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One obsession replaced by another


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Hi everyone

I have been quite lucky with my OCD in that, on the whole, it has responded well to ERP and CBT and I've had good results. But one thing I have found is that, once I have tackled one obsession it seems to be replaced by another which then has to be dealt with in the same way, and it never seems to reach a point of equilibrium - it feels a bit like one of those fairground games where you have to whack the moles on the head but then another one pops up! If I do have a period of time when I'm not bothered by a specific obsession, there is often this underlying sense of unease/dread, even if I am not carrying out any compulsions or even really thinking about it. Sometimes when I feel like this, I discover there is an obsession 'lurking' in the background, ticking over in my mind causing this sense of dread, and when I realise what it is I feel this huge surge of anxiety and so on.

So, my question is: I understand the principles or ERP, and CBT, I understand how OCD affects the brain and so on. I've worked really hard to tackle it and on the whole it works. But... how do you get to that point when you've truly beaten it, and you're not just fire-fighting individual obsessions? Will it always be the case that I am on the lookout for the next one and having to tackle them on a case-by-case basis? And does anyone else get these 'background obsessions'?

Thanks guys xx

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I feel exactly the same. I know how to knock out the obsessions as and when they appear, but it still seems I am always scanning for something to come along and ruin my happiness. Perhaps this is where we have to 'let go' on a much more grand scale. Embrace life, embrace risk, roll with the punches and maybe that unease will fade.

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After I did cbt last time ocd reduced a lot, still got thoughts but much less and had pretty good quality of life for quite a few years. Recently an awful lot of stress has brought it back, it's been like the mole game with different stress sources so am struggling again but know cbt and not responding is the way forward. I want my life back and I want to stop living in fear.

Edited by Lily
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Guest PhilipD99

Well I decided, having passed the exams of he Royal College of Psychiatrists a body for which I do not have a great affection, that most of Clinical Psychology was common sense! That said it is in the nature of the condition that you do things you know to be daft! Behaviour Therapy is just guiding you with stamping on the daft procedures. I know all this in retirement but do many daft things myself which is why I am here!

Edited by PhilipM
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Hi this post catching my eye alot it, because it makes sence to me. i have the same problem im worry about something, then when that goes something elses comes into it place.

Like today i was paid yesterday. but because i was wearing some shoes that my stepdad gave me i am worrying and that i should not spend my money because i check my paidslip yeasterday. makes no sence to me. also i play ps3 games and i was going back reloading ect many times. things like that that makes me mad inside i got some books on ocd and will read up on them also i try medcation but feel does not work. are there any other medcations or anything else i can try whitch work well? i was on citalopram

Thankyou

David

p.s. reply to this post made my ocd go of abit.

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That`s the "BrainLock" I`ve read in the book "Brainlock" that actually the brain has a glitch, called brainlock. When you get that 'something is not right' feeling. I guess it is the root cause of ocd, and obsessions are just things that we associate in that particular time when we get the brainlock, with. So here is how a obsession is born. My theory. Btw. you should read it

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Well I can only speak for myself but when I feel a new obsession arising I can tell it's not a rational response.

An obsession can grow incredibly quickly if you fuel the fire but it can also dwindle just as fast if you don't give it active thought.

Be irrational and ridiculous, if you're worried that you're going to be violent towards someone why not just say to yourself 'Maybe I'm going to stab someone but I really don't feel like it today'.

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I have this problem - I call it "snakes and ladders OCD" because I manage to beat one intrusion and feel ready to climb back up the ladder again, then OCD roles out either another intrusion or a trigger from my past memory, so I slide down another snake!

I am in therapy at the moment - trying a new therapist freshly trained - I wanted to see what her take might be on this. We've only had two sessions so far, the first an introduction to start educating her on what my problems and goals are - but I personally think it's partially the "Brainlock" especially as my intrusions form a "thought loop" and continually churn in the brain, partly the OCD itself using this technique to try and keep me hooked in distress, and partly the active part of my brain which in cognitive thinking , when presented with a problem wants to continue to use all resources - including comparing notes from memory windows - to try and find a solution.

(My psychiatrist was pretty sure that Prozac (fluoxetine) would help reduce the intrusions and the memory playing, but I was unable to tolerate either that or citalopram.)

My new therapist is using a combination of "inserts" to disrupt the intrusions - like a prefix "I am having the thought that" and imagining the thought in a silly voice, and metaphors geared to mindfulness based cognitive therapy. The main metaphor I am using imagines me approaching a waterfall where the intrusions flow along with the water over the fall, and I walk behind the waterfall and underneath it - there is a ledge to stand on - and so I can engage my "impartial observer" to watch the thoughts but not engage with them. There are other types of metaphors that can be used in this way to disengage from the thoughts.

In addition to that, we are looking to engage the "being" part of my mind - which sits in the present and operates in a mindful way just focusing on the here and now - instead of the active part of my brain which causes all the problems, ruminations, delving into the past to compare other memory windows to try and find a solution!. To aid with this I am using three short mindfulness meditations on a regular basis to encourage my mind to move in this direction and away from the active mode.

I personally feel that, when I have eased down from my problems mentally and physically in this current episode of OCD, there will be some mileage in revising medications as there are newer meds with less side effects I am told. I am still evaluating what combination of meds might give me value - my main need from the meds is more to reducing and minimising the intrusions and healing the "brainlock" to stop the churning thoughts.

All ideas towards that re meds will be greatly appreciated

Edited by taurean
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Maybe our OCD brains get lonely after you wrestle one obsession under control so it invents a new obsession as a replacement. I don't know. Who knows what the cause of such things is. The point is to try and figure out a way to overcome it.

In my mind tackling obsessions one at a time is the way to go. You know it's a process you have to go through to overcome an obsession and bring it down to the point of a minor annoyance rather than a catastrophic situation. Then you go onto the next. However, over time, you should be able to foresee that a new obsession is just that and deal with it immediately, and without the process.

What I mean is, after you've gotten in a lot of practice effectively dealing with obsessions, you should reach a point where you can identify a new obsession and stop it in its tracks by not responding to it and do so immediately. Basically you will circumvent the process of ERP and stop the obsession through not responding to it. You don't need to go through the whole ERP process on an obsession that hasn't really taken root yet.

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I think Polar bear is right. After awhile your brain will be trained to see through the obessions and the thoughts won't become obessions. Using the brain lock analogy, each thought is a huge pile of mud that your car gets stuck in. Through Erp we get the car moving, until the next mud pile. But slowly, these mud piles get smaller and smaller until their just puddles and we stop getting stuck. We'll always run into these puddles in our life but they won't keep us stuck. Just my two cents.

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Hi guys. Thank you for all your replies they're really helpful. It makes sense that the more obsessions I beat, the more easily I will spot them developing in the future. Usually when a new 'take' on an old theme pops up, I'm pretty good at spotting it and nipping it in the bud. But when something completely new pops up it seems to get me every time. I won't go into the details of my current obsession as it's not going to really help, but the other day I went into full-on compulsion mode as if I'd never learnt anything about OCD or how it works. In fact at the time I didn't even consider it to be OCD at all. It's as if my brain is constantly searching for this magical and where I'll finally be 'completely safe' and it won't let me rest until I get there - even though I know it's not possible.

Anyway I'll keep on with the fire fighting, thanks everyone x

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Hi Ginger,

I think at the same time as you are looking to damp down the OCD (using the "active" part of your brain), perhaps seeking to shift focus away by engaging the "being" part of your brain in mindfulness will probably be helpful - I am finding it so.

Using mindfulness meditations is a great way to try and switch off the ""active"mode of the brain which the OCD engages and which then also seeks to contra it , and achieve some piece and calm, and looking to move your brain from "active" to "being" using mindfulness metaphors to enable you to just observe those thoughts and detach from them (being the "impartial observer" )is also helpful.

The therapist has given me that specific "waterfall" mephor to use whcih I mentioned elsewhere - I have been using that, and I also found a way to link it in with music - I have a brilliant visualisation meditation which takes me on ua beautiful peaceful calming journey involving 8 different segments, and segment three is a waterfall sequence!

This CD is called "meditation & visualisation" and I obtained it from New World Music - not sure if still available though - but the concept is good because you have to follow the narrative from the sleeve for each track, and after a while of course you know what the scenes in each track represent. so initially it makes you work then later you work from memory.all of this makes you move focus to being rather than doing and helps relax us.

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Guest sophie13

Polar Bear, I've been watching your posts and I love your answers. I know what you mean, treating evey obsession with not giving it importance... I was very good at it, really.. I wish I can get myself back together and deal with them that way, reduce the compulsions etc.

Taurean, there are other antidepressants like Zoloft or Fevarin, same as Prozac and Citalopram. I am on citalopram now but I think I'll swich to prozac...

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Ok but if you want to make that switch it is going to take some time to gradually reduce the citalopram and gradually build up the prozac, and your OCD may well get worse meanwhile. Why do you think you want to switch - what works for individuals can be very subjective and there are absolutely no guarantees. of what might ultimately be found beneficial?

I am pretty sure that when my body settles down and I feel up for it i will probably try something else, but I am very worried that whatever I do take might not reduce the intrusions, and will therefore give me side effects and no benefit.

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Guest fiatver

I have that problem (constantly going from one obsession to another) till I applied this simple principles:

- The problem is not the doubt, but the rejection of the underlying uncertainty. Your brain is going to flag up every single uncertainty in your life because that's what you have trained it to do. The more you react to your brain flagging up an uncertainty, the more it's going to do it, as it will think that it helps you to survive. Accept uncertainty. It's really really hard but that's how you know it's working.

In fact at the time I didn't even consider it to be OCD at all. It's as if my brain is constantly searching for this magical and where I'll finally be 'completely safe' and it won't let me rest until I get there - even though I know it's not possible.

That's exactly the problem. The problem is never a particular theme, the problem is always not tolerating uncertainty, and trying to do things to cope, check on, and control uncertainty. I would recommend you to leave the "this is/is not OCD" type of thinking and instead move towards a "I don't need to be sure of this because I live by these values" type of thinking. If you keep reacting in any way to your OCD your OCD is going to keep playing with you, like a little puppy.

This is something many people don't realise. Something doesn't need to feel like OCD to be OCD. Actually, many people perpetuate their OCD by doing things that don't feel like OCD. If you react to your thoughts, that in itself is OCD, and it doesn't matter what the thoughts are about. It's the reacting to thoughts that perpetuates the OCD.

On the other hand, remember that obsessions follow compulsions. I would recommend you to move from "I need to get rid of these obsessions" type of thinking towards a "Maybe I will obsess, maybe not, but I will choose to live by my values". Otherwise you will get into Getting-rid-of-obsessions OCD and develop compulsions accordingly. Your thoughts are generated by your actions in some way, so focus on actions and let the brain catch up with you later.

For me, recovering from OCD is not quitting obsessing (every single person obsesses about something sometimes in their lives) nor achieving a mythical "I feel safe all the time and I never feel anxious" kind of state, because it's just not realistic. That's never going to happen, you are never going to feel completely safe. You will always feel that maybe you are not safe. Everyone feels that. The difference is that people don't react to that and accept it as a natural thing of being human.

For me recovery is moving from "My thoughts and feelings are my life and I need to get rid of this thoughts to live happy life" towards "Sometimes I will experience thoughts and feelings which I don't like but instead of reacting to them I will live by this values, whether I feel like I am going to die or not".

But all this that I have said is utterly useless unless I practice it. I know what I will always, always, always be able to find a really good reason why this time is different, why this time is not OCD, why this time it doesn't feel like OCD, why maybe I don't have OCD, why maybe this time is real and I am really going to die. That's why recovering from OCD is hard (but not difficult). Understanding OCD is not enough, actually, understanding OCD is useless. If understanding OCD was a solution, there would be no relapses, I believe most people who have suffered of long-term OCD have read at least 50-100 hours of materials related to OCD. Why don't they recover? Why do they keep relapsing again and again?

My approach is: Quit thinking, start doing. Use your willpower, be irrational, unreasonable. Use your will and not your understanding. Recovering from OCD for me is not like solving a problem, is more like waking up early in the morning. I don't want to do it, I can think of thousands of reasons why I shouldn't do it, but I know it has to be done and I do it while my brain is screaming in terror.

My two cents only.

Edited by fiatver
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Thanks Fiatver that's a really interesting post. Do you class thoughts as actions? So whilst I find it easy to not go back and check my car is locked or that the oven is on, what is more difficult for me is the 'what if' type thinking, which seems to maintain the feeling of unease. Do you find that by simply stopping all the what if type thoughts, that eventually my general anxiety will reduce? Ie simply stop worrying? Now I have just written that out it seems obvious, yes of course just stop worrying. But I think my question is, have you seen an improvement in general background anxiety by actively refusing to worry about things? I think I still think worrying is good as it prepares me for when things go wrong, but really it's the same as thinking that washing hands lots is good as it protects a person from getting ill.

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I think you can't stop the thoughts but you can stop responding to them. When you stop responding you immediately feel very scared and out of control but once you pass that you start to feel better and the thoughts get less and you realise it was just ocd in control before.

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But if your response IS thoughts - you can't just let them be there, you have to actively stop them. So 'what if x y z', then accept x y z might happen and then stop the 'but it's unlikely, but i could do x, but but but etc.' Its the active engagement with the thought that is the compulsion.

One of my children has a 'what if' worry at the moment and I'm trying to teach him that engaging with the worry is making it worse. I told him to try to not think about it. He straight away said 'but worrying makes me feel better'. I think a lot of us think that worry is terrible and makes us feel bad, but actually for a brief second it does make us feel better, it's just that like any compulsion pretty soon after it makes us feel much much worse and needing more, which soon spirals into the whirling chatter of thoughts that we struggle to break free from.

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Worry is an unresolved concern the mind keeps whirring on but doesn't find a resolution. Unchecked this is damaging for health - mind body and spirit.

There are a number of good methods for addressing "worry" as an issue and I would recommend using these to resolve and shut down worries.

OCD worries are f irrational and fuelled by an exaggerated fear, and need not to be engaged with as such - this is where becoming the impartial observer and watching but not interacting with them is important.

There are various methods of defusion which can be tried, but basically we need to weaken the connections to those thoughts and they will eventually fade.

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Guest fiatver

Thanks Fiatver that's a really interesting post. Do you class thoughts as actions? So whilst I find it easy to not go back and check my car is locked or that the oven is on, what is more difficult for me is the 'what if' type thinking, which seems to maintain the feeling of unease. Do you find that by simply stopping all the what if type thoughts, that eventually my general anxiety will reduce? Ie simply stop worrying? Now I have just written that out it seems obvious, yes of course just stop worrying. But I think my question is, have you seen an improvement in general background anxiety by actively refusing to worry about things? I think I still think worrying is good as it prepares me for when things go wrong, but really it's the same as thinking that washing hands lots is good as it protects a person from getting ill.

Hi Franklin12

There are two types of thoughts. The ones that come to your mind and develop on their own and the ones that you generate, the second type are most certainly actions. You think it. You generate them. And you have control over them.

If you have a feeling of worry, have the feeling of worry. Why do you need to stop it? Believing that you need to only experience certain type of feelings that are good and not experience certain types of thoughts that are bad to be happy is a source of OCD. You don't need to be free of worry to be happy, do you? On the other hand, how do you stop being worried? I have never met a single person in this world who could shut down feelings. People sometimes speak about worrying when they actually mean ruminating. You feel worried, you don't accept that feeling (and you will always find a great reason why you shouldn't feel worried, trust me) and then you almost unconsciously start ruminating, which is trying to solve the puzzle. The idea what somehow you can and should control the way you feel by having a selected range of thoughts IS OCD.

As an example: something as simple as trying to think something happy after thinking something that made you sad out of fear that you may feel sad is a compulsion.

I think I still think worrying is good as it prepares me for when things go wrong

I know exactly what you mean, and it's an illusion. You can never prepare yourself to anything that could possibly happen. You can prepare your environment, but any new experience will always be new. For example, I thought hundreds of times how it would be like to be married and have children and when it actually happened it was completely different from what I imagined. Give that up. Something terribly wrong could happen and you WILL be unprepared. And it's ok, that's the life of every single person in this world. Uncertainty is like a whale. You can watch it, you can run from it, you can be scared of it, you can laugh at it, but you can't control it. It's too big. Give up trying to control uncertainty and embrace it. Give up feeling safe and do what really means being you.

An exercise that is quite useful is separating some time in the day to worry. Make it special. Sit in a nice place and try to worry. Think of all the things that could happen and how everything could go wrong. And every time you get a reaction, accept that you just have no way to protect yourself from it, no way to prepare yourself, and no way to control it. No matter how much you thought about that particular problem, you will never be prepared for it, it could catch you unprepared. Actually, even if you prepared yourself for every single eventuality (which is impossible) you still don't know how you would react to it. Soldiers go to war after training and some of them still make mistakes when in combat. Accept that all you have control over is your actions, ruled by your values. Full stop. Everything else is completely and absolutely out of your control. Feel it, in that special moment, see it clearly, how out of your control all this things are. This is an effective way of doing ERP, I did it a few times and after some time I didn't need to do it again.

Now when I get a thought I don't like I just let it sit there. I don't do anything about it. I don't answer it. Why do you need to answer every single thought if your head? Your head is not an eternal quiz night. Leave dangerous questions unanswered. The more dangerous and critical, the best.

Edited by fiatver
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I have that problem (constantly going from one obsession to another) till I applied this simple principles:

- The problem is not the doubt, but the rejection of the underlying uncertainty. Your brain is going to flag up every single uncertainty in your life because that's what you have trained it to do. The more you react to your brain flagging up an uncertainty, the more it's going to do it, as it will think that it helps you to survive. Accept uncertainty. It's really really hard but that's how you know it's working.

In fact at the time I didn't even consider it to be OCD at all. It's as if my brain is constantly searching for this magical and where I'll finally be 'completely safe' and it won't let me rest until I get there - even though I know it's not possible.

That's exactly the problem. The problem is never a particular theme, the problem is always not tolerating uncertainty, and trying to do things to cope, check on, and control uncertainty. I would recommend you to leave the "this is/is not OCD" type of thinking and instead move towards a "I don't need to be sure of this because I live by these values" type of thinking. If you keep reacting in any way to your OCD your OCD is going to keep playing with you, like a little puppy.

This is something many people don't realise. Something doesn't need to feel like OCD to be OCD. Actually, many people perpetuate their OCD by doing things that don't feel like OCD. If you react to your thoughts, that in itself is OCD, and it doesn't matter what the thoughts are about. It's the reacting to thoughts that perpetuates the OCD.

On the other hand, remember that obsessions follow compulsions. I would recommend you to move from "I need to get rid of these obsessions" type of thinking towards a "Maybe I will obsess, maybe not, but I will choose to live by my values". Otherwise you will get into Getting-rid-of-obsessions OCD and develop compulsions accordingly. Your thoughts are generated by your actions in some way, so focus on actions and let the brain catch up with you later.

For me, recovering from OCD is not quitting obsessing (every single person obsesses about something sometimes in their lives) nor achieving a mythical "I feel safe all the time and I never feel anxious" kind of state, because it's just not realistic. That's never going to happen, you are never going to feel completely safe. You will always feel that maybe you are not safe. Everyone feels that. The difference is that people don't react to that and accept it as a natural thing of being human.

For me recovery is moving from "My thoughts and feelings are my life and I need to get rid of this thoughts to live happy life" towards "Sometimes I will experience thoughts and feelings which I don't like but instead of reacting to them I will live by this values, whether I feel like I am going to die or not".

But all this that I have said is utterly useless unless I practice it. I know what I will always, always, always be able to find a really good reason why this time is different, why this time is not OCD, why this time it doesn't feel like OCD, why maybe I don't have OCD, why maybe this time is real and I am really going to die. That's why recovering from OCD is hard (but not difficult). Understanding OCD is not enough, actually, understanding OCD is useless. If understanding OCD was a solution, there would be no relapses, I believe most people who have suffered of long-term OCD have read at least 50-100 hours of materials related to OCD. Why don't they recover? Why do they keep relapsing again and again?

My approach is: Quit thinking, start doing. Use your willpower, be irrational, unreasonable. Use your will and not your understanding. Recovering from OCD for me is not like solving a problem, is more like waking up early in the morning. I don't want to do it, I can think of thousands of reasons why I shouldn't do it, but I know it has to be done and I do it while my brain is screaming in terror.

My two cents only.

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