Jump to content

Its just impossible.


Guest Paul92

Recommended Posts

Guest Paul92

Been trying everything to relabel the thoughts as OCD or as part of an illness. Tried everything to not engage with them but its just too bad. I messed up bigtime, and theres nothing I can do :( Really wish I wasn't here.

Sorry for the post about nothing, but I can't see a way out or a future.

Link to comment
Guest FlyingPenguin

Hang on in there, Paul, it's just a bad day.

Is there anything you can do to distract yourself/give yourself a break? Favourite film/tv show, or drinks with friends?

The thing is, you need to carry on living life as if this is just OCD, even if your OCD is telling you that it's not. You need to live in spite of those OCD thoughts and feelings and carry on as if you are a worthwhile and nice person. OCD will tell you that you're a bad person, you don't deserve to happy, you're in denial if you pretend to be normal, blah blah blah, but you have to carry on as if this is all OCD nonsense (which it is!). You can't wait to feel right, because you can't control your feelings, but you can control your actions. So change the thing you can change. This is how CBT works. If I listened to what my OCD said, I'd probably never get out of bed. It takes patience and hard work to live in spite of horrible thoughts and feelings, but you can do it, and as you keep doing it the OCD will get weaker and weaker.

OCD is a ****, but it can be beaten.

You are not alone in this. Be compassionate to yourself and don't give up.

Link to comment
Guest Paul92

I'm not going to give up, I just know I won't. I've never ran away from anything in my life, I don't intend to start now.

I've really been trying with the relabeling, but it just won't stick! Plus, I'm getting so frustrated with dreaming every night. I'm waking up more and more tired every day.

I used to get intrusive thoughts that I got passed by relabeling. But its so much harder relabeling a thought that is regarding something that actually happened and may have serious substance.

Link to comment
Guest FlyingPenguin

Yep, it is harder, and boy does OCD know it! That's why this is one of its favourite topics. The more it raises the stakes, the more you have to raise the stakes. And the key give away in your sentence is the 'may'. You don't know for sure, do you? If you did, OCD wouldn't be having such a fun time with this.

Here's the OCD maybe: Maybe looking at the porn proves you are a horrible person and deserve to feel guilt and shame for the rest of your life.

Here's the reality check maybe: Maybe your OCD is making you inappropriately obsessed with this one issue and you are beating yourself up relentlessly over something that was a silly mistake that lots of teenage boys have done who now lead happy and full lives and don't give it a second thought.

Here's a definite: OCD is adversely affecting your quality of life. If you don't stand up to these OCD compulsions (I gather your compulsion is to ruminate over the issue in an attempt to try and figure out whether you are a bad person or not, analysing your motives, feelings, etc.), then you are losing time, energy, and confidence. The biggest risk is in not standing up to the thoughts.

What if it's just OCD? That's the question you need to ask yourself when these thoughts come in. What if it was? How would you act differently?

Link to comment

Ok . I too suffer from intrusive thoughts, and they've really bugged me over the last several days and ruined a long weekend when i had planned some quality time with my wife and a spot of fishing.

She's great, she really understands though is disappointed, and of course the periods when I have bad OCD are dfificult for her as well to cope with.

eShe herself is profoundly deaf, but has lived with that disabllty a long with an intense rar of medics - "white coat hypertension" but I have been teaching her CBT methods and gone with her when needed and she has now a good and understanding dentist, hearing specialist optician and can go to them - so we have had some success.

She insisted I bought the bookBbrainlock (from Amazon) about the four Steps. - you can buy if from amazon, or download it to a kindle. It sounds like you know the theory, but Doctor Schwarz sets it out really well in the book and it gives us both comfort.

And he is really right; get totally inolved in something - e.g. i've been on this forum for 3 hours now - and you can't thinkl of anythiong else. doing that something mindfully - tolally concentrating on it - will break the cycle.

So do your relabelling as an OCD thought that says nothoing ablout you as a ;person,reattribute the thought to OCDc aused by a chemical fault in the frontalllobe of the brain that scauses the transmission to "stick" , accept this and refocus on something else, and revalue yourself and you WILL FEEL BETTER and you can strengthen your determination and weaken the distressiog nerual connections.

For every negative thought or connection, dream up positive thoguhts and connections and keep workig on doing that - it will help you reframe any negativity, black and white thinking and catastrophising and encourage happier ways of thinking.

Try an appraoch of reading enjoyable and involving educational meterial - I for example;lap up science and astronomy and photography but purely as a hobby.

I do lots of things for other people,and theat stimultates my self-worth and also benefits those others.

BUt remember, I am stil as sufferer,a nd i still ahve to work at it - although I do get long periods of remission.

Link to comment

It's really tough when you get stuck in that loop, with all the knowledge in the World it's still very testing. Doing another behaviour is really important, it's not enough to relabel. I know it can seem impossible to concentrate on doing anything else when you're feeling so anxious but it's important to try.

You will get through Paul, honestly :)

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...