scanning for it, partly to avoid it, but when we scan we bring the focus to the forefront of our mind too.

Hope that helps explain a little :)

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:thankyousign: for replying Ashley

thanks for your help thats made me understand it a bit more but with the last question what I mean is I learnt in cbt that I've got to start inviting thoughts in.. to allow to let them go and show them there not important but I don't want to invite them in.. I'm trying to get rid of them..so why have I got to start inviting them in has a process I didn't ask why...

 

 

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2 hours ago, Heidi18 said:

I learnt in cbt that I've got to start inviting thoughts in.. to allow to let them go and show them there not important but I don't want to invite them in.. I'm trying to get rid of them..so why have I got to start inviting them in has a process I didn't ask why...

This isn't quite right. You're not supposed to get rid of them, you're supposed to change your reaction to them. You should be aiming to stop your reaction to the thoughts. Stop thinking that they are 'bad' and realise instead that they are just thoughts, they can't harm you. You start with a thought that causes little anxiety, tolerate it's presence, and focus on something else. If you keep doing this your brain will learn that there's nothing to fear about the thought, then you can move to the next, more anxiety inducing thought and repeat the process with this.

Everyone has intrusive thoughts, only people with OCD think they mean something and do something to 'fix' what they think the thoughts mean. If you do any compulsions in response to the thought you're exposing yourself to, you should avoid doing that as well.

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4 minutes ago, AttemptingToHeal said:

This isn't quite right. You're not supposed to get rid of them, you're supposed to change your reaction to them. You should be aiming to stop your reaction to the thoughts. Stop thinking that they are 'bad' and realise instead that they are just thoughts, they can't harm you. You start with a thought that causes little anxiety, tolerate it's presence, and focus on something else. If you keep doing this your brain will learn that there's nothing to fear about the thought, then you can move to the next, more anxiety inducing thought and repeat the process with this.

Everyone has intrusive thoughts, only people with OCD think they mean something and do something to 'fix' what they think the thoughts mean. If you do any compulsions in response to the thought you're exposing yourself to, you should avoid doing that as well.

Thank you for your reply..

ok I will give that a try and see how I go 

many thanks for your replys 

hope your all well 

x

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