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How to cure pure OCD


Guest nikko9000

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Guest nikko9000

http://www.ocdonline.com/#!thinking-the-unthinkable/c1arh

I thought the article linked above was very interesting and it really solved the dilemma which I have been struggeling much with the last days. What I have always been struggeling with is that I felt that there is no escape from my ocd. I felt that whatever I do feels like I am performing compulsions, and whatever I do just makes it worse.

After reading this article I believe that I finally found the solution and understanding of my dilemma. What the writer refers to as spike, are those disturbing thoughts that we are afraid of. From that follows ruminationwhere we try to figure out how to prevent the reoccurrence of these thoughts. The writer says that we want to decrease rumination by accepting uncertainty and this results in increasing the spike. So when the spike is increased it is actually a good thing. So how did this solve my dilemma? I always thought that whenever I stop to ruminate and that when the spikes increase, that I am still doing some compulsive behaviors which are increasing my focus on the problem, causing it to reoccure more often. However, now I know that experiencing these "spikes" and even maintaining them "forever" consciously is the desensetizing process itself. I thought that the more I think about it that the more such thoughts will reoccur. However the opposite is really the case, in this case. The desensetizing process, dissasociates or decreases value of the disturbing thouhgts and slowly dissassociates them from the situations which you fear them. This is ofcourse if you dare to keep these thoughts within your mind without trying to do anything to get rid of them or to solve or avoid what the thoughts scare you about. I thought that I have read so many articles about this that I knew it all, but I didnt know this exact mechanism. This article has the best describtion of the mechanics of response prevention therapy that I have ever seen before.

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It's a very simple process can be a bear to put into practice. ERP is about both exposing yourself to the spike (or the subject of the intrusive thought) and practicing not performing compulsions. The second part is critical. It's easy to spike yourself but it's not so easy to not perform compulsions... yet that is exactly what you need to do.

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Guest nikko9000

Yes that is true. For me it was so automatic that i couldn't even control rumination, I felt that it was as automatic as breathing. The way to stop ruminating for me and according to the article is to make that choice that I don't want to do anything which is to avoid the spikes, but accept to live with the possibility that they will reoccur forever and simply embrace it. You need to accept this uncertainty and possibility. The way to avoid rumination in a simple way, is to always choose the spike over rumination. The scary part which made me previously give up, is that the spike became more frequent instead of the rumination, and I thought that was bad and meaning that my ocd got worse. But now that I read the article I now know that when that occurs it is the right path after all. Just over night now that I wake up i feel more peaceful. As if my brain is finally cooperating with me in return and inevitable failures become less inevitable and less scary.

Edited by nikko9000
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Guest PureO_guy

Sorry, didn't understand a word of this! Have my first session with a private psychotherapist next week, hopefully she can cure my intrusive thoughts.

Really don't feel I have compulsions, I just have the fear of hearing voices constantly on my mind, i.e. it is an intrusive thought....which causes me anxiety.

Edited by PureO_guy
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I'll guarantee you do have compulsions. If you've sat there thinking about hearing voices in your head for 20 minutes, the first about 5 seconds was the intrusive thought. The remainder of the time was you ruminating about the possibility of hearing voices. Rumination is a compulsion. Rumination is going over the thoughts in your head, again and again, analyzing the thoughts and trying to make sense of them.

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Guest PureO_guy

I'll guarantee you do have compulsions. If you've sat there thinking about hearing voices in your head for 20 minutes, the first about 5 seconds was the intrusive thought. The remainder of the time was you ruminating about the possibility of hearing voices. Rumination is a compulsion. Rumination is going over the thoughts in your head, again and again, analyzing the thoughts and trying to make sense of them.

Actually, now you've explained it like that....the light bulbs have gone on and it does make sense :)

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Yeah, rumination is a tricky one. Pretty much all people with OCD do it to some extent. For some people it's profound how much time they spend ruminating. It seems automatic. After all, it's thinking! But it's a compulsion nonetheless and with a lot of practice and determination, you can learn to curb it.

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Guest PureO_guy

The thing is, I don't feel I am consciously ruminating, it just seems like these intrusive thoughts are permanently etched into my 'here and now' consciousness. Whatever I am doing, or thinking, these thoughts are there in the background.

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Guest nikko9000

The thing is, I don't feel I am consciously ruminating, it just seems like these intrusive thoughts are permanently etched into my 'here and now' consciousness. Whatever I am doing, or thinking, these thoughts are there in the background.

Maybe you are doing mental checking, such as checking whether they are getting better or worse, checking what helps what doesnt help or other things as a result of simply not wanting the thoughts to be there. I am not sure if this counts as a compulsion or not, but I believe that I am doing these things. I think this is why it is important to be truly determined to prepare that the thoughts will be there forever. Because then you won't automatically try to solve them. The article says at least that you should seek to accept these thoughts instead of wanting to get rid of them.

Edited by nikko9000
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Guest nikko9000

Oh and a neat trick that seems to work for me against automatic rumination is as follows.

Normally the purpose of repeating a mantra during meditation is to refocus from negative patterns to neutrality. This doesn't work for me, due to that i simply continue to ruminate in the background, such as evaluating if the mantra is helping and so on. Thus this seems to help lately: Say a mantra or anything, such as the first sentence in a song. Then say the alphabet in the background. Then try to count in addition. All these three at the same time if you can or two, if that is more than you can handle. The point is to keep your mind so busy with tasks to make less room for automatic rumination. If you sometimes feel like you slip attempt to do the alphabet or counting backwards. This really helps me to refocus if i do it for a few minutes.

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Great replies, PolarBear and nikko. I would just add to them that stopping rumination gets a lot easier the more you do it. First of all, you feel much better, which empowers you to do more. Secondly, you gain so much more awareness of what rumination and your mental compulsions feel and look like that you are able to drop them as soon as they pop up. One word of caution is that while this works most of the time, if you are feeling really depressed or sick the spikes may return with greater frequency for a little bit. But if you just stay strong and vowed to resist those compulsions, it will get much better.

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Managing Pure-O is sometimes very tricky. Previously I used to answer my thoughts with "ok may be it is true, may be false, I have to accept not knowing etc.". Many people may say that it is correct approach. But it did not work for me. Whenever I tried to use these statements, OCD counter argue with some odd logic and continued. Later I discovered that this statements themselves are compulsion for me. I am trying to use some "logic" to stop the OCD thoughts from reoccurring or neutralise them. That's why they are latching with me. Then I started to let them just occur without any kind of response. When they did occur, I just let them to, without doing anything in my mind. Surprisingly I have noticed that this way they last only few seconds when previously they stayed for hours. Very soon my mind shift to some other thought. I have improved a lot in this way.

Hope this makes sense.

Edited by Nil
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