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saddaniels

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  1. I'm sorry to hear about the passing of your cat. Chuck Mangione, my cat, Pat's my shoulder the same. He'll also lick me & let me rub his belly when I'm feeling stressed. I can tell he cares & he's a great comfort in my life. I feel like all animals are, really.
  2. Oh, I see. Well, I have alot of them I guess. Haha. I'm usually paying attention to thoughts OCD gives me nowadays, but I guess some would be when I try to greet people and they ignore me I think "Wow what a b****." Or when I have a customer at my retail job I'll think "This place has ugly clothes. Why do people shop in here?" Or if someone is being mean I'll think "Who s*** in their Cheerios?" I guess another one would be "If it we're legal to marry my cat, I'd marry my cat. He understands me more than most people." These thoughts could just make me a weird person I don't know haha.
  3. "What if I'm knit picky/have this a certain way? What does this mean? What if that's OCD & I never properly recover and I am sick for the rest of my life?" "What if my therapist did it this way & now I'm being difficult by not doing exposures the way they want & now I'm going to be mental forever & never amount to anything??!!" "What if I never recover?" "OH NO. I just did a compulsion. Do I reverse it? Sit with it? Try not to do it again? Let it go? Oh no, what am I supposed to do?!!! I'm going to be sick forever!" ...and the list continues. I hate this illness.
  4. Hey guys, As someone who struggles alot with perfectionism OCD, whether that's with my television being the right way, having a perfect pillow to sleep on, symmetry, etc., I find it hard for me to differentiate between what's just pickiness & what's an anxiety disorder. For example, let's say I'm really into audio. I'm an "audiophile" & love having great sound quality. I'm a nerd over it, actually :P . Recently, when I go to be knit picky with my audio settings, I think to myself "Wait, is this my OCD or am I just being my weird self?" It's confusing because I know we aren't supposed to enable the OCD by giving in & "fixing" or "perfecting" as a compulsion. In fact, some exposures center around making audio settings (or any other thing) off center on purpose for therapy assignments & then to sit with that discomfort until it fades away. My question is, what if we really do like things lined up right & are a perfectionist outside of the OCD? I'm not trying to justify compulsions or giving into them. I'm only pointing out where it can get really tricky & want to know if anyone else can relate/how you cope with it. What are some techniques that have helped and/or your philosophy on pushing past OCD when it tackles your self worth/uniqueness like this? I know OCD can really rev up when it comes to being different/quirky/your own person. I know it can, because I've experienced a dark hole of questioning if I was living right according to "therapy standards" & the "right" way to do treatment. I'm doing better now & beginning to see that we can be our own person & tackle OCD too. It's a struggle. I'm learning to step out of the box & breathe. Interested in hearing your thoughts! -Sad
  5. I am ecstatic to see the film. So proud of you, PolarBear!
  6. Hi everyone. I've been working hard at my mental health lately. Really trying to grasp the concept that nothing is certain, everyone has different opinions/views, etc. I'm trying to view CBT as a metaphor for LIFE & that there is no right way to go about it. It's late where I live, but I just wanted to thank all of you, especially you PolarBear, for keeping my head above water at the beginning of this year/in the past/currently. I think of the people on this forum daily, mainly as motivation to keep going forward. OCD UK rocks . PS. This is the last time I'll ever post on this thread because it's time to move on . See you all on the board, in different threads.
  7. I understand sitting with the thought that may TV may or may not be on settings I don't like/settings that are screwed up & then not performing compulsions. Honestly, this sounds ideal to me. What makes little sense to me is why my behavioral specialists asked me to set them off intentionally and sit with that anxiety. There must have been a purpose to that. The purpose isn't clear to me & this is where I'm getting stuck. Its like a broken record. Yes, I may be verbally ruminating right now, but if I stay confused, how do I get better? Yes, I'm afraid if I don't follow therapy guidelines correctly I will not get better. Yes, that is the fear.
  8. Everything about ERP is about living life backwards. The therapy itself is extremely unethical & shouldn't be used in the treatment of OCD. I've tried getting used to settings I don't like, but I can't do it. I've tried putting them off like certified professionals have asked me to do and habituate to them being off from how I like them. I've tried. I've pushed myself to the point of insanity trying, but I haven't succeeded. Honestly I'm just ready to die. I don't care about living anymore. I need a quick way out of this soon or im not going to make it much longer.
  9. I'm trying to not care, but its excruciatingly hard just to say "eh, whatever. im doing it wrong. so what." because IF i'm doing it wrong I need to find out where and fix it so i can get better,
  10. Its screwed up, but don't know how to shake it. All of this mental work is exhausting. I just want to make sure I'm doing everything I can to get my OCD under control.
  11. I know I'm doing it, yet at the same time, this issue feels extremely important to figure out. I am so very confused as to why my therapists had me put my settings off and sit with that anxiety. Like you said PolarBear, my intrusive was originally "What if the settings are off?" If anything I should be sitting with the uncertainty. Maybe even eventually come to the realization that "What if the settings are off?" is just a thought. The settings probably are not off. What I should never be doing is habituating to settings I don't like. Yet, in the past, trained behavioral specialists had me do it. So now, I feel like I must completely habituate when I put my settings off intentionally in order to move forward.
  12. So, if I'm getting this straight, the only reason my therapists asked me in the past to put my settings off intentionally was to recreate the anxiety I'd get when I'd think my settings might be off?? I'm not getting used to my TV being zoomed in, or my settings being off from how I like them. I'm getting used to the uncertainty that they may be off?? Problems I keep running into: 1. My therapists had me intentionally put my settings off in the past & told me to sit with that anxiety. I'm still confused as to why they didn't just ask me to watch my TV & resist checking. 2. Its called ERP. Seems like what I am doing is only the RP part. Therefore, I feel like I've failed because I need to put an "exposure" in there somewhere. The ruminating has lessened, but I'm still feeling the need to do something based on my above problems. Doing nothing at all seems too far fetched for my brain.
  13. What you summed up is what I want to believe PolarBear. I get confused as to why my therapists had me do exposures where I physically, actually, did screw with the settings. They had me do it for like 5 minutes and then sit with the anxiety. Here, I feel like they were wanting me to habituate in this exposure trial to screwed up settings. Maybe not though. I don't know.
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