evolve

My obsessions are all about what I’m doing with my face during conversation and what other people are thinking about me. I get lost in the brain chatter that’s trying to mind read people based on their expression and any other cues that might give me a hint what they’re thinking. I understand this is all part of rumination in trying to solve the constant question of “do they like me?” How do people cope with being bombarded during a conversation? It’s so difficult to remain focused.

Obviously I think we all know that this is hard, very hard, and takes a lot of courage and determination. However, if you adopt an attitude of acceptance then it really does make the whole thing less painful. Notice the spiel that is going on in your head that is saying “I can’t do this”, “I need to check this”. And respond with “actually I don’t NEED to do anything and I accept however uncomfortable I feel in this moment in pursuit of my long term goal”. Start to notice when a new urge comes along, and say thanks brain but I’m going to go back to what I was doing actually. The urges will come thick and fast at first but will diminish over time.

The subject says it all really. And I'm not sure how much of an OCD problem this is, but the extent to which it is dominating my thoughts and bringing me down suggests it might be. It's really been brought on by what I'm seeing from the government in lockdown and the conspiracy theories floating around out there. My mum is discovering these at the moment and is very much a believer of what she's seeing. She's shared some stuff with me that is horrific if true. How are you supposed to be happy in a world where there's paedophilia, murder, where people in elite positions abuse their power?

What if you've been following the social distancing guidelines for three months, not seen anyone except your housemate and strangers in the local shop.. but then one recent afternoon you've met up with your mum in her house, along with your sister and niece, given very emotional hugs to each other, and gone for a walk. How to deal with this guilt of something that is officially wrong? Feeling like you've endangered people, that you're a bad person, that people would hate you if they knew? I can get my head round dealing with guilt over something that you shouldn't feel guilty for somewhat, but now I feel I should and it's crippling me.

Thanks, hoping you can keep fighting this and sounds like you are beginning to make progress. Any progress is great I think, considering how insurmountable the challenge can feel and the bravery needed. Mindfulness is definitely a muscle I need to get back to working on and strengthening. On days like today where I feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place - compulsions or no compulsions - then I see how that really is an essential part of getting on top of all this. I do relate to what you say about how the feeling feels. It feels like being zapped of any positive energy and finding it hard to get pleasure out of anything. It confused me today because it has persisted all evening, even after leaving work which normally makes me feel better. I have a psychiatrist appointment tomorrow so I'm going to bring it up. Hope you continue to make an improvement

Great to hear you're doing much better and also inspiring that you came here and posted this. It can feel like a hopeless fight at times but I know I need to be committed like it sounds like you have been.

Does anyone get just a horrible depressive feeling come over them when cutting out compulsions? I'm not even sure what it is I'm thinking that might make me feel that way sometimes, it's almost like it's an automatic 'withdrawal' effect that kicks in maybe ten or so minutes after I've resisted. Considering the majority of my compulsions occur while I'm at work, it really makes it difficult to both do my job and tackle this disorder at the same time! Chris

Thanks for your reply. I don't think that the AR compulsion has any kind of magical effect, but for whatever reason, my brain is "happiest" when I'm doing that compulsion and I feel reassured and more able to have a natural conversation. Of course, that's just my feeling. When I don't do it I feel like I freeze up like a deer in headlights. I've been having CBT for a while but have been struggling to drop the compulsion like my therapist has wanted. I've just started to do it properly and I'm reminded why I do it in the first place. She doesn't think I have any deficit of social skills or anything, it's just the tide of thoughts that hit me during a conversation make it so so difficult to stay natural and not distracted. I'm trying to mind read the other person's expression to judge how I'm doing, then listen to them speak to someone else to compare it, to see if it gives me any more insight into how I performed. It's like I need someone to say "you did great there" after every conversation, although even then I'd think they were just humouring me!

So I have a mix of social anxiety and OCD and have had an obsession over smiling for years and years now and I just can't seem to overcome it. The obsession is that I will overthink when and where to smile when talking to people, what my mouth is doing, and possibly end up smiling too little or too much and being judged badly as a result. My brain came up with a solution to this years ago. I began to associate the letter combination AR with this obsession (like the sound you make in the dentist when holding your mouth open) and that if I avoided looking at those letters, I would be ok. And when I avoid looking directly at those two letters in combination, I feel like I don't have a problem. I feel almost confident at times and consider myself pretty well-liked. As you can imagine, trying to do this every day is tiring and soul destroying so I always end up trying to drop this compulsion and look at the letters. And soon after I feel like I'm on a downward spiral of misery. I obsess over it. Every single time someone talks to me, my brain goes down the same thought path.. "Ok Chris, it's time to smile properly! Don't overthink it! No, you're thinking about it! Should you have smiled there? Yes you should! You haven't smiled for 5 minutes. No, don't smile like that. That's just weird. You're being too serious now! They're feeling uncomfortable! Smile but don't think about it!" And round and round my thoughts go. I find myself watching a TV show and seeing how the actors smile or don't smile in conversation. I think about how you hold your mouth when someone is telling you something and you want to show you're amused so your mouth is like upturned, but I can't do this if I'm thinking about it! I can't smile if I'm thinking about it! Yet I'll Google what to do in a conversation and it says it's important to smile. My brain just feels like it gets in a massive tangle and I don't know how to approach this problem properly. In the end, I return to my compulsion, feeling more reassured but ultimately trapped and defeated. Please can someone give me some advice or maybe share if you have a similar issue? That would be so much appreciated. Sorry, I know I've posted about this quite a while ago. But I just don't know what to do. Thanks, Chris

I've suddenly found myself facing a lengthy period of time off work due to a leg injury so I've decided that this is a perfect time to enter my own OCD rehab and tackle my compulsions head on. Of course, now I've started I've been reminded how incredibly difficult this is. I've pinpointed that my problem is my obsession with conversations and how awkward or unnatural I might come across in my actions due to overthinking both before, during and after. Therefore, after each conversation I'm trying to sit with the fact that it has possibly gone wrong and the other person is uncomfortable talking to me. I worry that I won't smile naturally but the problem is that when I drop my compulsions, I obviously begin to feel very fearful and depressed and therefore I don't naturally feel like smiling. I desperately want that reassurance that I can still smile and talk naturally but I can't get this without compulsions. When I do smile I worry that I'm just forcing it. When I don't smile I worry that I'm stopping myself from smiling naturally. I guess I'm just asking for advice as to how to sit with this incredible discomfort. The fact that I have time off as well means I have an abundance of free time and it is difficult to keep my mind busy. And when I try and do then I feel like I'm not paying attention to thoughts that need paying attention to. I guess fellow OCD sufferers know this feeling. Chris

Thanks for this! It's great Will certainly be attempting this from the moment I step into work tomorrow and will prepare myself to not get the 'shoelaces' just right straight away.

Thanks for replying. Do you have any tips on how to stop the rumination? I know that it is what I should not be doing but my mind wants to go there time and time again with each conversation or simply anticipating conversation. It's so hard to catch and stop.

I've gone through a break up recently and ever since my OCD has become almost unbearable. I was keeping it in check somewhat with compulsions but now they don't work (I don't fully understand why but it's usually the case when my mood is low). I obsess over how I speak to people in conversation face to face and how awkward they might notice I'm being. Whether I smile funny or don't smile enough. Whether I look like a deer in the headlights and if it makes them uncomfortable. My mind will go blank when I'm talking because like 10% of my attention is on what is being said and 90% on how I'm saying it and what I think they're thinking. I'll spend hours ruminating on how I think I came across and I don't know how to stop this. This morning I walked into work and my boss said something to me and I replied and then spent about 4 hours feeling low and obsessing on how they thought I was weird. Help would be appreciated.

Thanks guys. taurean, that is certainly a nice way of dealing with the problem. Ocd is self-obsession run amok really isn't it so that was the opposite. To my brain, the most important thing in the world is how my facial expressions come across when I talk. It wants to trump any other concern, even including what the actual content of what I'm saying is! So I am trying to move the focus to the content and to the other person. Today was really hard because it was my first attempt at dropping my compulsions in quite a long time. And my mood just plummeted which already had me in a bad place. Trying to remind myself that feelings don't matter. Chris

I guess this is to be expected? I'm sat in work feeling so miserable because I've stopped my compulsions I just want to do them so I feel normal again and people react to me better.