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dksea

OCD-UK Member
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About dksea

  • Birthday 11/08/1980

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  • OCD Status
    Sufferer

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Tokyo, Japan

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  1. I love that this is the word that comes to your mind for Pope
  2. I'm glad you applied for the property, though sorry it didn't work out. It can definitely be disappointing when an opportunity that seems like a great match doesn't work out. And OCD doesn't make things easier with its demands for things being "just right". Its good to remind yourself that there really is no situation that is going to be perfect. Your dream job is probably going to have bad days. The love of your life is going to have annoying habits too. That new gadget or gizmo you really look forward to is going to have imperfections. We live in a messy, imperfect world, but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy it! A number of years back I had a very interesting reminder of this. I first moved to Japan as part of a program to help teach English in schools here. The Japanese government recruits (mostly young) people from various English speaking countries to come teach here for 1-5 years. Its a really wonderful opportunity and I'm glad I took it. Anyway, during the application process you can put down your preferences for where you'd like to go. Not surprisingly the majority of participants list the major cities here, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, etc. as top choices. And, also unsurprisingly the vast majority of people are placed...everywhere else including some very rural, semi-remote (as remote as things can be in a country the size of Japan) locations. Well during my second year with the program I helped conduct a survey of program participants. Among the many questions we asked was and "how satisfied are you with your location". Despite the vast majority (like low single digit percent) getting placed in a location they had requested the overwhelming majority were ultimately happy with their placement. And I could vouch for this personally. I hadn't even heard of the prefecture (let alone the town) where I ended up, but even though I've since moved on it remains one of my favorite places I've ever lived, and some of the best years of my life. So even though it wasn't my ideal, and even though it had some imperfections and things did not always go smoothly, overall it was an extremely positive experience because I was able to embrace the opportunity, inspire of not being "perfect". The people who were most unhappy, the ones who didn't last long in the program, were largely the ones who focused on what they didn't get, how their reality didn't match their expectations, etc. Of course OCD makes that harder, its not as simple as "always look on the bright side of life" or anything, good lord I wish it were! But attitude and approach DO matter and DO make a difference. A key part of recovery is learning to embrace imperfection, uncertainty, etc. as just a normal part of life. I encourage you to try as best as you can (and I know it won't always be possible) to focus on the good aspects of the properties you continue to look at. As much as you want the other property its gone, and thats not going to change. While a little wistfulness is normal, try not to let it overwhelm the future. You do have some control over this and the more you practice it, the easier it gets, and the less control OCD has.
  3. I think the phrase kind of grew out of the movement to challenge attitudes that seek to deny feelings and experiences, especially in areas such as racism or sexism or toxic masculinity. Things like "real men don't cry" or "women are too emotional" or what not. So there is some value in recognizing that historically ignored/diminished experiences are ok. But the more it is applied as a blanket statement, the less helpful it becomes. People can abuse it as a way to justify not just valid behavior, but also negative behavior and even abusive behavior. As in just about everything, context matters.
  4. I can understand this kind of philosophy but I don't exactly agree with it. How you feel is how you feel, thats true. If you feel angry, well, you feel angry, thats just the way things are and its good to acknowledge that these emotions and feelings are real. But I disagree that you can't control your feelings or that how you feel is always valid. For example, lets say you are driving your car and someone cuts you off. You feel angry. But you don't have to STAY angry. You DO have at least some control over that. You can choose to reframe how you view these situations and how you do that will also change how you feel about it. Changing ones perspective is an important part of OCD recovery as we want to train our brains to react to situations differently than the OCD would have us otherwise react. So you decide to take a different approach to such situations. You could, for example, decide to take the approach that, while its annoying when someone cuts you off, dwelling on it after the fact doesn't change anything so its not worth the energy to remain angry. Similarly, maybe you feel upset at someone because of something you think they did, say you are angry at your brother because he took the last slice of pie. But what if it turns out he didn't take it? Was your anger valid? Or did you jump to a conclusion and get angry without reason. However angry you feel/felt towards your brother doesn't mean it was fair. In OCD things are slightly different but the same concept remains. You can be fearful of something even if its not an actual risk. You felt fear, thats a fact, but your fear was based on false information, it wasn't a reasonable fear. OCD sends false alarms and interferes with our brain operating normally. We can't control that we have OCD, but we CAN control how we react to it and handle it. We can learn to ignore the false alarms and adjust our emotional response. True we are not in complete control of every feeling or emotion we have, but we do have some control, maybe its indirect at times but its there.
  5. I think this is more of a general life concern than an OCD specific one, but of course OCD often affects lots of parts of our life. Its understandable to not want to lose a friend, thats a very common worry. However a person who would curse you out or ban you from their life because you won't keep giving them money is NOT a friend, they are a thief, a con-man. It is both good and wise to be careful with your finances. Helping others out in times of need, especially friends can be noble as well, but if you are harming yourself by doing so thats not a good thing. You have already helped this person in the past, which is kind of you, but you don't need to provide for them forever. While it might be painful, losing this "friend" now if all they want is your money is better for you than keeping them around by paying them. Trust me, it will hurt a lot worse if someone takes advantage of you for a long time, because eventually they will stop being your "friend" anyway when you stop being useful. A real friend will understand. You deserve real friends (we all do), not fake ones. Additionally you are also not really helping your friend if you keep bailing them out of their own mistakes and bad decisions. They also need to learn. It can seem harsh but it is often for the best to teach people that lesson as well. It sounds like your aunt has a good head on her shoulders, you should follow her advice and her lead. Take care of your finances and needs and, as your situation allows from time to time you can also help others, hopefully people in REAL need, not just those who want to use you.
  6. I'll definitely have to look that one up!! Thought of another good sitcom, Fresh off the Boat, about a Taiwanese American family set in the 90's in Florida. Features a good amount of cameos and just finished its 6th and finale season. Based off a memoir.
  7. I’m sorry you aren’t feeling well, but it’s unlikely merely walking past a garage, even one using strong solvents is the reason. More likely your symptoms are being caused by the anxiety over the situation.
  8. I understand your frustration, but I don’t think the issue is mental health awareness or acceptance, it’s that with some exceptions Twitter is a pretty toxic environment these days filled with awful takes on a lot of stuff. I’m perfectly comfortable talking about my OCD in general to people I know and I’ve even had some good discussions on Facebook about it, but I wouldn’t talk about it on Twitter because it’s waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too easy for some random jackass to chime In and make it an issue. There are seldom real consequences for bad behavior on Twitter plus the anonymous nature means it’s easy for people to get away with their worst behavior. Tack on to that Twitters abysmal record on responding to serious issues like bullying and harassment and, well, it’s not much different than your average internet comments section. I believe Obi Wan Kenobi put it best: ”Twitter*, you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.” *Not entirely true, there ARE worse places like 4-chan, Parler, Q-anon forums, etc, but Twitters up there.
  9. You can tell yourself that living your life is more important than doing what OCD says! And you can tell yourself that seeing a bee is normal and it doesn’t mean you’ll have a problem and that it’s a good apartment. But more important than telling is doing. You saw a bee, that caused you some anxiety, that’s unpleasant. Move in anyway. Make as many choices as you can in defiance of what OCD tries to demand you do. Sometimes OCD might win a battle but if you keep it up you’ll win the war.
  10. I don’t think how we handle/are affected by OCD really differs by fear so much as it differs by person. In other words I think you would handle various different fears similarly but you and I might handle the same fear differently. As for CBT it’s true SOMETIMES part of the process involves directly encountering the feared outcome, but that’s not always possible and there are many ways to confront the fear. For example a person whose afraid of hurting themselves or others would NEVER be asked to actually do so, that would be unethical. And what if your fear is that not doing certain things will cause a bad thing to happen, like say, a plane crash. You can’t actually cause a plane crash. (Well I mean you COULD if you were a pilot but that’s different). Imaginary exposures are one option. Putting yourself in a situation where you have to be close to but not actually sick yourself might be another. If you wanted to go really extreme there are ways to make someone vomit though that gets iffy on ethical grounds again. But I can assure you it’s absolutely possible to move past a fear without experiencing it directly. I did with my emetophobia. I’m not saying I handle it as well as any old random person might, I still very much don’t like the idea. But it doesn’t dominate my life. I can do things like ride public transportation, be around sick people, hear the words throw up, vomit, etc. even see it on TV with only mild discomfort. You can too.
  11. @BelAnna I’m sure it must be frustrating to go through all that and still find yourself struggling My amateur psychologist guess is what’s keeping you stuck is that you are still fighting the idea that you might get sick someday, that you are still treating that possibility as unacceptable and that you have to fight it at all costs. We tend to focus a lot on the B in CBT but the C is just as important. We have to change not just our behavior (ie reduce/eliminate compulsions) but also our cognition. We have to be willing to accept that we can’t be certain, that even unpleasant things are possible (if perhaps not necessarily likely). If this is the case you can work on responding to the intrusive thought by saying something along the lines of “ok, I probably won’t get sick just because my neighbor is, but it might happen and if it does I’ll deal with it”. Accepting the possibility of something we don’t want happening is hard, we reflexively fight against it, but it can be done and it does work. I had to do it too. Like when I was on the bus I had to say to myself “you probably aren’t going to get sick, but it sometimes happens to people, and life goes on”. I had to do it for other fears too, like when I was afraid I’d suddenly “lose control” and hurt myself. I had to sit there with a knife in my hand preparing dinner and say to myself “there’s no reason to believe your going to hurt yourself, but if you do, you do”. Let me tell you, accepting THAT possibility was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in OCD recovery. But it turns out to be incredibly freeing. It’s like that feeling when you finally get a task done you’ve been putting off over and over. When it’s done you say to yourself “why the heck didn’t I take care of that sooner, now I don’t have to worry about it!” You can feel the same with OCD.
  12. We didn't get Graham Nortons show in the US, though maybe you can now thanks to streaming, but I've caught clips on YouTube in recent years and its really enjoyable! Oh another great show that may or may not have made it to the UK airwaves is the Fresh Prince of Bel Air staring Will Smith. I recently started re-watching it again on streaming (HBO Max in the US) and am really enjoying it. Good mix of humor but also occasional serious issues.
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