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snowbear

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Everything posted by snowbear

  1. You're assuming you must have frustrated others because you're frustrated. But I can only be frustrated if I allow myself to think/feel that way in response to your actions. I don't. I'll try to help if I can and if my words fall on deaf ears so be it. This is your own frustration you're sensing, not mine. I just let it go.
  2. Talk about not being able to see the wood for the trees... You HAVE a simple formula already, couldn't BE any simpler. And guess what the magic formula is... Stop telling yourself you 'ought' to feel guilty and let it go. Any sentence with 'should' 'ought to' or 'deserve to' in it is using judgemental thinking. The only person doing this thinking (and passing judgement) is yourself so the only person who can fix this is yourself. Yet no matter what advice we give on how to do this you come back again again again with a 'but...' And then you blame external triggers for making you depressed when the only thing/person making you depressed is you, by keeping yourself tied up in knots of guilt. You repeatedly post questions which, in both veiled and unveiled ways, ask others for permission to let it go. You seek reassurance that it is forgivable, that you 'should' be forgiven. You seem to be hoping for some kind of external absolution to justify the course of action you want to take - which is to forgive yourself and let it go. You don't seem aware that you're doing this, but it comes across clear as day to the rest of us. Thing is, we aren't the ones using judgemental thinking, we aren't the ones passing judgement. So no amount of absolution or permission from anyone else will take ever away your guilt. No condemnation or redemption from us will ever change your belief that you deserve punishment. - you have to change that belief for yourself. That's why we don't need to know the details of what you thought/did. That's why it doesn't matter whether you scream your guilty feelings from the rooftops, bury them inside in silence, or let them go. Because no mater what the external world knows or doesn't know, the only person who can let this go is you.
  3. In my youth I repeatedly tried going cold turkey on my OCD. The longest I ever lasted was six weeks before it crept back and took over my life again. (Mostly it was a less than a week, sometimes less than 24 hours.) CBT, changing how you think and behave, is the only long term solution to OCD. And it gives you the tools to stop OCD creeping back.
  4. Yes. Absolutely. I don't need to know details to know the way forward is to let it go. You recognise your inability to avoid reminders, then you tell yourself that being reminded is an awful thing. In doing so you create an unbearable situation from which you are powerless to escape. Little wonder you instantly feel anxiety and depression. What you don't seem to realise is you aren't actually in an unbearable situation with no means of escape. That's an illusion you create in your mind through telling yourself the past is awful and believing every reminder must inevitably make you feel bad. Change the way you think about the situation (the past was awful, but it's past, it's not 'now', so forgive yourself and let it go) Change your behaviour towards reminders (stop telling yourself they are to be feared, stop avoiding them, and when they do occur forgive yourself all over again each and every time as necessary). The better you get at forgiving yourself and letting it go the less time you'll spend anxious and depressed each time you're reminded. In order to forgive yourself you may need to change your belief that you deserve to be endlessly punished/feel guilty. Thoughts, beliefs and behaviours are always open to change. Nothing is permanent. And if you really, really, absolutely, genuinely, can't forgive yourself for whatever awful, horrendous, unspeakable horror you committed... then consider this: At present all you are doing is beating yourself up. No good is coming of it, for you, for others, for the world. If you did something genuinely terrible then atone for it. Live the rest of your life as a better person. Do good deeds to counter the bad you (believe) you did in the past. Make the world a better place. You're not achieving any of that by punishing yourself with guilt. You're just compounding the original error by being self-destructive instead of doing something constructive with the rest of your life. That's not said to pile on yet more guilt because you're struggling to let go, it's to help you see there is more than one possible solution to your dilemma, more than one way to right a 'wrong'. If you want a real world comparison to beating yourself up with guilt, it comes down to whether you believe in life imprisonment without parole for any kind of suspected crime, or the possibility of atonement through community service even for a proven crime.
  5. Doesn't the fact that you were well when you thought this way tell you something important about what you should be aiming for in your thinking? Does the fact that when you think in terms of guilt and worry you feel like you're giving yourself a heart attack tell you something too? Make up your own mind which way to think.
  6. So give yourself permission. It's that simple. If you don't want to tell anyone about it, then don't tell anyone. Take it to your grave untold. Not everything has to be shared to be validated. Whatever it was you did that you're punishing yourself for, however bad, evil, unmentionable, or unthinkable it is, it is forgivable. All you have to do is stop telling yourself the lie that forgiveness compounds or worsens the deed. Stop telling yourself the lie that eternal punishment is necessary to earn forgiveness. Stop lying to yourself that you are capable of greater dreadfulness than the average person. Stop lying to yourself that this thought/deed/worry is so utterly huge and all-consuming that it can't be forgiven and watch it shrink to it's real size before your eyes, like a bully whose sidekicks have turned tail and run. If you're waiting for someone else to give you permission, or for permission from God, The Universe, Fate, time, or for any kind of green light, sign or signal then you'll be a long time waiting. The only thing stopping you from giving yourself permission to let stuff go and stop feeling guilty is your belief that you deserve to feel guilty. Question that belief. Ask who came up with the judgement that you deserve guilt. I guarantee it was nobody else but yourself. You judged yourself where others (if they judged at all) forgave you. You've held onto the belief you deserve to feel bad to the bewilderment of those around you, those who know you, those who love you. You and you alone can stop passing judgement on yourself in this way. You and you alone can give yourself permission to let this stuff go. So do it.
  7. I am the queen of guilt. An Olympic champion in self-punishment. A world expert in not forgiving myself. ...or I was. Then I learned to let go. To accept. To forgive myself as I would forgive others. I discovered being miserable, stressed and anxious was something I'd been creating for myself. Happiness, mental silence and contentment are also something we can create for ourselves, with ease and on a whim, just by interpreting our thoughts differently. There is always more than one way to interpret a thought. It's a choice. Choose wisely.
  8. You say this like it's something negative. So let's use basic psychology to turn the fact you get regular palpitations into a positive. Note, this isn't about being a Polyanna or 'putting a good spin on things' This is a proper psychology approach, tried and tested, which works by putting a different interpretation on your thoughts. People like to be able to predict what threats are coming their way so they are prepared for the worst or can take avoiding action. That's normal. But it's also why OCD is so vigilant and picks up on any potential threat, even anything non-threatening that could be re-interpretated as a possible threat. This keeps you in a state of mental preparedness with your fight or flight response constantly active. But 'flight or fight' is always a short-term response. You can of course trigger it a billion times a day which makes it seem like it's a permanent state of being anxious, but actually it's individual responses to multiple perceived threats (in this case the sensation of having palpitations and each individual thought you have in response.) So the trick is to teach your brain 'this isn't a threat, this is normal'. Over time, your brain stops creating the flight or fight emergency signal in response to detecting palpitations. The next bit is where it can be tough - you have to accept that having palpitations (may) be a permanent state of being without letting that thought overwhelm you. A bit like being told you're going to have a leg amputated it's normal to initially think 'it's the end of everything, my life is over' It would be an unusual person indeed who didn't fear the thought of losing a limb. But after it's a done deal and the leg is gone, almost everybody can accept this is a new permanent state of being. Different to how you thought your life would be, sure, but not the end of your life. So you learn to say, 'This is the new one-legged me, I'll learn to hop, I'll get crutches, I'll cope, I'll be fine.' Similarly, if you accept having regular palpitations as permanent, 'it's my new normal, it's expected' then when they happen your brain stops going into emergency response mode and shrugs it off. After a while you stop even registering the sensation. This is also how people can adapt to living in constant pain - they accept it's just how things are, a new permanent state of being, and they tune it out. Paradoxically, by accepting that being in pain is now the normal for them they reduce the pain felt. You'll find when you stop registering the palpitations as a threat they too seem to reduce. Whether they actually reduce in frequency or not is irrelevant - they might not - but you'll not notice them as often or be troubled by them when you do become aware. A word about acceptance. 'Thinking to yourself 'This is awful, this is permanent' isn't accepting permanency. That's telling yourself that something awful is happening which keeps your fight or flight anxiety continually high. Acceptance is where you stop focusing on the huge boulder blocking your path and instead spend your energy looking past it, stepping around it, climbing over it - treat it as a completely normal fact of life to have a huge boulder to get around and you take it in your stride without triggering any kind of anxiety. So, you can't imagine going to sleep without having palpitations? Great news! Now whenever you're lying in bed about to doze off and you get the palpitations think to yourself 'There they are, everything's normal, everything's as expected'. It's like welcoming an old friend whose arrival you never doubted for an instant. 'Now the palpitations are here I can relax and go to sleep.
  9. It's probably not denial so much as not having the confidence to label it as OCD and ignore it. Nervousness comes from a fear you won't be able to cope. Practise telling yourself 'Whatever comes, I'll deal with it, I'll cope.' Despair comes from feelings of helplessness, so stop telling yourself things that make you feel helpless and switch to empowering statements that boost your self-confidence. For example.... Cut out the first half...and just say the second part to yourself whenever any troubling thought arises I can beat this. I have before The more psychology I've studied, the more shocked I've been by just how much what we tell ourselves matters. Tell yourself you're weak and your muscles literally contract less powerfully, your thinking goes fuzzy, you struggle and despair. Tell yourself you will cope with whatever comes and your brain kicks it up a gear; you think more clearly, problem solve better. and surprise yourself with how extraordinarily well you actually do cope - just as you predicted you would. What we tell ourselves in our thoughts is often a prophecy for what we make happen.
  10. You're none of the above. You're reviewing past (or present thoughts) looking for meaning. Any meaning which will confirm how you already feel about yourself - that you deserve to feel guilty/ are a bad person/ should be punished/ deserve to be unhappy... these are typical examples of the sorts of things people can believe about themselves. The urge to confirm what we already believe is huge, hence why compulsions are so...compelling! Talk to your therapist about 'core beliefs'. If you can start to shift those to more reasonable, normal, accepting and self-respecting beliefs (eg. I can let this go, I deserve to be happy) then the urge to keep looking for meanings in your thoughts that you can beat yourself up with should reduce. Right, I'm outta here for tonight. Pleasant dreams.
  11. Anything imaginary is a thought whether it's a nightmare, memory, hope, dream, aspiration, wish, toying with possibilities, toying with impossibilities... Your OCD thoughts count as nightmarish don't they? And as they are thoughts they are an imagined state of being, not tangible, physical reality. Hence 'imaginary nightmares'. I was just playfully imagining what your poor, bored brain might be thinking to itself as in She wants to think about that rubbish I was messing about with earlier while I twiddled my thumbs? But it was just time-filling nonsense! It meant nothing! Oh well, she's making me go over it again, so here we go...sigh.
  12. If the boredom has eliminated your anxiety I guess that's progress. If you're just bored by the exercise and still worrying about the thoughts at other times then it's totally pointless. Imaginary exposure works for things like spider phobia, IF you imagine a huge live scary spider crawling up your arm. If you imagine a plastic spider bouncing on a piece of elastic until you're bored watching it go up and down it won't help you to be less frightened of the real thing next time you find a big black hairy spider trying to scramble out of your bathtub. Talk to your therapist about how to do the exercise and what you're supposed to be getting out of doing it.
  13. At risk of repeating myself: You're free to interpret the way you felt any way you want, free to enhance and endlessly elaborate ideas about what it meant to have the reaction you did and what it says about you as a person, free to imagine you have supernatural powers and can influence any outcome by projecting your thoughts or just by having thoughts... You're free to punish yourself and churn up more and more guilty feelings, make yourself 'suitably' miserable...ruminate on this for the rest of the night until your muscles ache with tension and your stomach is churning... And you're equally free to shrug it off, accept your reaction was natural (most people don't like the thought of change), laugh at the very notion anybody can put bad energy out there just by thinking something , ditch the guilt...and get on with pampering yourself through what's left of what seems to have been a mentally tiring day. As before, it's a choice. It's your choice whether you give the guilt importance or dismiss it out of hand. Your choice whether to add layers of meaning such as I ought to feel miserable tonight because I'm a bad person for thinking what I thought, (layer 1) so I won't allow myself to let this go...because if I did that would make me a bad person for being too gentle with myself (layer 2)... so I'll go on beating myself up with guilt because I deserve to be miserable (layer 3)....and so on.
  14. I assume the idea is you 'habituate' to the thought so you no longer get an anxiety response. Habituation is more typically used in phobia treatment than OCD, but I'll restrain from further comment on that topic. What matters is, does it work? Are you bored by the thoughts and no longer anxious, or merely bored by the repetition and anxious again when the thought next returns unbidden? Worth discussing with your therapist. Ask him/her if you're 'allowed' to get bored, or should try to remain focused while also relaxing.
  15. As I said, our brains are never quiet. If you give a brain too much free time it'll conjure up any number of worries just so it's got something to think about. This is why distraction works - give it a better topic to put through the ever-churning cogwheels and keep it out of mischief. Brains enjoy being active but they don't care what they are active with. Worry is as good as being happy to a brain - better, as it has endless fascinating possibilities hidden in the deepest, darkest crevices of the imagination. A brain can keep itself 'happy' for days just ruminating. That the same rumination makes you feel miserable or anxious doesn't bother a bored brain one jot. It's just ticking over, twiddling its thumbs as it were, until you give it something better to do. If you engage with the ruminations, nobody is more surprised than your brain: She wants to focus on this imaginary stuff? Nothing interesting happening in the real world I can work on instead? I'd rather do that you know...no? Ok, she's the boss, imaginary nightmares it is....
  16. Exactly that. They weren't related until you make the connection in your head. They're still not related, you've just spooked yourself because the idea crossed your mind that it meant something. Instead of shrugging it off as unimportant and accepting as coincidence that you noticed a thought and a body sensation around the same time, you've ruminated on 'what it must mean' ever since. This strengthens the link in your mind and convinces you there really was some meaning after all - spiralling it out of control. Your thoughts could as easily have taken a different turn, for example: Thoughts go... 'My niece looked so cute in that outfit yesterday...ooh, that was a nether region clench - I need a man! Ok, body, duly noted, I'll get onto it shortly. Now, as I was saying, wasn't my niece cute in that outfit... hope the next man I meet is cute...wonder if he'll call me babe/ baby... I should get back in the dating game. Where's my phone, I 'll download a dating app...aw, look, I've been sent another baby pic, she's ever so cute...I'll go shopping, buy her a present... ...and then with a mix of joyous thoughts about two separate topics running through your head at the same time you'd have got up and got on with your day in a happy and excited mood. But instead you interpreted it as 'I was just thinking about my newborn niece and now I'm turned on, there must be a connection, a meaning, a reason...figure it out...I'm a BAD person... and you've spent the day in bed as a result. It's always your choice how you think and behave in response to something. You're free to make connections or assume a link between any thoughts/feelings/actions that you want. You're also free to have the thought 'Is there a link? Don't be daft!' and subsequently ignore any nagging doubts or fears until they go away. This is ruminating pure and simple: what if, but what if... So I'm going to ignore it - as you should too. You're free to tie yourself in knots with endless ruminations if you want. You're also free to dismiss any further thoughts on the matter as nothing more than the mental fluff of an idle mind. Brains are never totally quiet, so if it's going to natter in your ear all day, give it something useful to think about instead of wasting time ruminating.
  17. Find something practical to do that fully occupies your mind so you're not sitting around idle with nothing better to do than worry.
  18. Yes. Stop checking what he posts online. Give him some breathing space; if he's too busy to contact you for a bit, get busy yourself and keep usefully occupied so you don't notice the time pass. If you do happen to see something he's posted and the doubts and ruminating begins, 'catch yourself on' and stop doing it.
  19. Have I understood correctly, you've been told by a therapist to repeat the thought out loud/in your head for 10-15 minutes? What is the intended purpose of this?
  20. Hi Nikki, Staying in bed when your OCD is bad isn't going to achieve anything - the 'emeny' is inside your head, not out in the world. Worse still, there's nothing to do in bed all day so you'll be spending the time ruminating like crazy. Push yourself to get up, have a shower, dress, eat, do the normal day stuff. It'll make you feel better. You're putting an interpretation on having particular thoughts at the same time as nether region responses, but the association exists only in your head and the anxiety/guilt you're feeling only exists in your head too. When you accept that the two are separate things and don't have any joint significance then it doesn't matter if they happen to occur together. Doesn't matter what thoughts pass through your mind. They are only upsetting you because you're telling yourself it means something. Get up and get busy. Get your mind off thinking about your body responses and they will fade. Give yourself permission to ignore them.
  21. Taking the lift is cheating, you could have climbed the steps. Talking of which we're getting off track. Back to the thread topic - taking the steps necessary for recovery.
  22. Give me stroking fossilized dinosaur poo over a sewer trip any time....
  23. I admit I had visions of you wading through sludge in your wellies and that sewer gets cleaned of its waste overnight so visitors walk in the relative dry, but even so, the offer stands. Do it and I'll donate £50. Want a photo of you there to add to your photo collection though. (Next time you're in Brighton or that area. Don't expect you to take a train all that way just for challenge. No rush, just put it on your bucket list. )
  24. There's always an extreme exposure if you need it, all I was saying is the diagram looked to me as though you were suggesting it was necessary to go beyond normal to be comfortable in the middle ground again. But if you once knew 'normal' (and can remember it after years of OCD thinking) it is perfectly possible to return to the middle ground without moving past it on the behaviour line. Anyway, I get what you're aiming to say in terms of going against what OCD tells you to do, but you asked for suggestions so I put in my tuppence worth.
  25. You do a sewer walk Ashley and I'll donate £50 to the charity. That's a tough challenge and one I'd not undertake. I have no fear of poo and have been covered in human faeces and urine before now just while doing my day job. But the smell while walking in a sewer? Puke!
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