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Mindfulness - the cure for everything?? Anyone tried it!? Not working for me!


Guest AreWeThereYet

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Guest AreWeThereYet

OK, has anyone tried mindfulness for BDD? Or PTSD? Or eating disorders?

I am SO FRUSTRATED right now because after a YEAR of waiting I have finally seen an NHS psychologist. BUT before we begin we need to lay a foundation of 'mindfulness', she told me.

6 weeks later I am STILL doing mindfulness.

I asked my psychologist how much longer we will be doing this for, and I was told we wouldn't be doing anything else BUT mindfulness! She didn't think that talking about my life, past, future for relationships would be beneficial and 'the past is the past and we can't change it'.

<fell off my chair in shock!>

I cannot talk about ANYTHING but mindfulness!| If I don't do my mindfulness homework, she sends me home!!

I confronted her about it and was told very stroppily that 'What better idea did I have to make myself feel better????!!'. I said EVERYONE isn't doing mindfulness! There are other therapies, mindfulness isn't the ONLY solution, if it was then EVERYONE would be doing it and feel better. To which she responds, 'Everyone who does mindfulness DOES feel better!!!'.

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Aren't some of them just so frustrating!!! I was talking to someone on here about mindfulness the other day and Im sure Lottie won't mind me telling you, she said to me 'It hasn't helped with my OCD, but it helped applying CBT'

I was looking into it for my son and I did discover there may be CBT led mindfulness in the future, but it didnt seem to be available yet.

In the meantime the official treatment for OCD and BDD remains CBT with or without medication.

http://www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/live/10976/29945/29945.pdf

I think this might be helpful to you, its a short version of the NICE guidelines and might be worth printing off and waving under this person's nose. Just one point CBT too is all about the present and not the past, certainly for OCD, which is the only one I have any experience in.

Good luck and I hope you get the treatment you deserve.

Carol

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Guest AreWeThereYet

Yes they are frustrating! I hate being spoken to in a patronising manner, I'm not stupid!

The problem is she doesn't know anything about me. She doesn't know about my BDD because we haven't even talked! She read a one page digest of my life's story which I had been asked to write, and that's been it.

She asks me how I've been, I tell her in 3 sentences or less, then she immediately changes the subject to 'How have I been going with mindfulness?'. I had a close relative die recently, we have devoted 4 sentences to that event... I have tried to talk to her about my relationship with my husband and her response was 'I'm not here to talk about your marriage, I'm here to help you with your mental health, if you talk about things that are not connected to your mental health I'll have to stop you.'

I can see value in mindfulness, but I don't think you should use it to the exclusion of all else, and refuse to let the client / patient speak at all! (Except for my 3 sentences or less!.)

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Hi AWTY mindfulness is certainly not easy it takes a lot of time&so much practice and still it's never easy.Especially with such conditions like OCD,Depression etc etc mindfulness is always very difficult as you know how tough ut is when your mind always tries to latch on to any thought that may come in to your head.No doubt mindfulness is a wonderful tool for well I can say for us but even anybody out there but no way easy at all to do.

No offence to some of the people trying to preach the mindfulness(and I don't mean this to be a mean comment by the way :D )it may be much easier for them as they don't have to deal with what we do OCD,BDD,Depression,Anxiety etc etc.So really for us we have most likely the more difficult challenges with trying to practice mindfulness.All I can say is simply try your best&no doubt it's of course much much easier if you're certainly feeling better :original: .

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Well ACE I wouldn't put mindfulness down as a front-line therapy for your BDD.

I practice it, but its for me all about keeping calm and focused in the present, CBT and The Four Steps are the frontline therapies for my OCD.

My "half-niece" with anorexia nervosa wouldn't have got very far in treatment with mindfulness, she needed - and got - CBT.

I think this comes back to a point i made in the headline pinned post by Lottie re health professionals - they have their own pet therapies, but rolling them out needs to be when they are appropriate for the individual patient being treated, not because they like them and have faith in them.

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I actually do agree with you Taur :original: ,mindfulness i think has helped but it's very much the meds that have done so much for me with stabilizing my depression,reducing the thoughts&anxiety which has been one big key.Being able to use the CBT very well also of course.I doubt it would just be mindfulness for BDD especially I think other treatments would maybe take the bigger picture in BDD well for me of course I have to put the meds first as without them I most likely would've been stuck in the horrible rotten depression which of course makes the OCD,BDD&Anxiety much worse for me &surely others :D .

CBT is so important I can clearly see and has so much to it,mindfulness of course also i've found extremely beneficial as we all know how it is with our minds about OCD,BDD,depression etc etc :original:

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Arewethereyet.I haven't had a lot of success with mindfullness either.I find it makes little difference to me but the CBT definitely did.Do you have problems looking in the mirror too much.I found CBT could be quite helpful with that

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  • 1 year later...
Guest Starlight505

I have tried mindfullness. It helped a little bit but it doesn't work when the OCD thoughts become overpowering. Sometimes medication is helpful to help reduce the anxiety.

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Guest Starlight505

It is best to treat OCD early on as it can sometimes lead to further problems. If you have a history of mental illness in the family like schizophrenia then it can lead to psychosis.

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