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Why do the thoughts never stop coming back?


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It seems whenever a thought is gone & I haven't thought about it in awhile, than it just comes back & starts bothering me all over again. Or when I have a particular thought bothering me severely, the other thoughts that I used to have don't feel that bad in that instant compared to the one I currently have. Than when the one that's bothering you severely starts to go away or calm down, than those ones that didn't feel as bad come back to the forefront & feel real awful again. It's a vicious cycle that just never ends. I feel like I have too many different intrusive thoughts to ever be completely free from this ever. It just goes on & on in the same way over & over. It's just a horrible existence not being able to control your own mind.

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yes I too have found it frustrating how random ocd can be with the thoughts that bother me. but at the same time realizing that it is random you can start to see that it is not really the thought at all that is the problem--it is more like the anxiety just picks whatever it needs to at random. when you see that, it can help to lessen the belief that your current fear is really a threat.

for me it is like sometimes i think--ok i'll do this exposure and it'll probably bother me--and then it doesn't.

but then i'll go off and do something that i don't expect will give me any trouble and then I'm suddenly sick with anxiety.

i have found exposures helpful overall because once my mind can see that i can deal with a certain amount of anxiety and uncertainty, i am not so easily thrown by whatever thought it is that is triggering me in any given moment.

i hope you find some relief soon.

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You can learn to control your mind, to a certain extent. It is very common to have thoughts ebbing and flowing, one becoming strong while others take a back seat. You deal with the thoughts one at a time. Resist your compulsions. Pay as little attention to the thoughts you can. Recognize obsessions when the pop up and deal with them effectively.

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Sadly, you cannot stop new thoughts from popping up, nor old one from returning. I feel your desperation, I really do, as I too have several "themes", that sometimes are even in contradiction to one another, and each of them feels like the worst thing ever while it's flaring up.

The thing is, you can change how you react to the thoughts. It's terribly difficult but you have to cling to whatever arms you have against OCD. PolarBear is absolutely right in his advice.

Remember that the goal isn't not to have the thoughts, it's to be able to recognise them as part of your disorder and cut out all the compulsions!

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