snowbear

Can I ask what advice they've given you about stopping ruminating? Or how to divert your attention away from your OCD thoughts? What support and therapy are they currently giving you?

Speaking as someone who doesn't have lead issues, my idea of 'necessary' care to be taken is zilch. In other words, the fact there is lead in the paint wouldn't bother me a jot. I'd stop my toddler or cat from licking the paint flakes, but would otherwise not even give it a second thought. So even just telling yourself 'some care is needed' is already in the realms of OCD. Don't know if that helps, but maybe it'll give you an non-OCD perspective to base your level of care on.

I'm somewhere between gobsmacked at the already excessive precautions you're planning regarding the sawing of the door and the sanding of the walls, and broken-hearted that you're suffering these added burdens when having your house decorated and refitted is a stressful enough experience without OCD. Would it help not to think of them as 'exposures' at all? Just close the door on the room that's being sanded and hoover up any paint flakes with the sawdust from cutting the door, thinking to yourself 'This is normal, no need for concern or extra precautions.' Think you could manage it?

Simple answer is that no phobia is justified. Even common ones like phobias of snakes and spiders aren't 'justified.' People who live in places with venomous snakes and huge spiders don't develop phobias - they live alongside the creatures with sensisible caution, but no phobia. So if you are experiencing excessive fear around a particular topic you can safely assume it's a thinking problem rather than 'justified'. (Over-estimating risk, catastrophising and assigning it meaning it doesn't warrant.) Treatment of phobias is about 'getting your thinking straight' and then doing 'exposures', same as for OCD.

I'd say that's by far more common. In fact, I think most people with OCD don't make up any kind of 'rules' before performing their compulsions. They just act based on what they feel needs to be done. Thinking through a lot of structured rules sounds very pedantic and may be more associated with OCPD (obsessive compulsive personality disorder) rather than OCD. But the two disorders occur together.

I don't think what you put in the search box matters (sorry Paul! ) Rather it depends what you're looking for from the search. If it's done as a reassurance compulsion then it's a bad idea to even open the browser. If it's being done to genuinely learn something which you then accept as giving you sufficient knowsledge to let the thing go and not dwell on it further that's more like 'non-OCD googling. So it comes down what to your motive for googling is and whether it is a compulsion or not.

Absolutely yes. The content of the thought isn't what makes it OCD. It's the reaction to the thought that makes it OCD. So, thought> give it meaning > perform compulsions = OCD

Your OCD theme is actually very common. But rather than go looking for other people with the exact same thoughts or compulsions, it's much more helpful to recovery to look at the pattern OCD creates that is universal across all themes:- 1. Experiencing a thought which you find upsetting, or that goes against your values (intusive thought) 2. Give meaning to the thought (eg. 'It means I've put my family in danger' 'It means...' ) 3. Perform a compulsion that you believe can help the bad thing from happening. Once you understand this is how OCD works, you can intervene at any point. 1. Recognise that everybody has thoughts just like these all the time, BUT people without OCD understand it's just a thought shrug it off without further action. For you that step is to label the thought as OCD or as an 'intrusive thought'. 2. Recognise that having such thoughts means nothing. They are just thoughts. Thinking it doesn't mean you agree with it, or want it, or have the power to make it happen just because you thought it. It means nothing. Your reaction to it was to give it meaning 'this could happen unless...' so this step is to acknowledge it doesn't mean what you thought (feared) it meant. 3. Compulsions are acts that make you feel as if you're preventing the harm. Actually they have no power at all. They are just pointless actions we perform to make us feel better temporaily. That feeling better stage never lasts long and the urge to do more compulsions always follow giving in to the first compulsion. So for you this step is to resist doing any compulsions. Many compulsions are sneaky, such as neutralising thoughts, ruminating (going back to 'the problem' over and over in the hope of finding absolute certainty or answers.) If things don't improve after you cease doing the more obvious compulsions, then you need to look deeper at what 'sneaky' compulsions you're still doing. Hope that helps give you a head start.

That's what we're here for

That's all anyone can ask of you @ocdsufferer85

We're all just volunteers here, people who have OCD themselves. But between us we must have hundreds of years of experience of what OCD is and how to overcome it, so although we can't formally diagnose you, we can be pretty confident that you are describing OCD.

We've been here many times before, ocdsufferer85. Step 1. Give yourself permission to think about something else for a while. We're not suggesting you stop worrying, or ignore your feelings, or that you do anything that could even vaguely be considered a matter of right or wrong by any religious teaxhing. Simply, stop ruminating for for bit. It keeps pulling you back in and consumes your every waking moment because you won't allow yourself to put it aside, even for a moment. So take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and give yourself permission to think about something else for an hour or two. Then get busy. Do something else. Something that fully occupies your mind, just for an hour or so. At the end of the hour you can go back to ruminating and crawling with guilt if you want to. But just getting that brief respite will do wonders for your ability to fight the OCD instead of feeling swamped by it.

Most likely they're put there on purpose to allow air to circulate and prevent condensation building up. Use the fact that insulation is visible yo reassure you, not bother you. If leaving glasswool visible was a risk they wouldn't be allowed to sell the oven with the air hole vents present. I wouldn't give it a second thought unless the insulation material was clearly sticking out and could be further pulled out of the hole by a child (which might suggest it was 'unfinished' rather than normal.) Just having a hole with internal insulation visible through the hole isn't a concern or abnormal. I think this is a definite case of 'going looking for trouble', staring into the OCD rabbit hole and then falling in!

A long paragraph of over thinking - classical OCD! Everything you describe is classical OCD elias. Until you get a formal diagnosis your best bet is to treat it all as OCD and stop questioning if that's what it is.

Exactly. He wasn't applying the principles of mindfulness as they are intend to be practised. (Which is most likely what happened in the USA study @Handy quoted. ) But when he corrected his approach to what he was supposed to be doing, he improved and his anxiety lessened. The same thing can happen with CBT. Sometimes it isn't taught in the best way so that clients misunderstand what they are trying to do. And some people apply it incorrectly, so that they reinforce their OCD thinking rather than changing it. This frequently gets interpreted as 'CBT didn't work for me'. It doesn't mean that CBT is a flawed method, nor does it mean the person with OCD is to blame. (No blame should ever be attached to therapy not working. Instead the reasons why it hasn't helped should be explored further.) When correctly applied, both CBT and mindfulness are beneficial in OCD. @Zhou Hong Our CBT includes your methods of 'rhetorical questioning' and recognising catastrophic associations. So we are approaching the treatment of OCD in similar ways, just using slightly different terminology.

Exactly. It's important to recognise that OCD is the reaction to the thought, not the thought itself, or the fact of thinking it.

How to deal with it is key to success. Exactly! We have a wealth of experience in this regard in the UK too, but unfortunately these materials have not been translated into Chinese (yet.) Maybe you can be the one who takes our UK expertise on OCD to China, Zhou Hong.

If that was the finding of properly conducted research then we must accept that those were the results the study found. However, that then raises the questions: 1. Dysregulated arousal (heightened sensitivity) is pathognomonic of trauma, anxiety, and aggitative depression. (The more common form of depression is associated with reduced arousal.) Mindfulness is observing your emotional state while staying calm and detached from it. When practised as intended mindfulness only increases the person's self-observation, it does not (cannot) create or increase arousal. It suggests the USA researchers made a faulty conclusion from their results. Maybe they assumed causative effects (linked to) rather than a co-existence or pre-existance of the hyperarousal state? or The research was flawed in how it was conducted or The people they studied had been incorrectly taught the principles and practice of mindfulness or The people studied did not properly understand the principles of mindfulness and were applying it incorrectly. Claiming that anxiety, depression and flashbacks are potential side-effects of mindfulness suggests those treating mental health issues in the USA must not be teaching mindfulness correctly to their clients. Frankly, I'm surprised at any bone fide scientist making such claims. It shows a fundamental lack of understanding of what mindfulness is! I'm not suggesting that someone who has anxiety,depression, or has suffered trauma cannot develop a heightened state of arousal when they first practise mindfulness. This is to be expected, particularly if there is suppressed emotion or repressed traumatic memories. But if properly taught - particularly if the client is guided through the learning process when it is first practised - this state of hyperarousal is quickly brought under control and converted into a calm and accepting awareness of the difficult emotions present. To call it a 'side-effect' of mindfulness is appalling! I make no secret of the fact I think the USA is decades behind the UK in understanding and treating mental illness. The part quoted is a good example of this. Mindfulness is not about finding happiness. Maybe some of those who practise mindfulness aren't as happy as those who don't. But I guarantee you they will be more accepting, more content, and have greater mental wellbeing. The state of happiness' isn't (or shouldn't be) the only goal in life. But it seems to be seen that way in American culture. Which is rather sad, is it not?

Agreed This is a similar approach to therapy in the UK. We call it 'ccatastrophic thinking' which is a cognitive distortion.

Coming back to add to this, as it occurs to me that what I said was potentially misleading. You probably have changed your thinking quite a bit. Maybe you've changed your internal dialogue, increased your insight, and more. But what remains is to change the belief that superstions have power and that challenging them carries any kind of risk. I had superstitions about the unluckiness of the number 14 for a long time. Magical thinking, utter nonsense. I still sometimes avoid the number when I'm having a bad day (revert to the belief it has meaning) but on a normal day I now shrug it off and carry on with ease. A lot of my OCD themes improved (or even vanished) from applying cognitive therapy alone. Doing the ERP afterwards (to prove my thinking had changed) was easy. But I remember now that I 'knew' for a long time that 14 wasn't unlucky, yet it was only doing ERP that got me out of believing that. No amount of preparatory cognitive therapy made a jot of difference. It was stopping the avoidance behaviour that helped. So maybe with your OCD theme being 'superstition' my first reply is a bit unhelpful. Maybe there are some OCD themes where you do just have to 'grit your teeth and do the ERP'. What do you think? Is it fear of risk/ repercussions/ outcome? What wouldd help you to be ready and willing to stand up to the superstition?

Yup. That's how it works, I'm afraid. We can do all the cognitive therapy and thinking change in the world, but there comes a point where we also have to put that thinking change into practise and change our behaviour. Which tells me you haven't even begun to change your thinking yet. Fundamentally you're still buying into your OCD thoughts around superstition. We tell ourselves all sorts of reasons why we 'can't' change. And we believe them because they sound so plausible. I mean, no human being would ever put their kids 'at risk', right? It's a very understandable fear. Problem is, you wouldn't actually be putting your kids 'at risk' at all. That's another thinking distortion, based on the belief that superstitious stuff has power. Which means (however unintentionally) the belief that you 'can't' test this out in ERP is just a convenient excuse not to face your fear head on. I'm sure that's not what you want to hear, and trust me I'm not saying 'excuse' as a criticism. I'm hoping you'll see that your belief there is any kind of risk at all to your kids from doing ERP is just another layer of OCD onion-thinking. Very insightful. It may be (again hard to hear - sorry!) that most of what you've done with the sessions you've paid for is to reassure yourself rather than to begin the journey of challenging your thinking and changing your life. But that's good! Because it's a wake-up call that further therapy 'reassurance' sessions isn't going to be the big loss you feel it is. You say you're 'applying the techniques' but I'm left wondering if these are largely coping strategies to distract you from your thoughts rather than 'challenge your thinking CBT techniques'. It's also possible that's - without realising - just how you've applied the CBT techniques you've been taught. The desire to 'fix the world' rather than 'change my thinking' is enormously strong in OCD. Same as the 'excuse' reasoning above, it's not that we knowingly or wantonly avoid facing stuff, just that we can be easily fooled by the strength of believing the OCD. Maybe a good use of your final session would be to review which techniques you've been taught that help you to challenge your belief (fear/thinking) that going against supertitions is risky, and that anything 'supernatural' has any kind of power in the real world. Then you can get practising after the sessions end. And keep practising until your thinking changes - until you're ready and willing to prove that your thinking has changed by doing ERP. If you want the support of a therapist to guide you through the actual ERP, you could arrange a further 1-2 sessions with her at that point. (Gives you time to save up !)

Perhaps because almost everybody here has experienced this! What you keep describing as if it was unique to you is just plain old OCD, same as all of us get. It's so obvious (to us) that you're simply descibing how OCD affects us all that we don't reply every time with 'Oh yes, same here, me too.' Or perhaps you're just not hearing that part of the replies.

I am not saying it's the same. I'm saying the ideas it teaches are the same. Just as we can say that the first airplanes had an engine and wings and flew, so todays airplanes have an engine and wings and they fly. Perhaps it is new in China? But here 'rhetorical questioning' has been used as a very basic technique for decades. We just call it Theory A/ Theory B rather than 'rhetorical questioning'. Theory A - the problem is that I'm not washing my hands enough Theory B - the problem is that I'm catastrophising about the imagined consequences of not washing my hands enough You can read about it in a book called Brain Lock, first published over 20 years ago. Details here Many people using our forum are not lacking a sense of direction. They have decades of experience in treating OCD and a good understanding of how OCD works. Most of the people here are working towards recovery, not 'lost'. As you must know from your Buddhist philosophy, applying any skill takes practise, and mastery of any skill takes time. To suggest a 'complete lack of direction' suggests you are misunderstanding much that you read here. Perhaps it is lost in translation? At OCD-UK we welcome all insights and ideas which help OCD sufferers to achieve wellness and recovery. But hopefully it's a reciprocal process. Maybe you have something to learn from us and our years of experience, not least to acknowledge how similar these approaches are. You seem determined to promote your ideas as 'revolutionary' and different and that is confusing. Shouldn't we be highlighting the similarities and combining the best of each approach? Isn't the aim to help each individual person rather than sticking to one case study and promoting one philosophy?

Yup. If it was easy to change the habit of how you talk to yourself we could cure everybody here overnight and close the forum. It is hard. It's hard work. You have to try... and fail... try again, fail again, and keep trying. You didn't decide to become a chef and walk into your first job cooking cordon bleu meals. You start out like everybody else, making scrambled eggs, then getting faster and better at scrambling eggs, and eventually feeling confident enough to try cooking something more advanced. Changing your internal dialogue is just the first step, but it's vital that you master it or you'll never advance any further towards recovery. Keep practising. And don't lose heart when it isn't easy. The less you reinforce the old critical self-talk, the easier it gets to replace it with accepting, compassionate self-talk. So start by NOT beating yourself up every time you get a thought 'from the grey area of life'.

A reassurance compulsion. Which unfortunately is a behaviour that reinforces your fears rather than helping. That's neither true, nor fair. Perhaps that's how you interpret what you've been told and how you're hearing it, but it's definitely not what has been said. The people responding to your posts have invested considerable time and effort into explaining that this is indeed an illness and what you need to do to recover from that illness is to challenge your thinking and stop doing compulsions. Perhaps because all you want to hear is 'No, you're not a bad person' all you read is 'Just live with it'. Then you come back with yet another compulsive behaviour, asking us to reassure you again and again that it is an illness and you're not a bad person and the cycle continues. If you aren't willing to change your thinking or behaviour, then you're stuck and nothing anybody can say will help you. The forums aren't here to make people's OCD worse by allowing unhealthy behaviours. Endlessly posting the same reassurance-seeking questions again and again isn't helping you. People new to OCD need some reassurance as they get to grips with their illness and that's fine. But there comes a time when these ideas aren't new any more. It's now 'fear of change' that's keeping you stuck (something you control ) rather than 'lack of reassurance' or a lack of understanding and empathy from us. I've explained several times already that it's the way you talk to yourself in your head that makes you afraid of changing. You keep telling yourself 'But I can't challenge this way of thinking because that would mean I'm committing the worst sin possible.' No matter how many times we explain it doesn't mean that at all, you insist that is what it means. So how do we help you? What do you need to hear in order to start trusting that you have OCD? What is it going to take for you to become willing to challenge your thinking and change your behaviour? What intervention or advice are you going to allow to work for you?