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JennieWren

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Everything posted by JennieWren

  1. I’m afraid I’m not sure. GBG you could have been describing me and however much I rationally practice thinking differently about myself I am still totally stuck. Ashley was talking about understanding our ocd compulsions like layers of an onion. Maybe there is something below this belief you have feeding it. I may be off kilter, but if you rationally know what people are like, why can’t you apply it to yourself? Why do you have to be judge and jury? What’s driving that? What would happen if you didn’t? If you let yourself get away with it? So in my case: thought: I am a terrible person who has to be ever watchful that no one sees the real bad me question: why? answer: because if they do they won’t want to know me question: why? answer: because I am repulsive. question: why? At first my next answer was all my bad points that make me unloveable. But then I realised lots of people I’ve known in the past who acted badly still had friends and boyfriends etc, so I dug deeper and my answer became... i don’t know why I am repulsive. Other people have acted like I am in the past and I think that was my fault in some way. If it is my fault I must try and be a different person. One that people find loveable and likeable. I must suppress the real unacceptable me.
  2. I think I disagree. I don't think endlessly ruminating over it and trying to work it out without help is a good idea. But I do think there's some issues from your past here keeping you stuck. I just found a page in 'break free from OCD' that basically says these are worth working through in therapy as a way of gaining insight. Page 237 if you have it. Last paragraph. I think from reading other posts this should be done with an OCD specialist.
  3. It doesn't need to. Just sit with the confusion. Because it's by doing the therapy that things are going to get clearer. Until that happens of course you are going to have ups and downs.
  4. Who isn't self centred? Who doesn't feel entitled? Who doesn't ever cause pain to others? Who isn't selfish? It's good to own our negative personality traits, but not to exaggerate them or feel endlessly guilty. I think understanding this and how you view yourself is work that needs to be done in therapy. I too have this idea that I can't let my guard down or people will see the real terrible me. And then they will not want me around. But this is an IDEA. A belief. No one has a set personality of bad or good. So the question is why you think these things and what healing/cognitive/OCD work needs to be done still to change this.
  5. I think your psychologist would like to know all of the big stuff going on in your mind/behaviour. This is an obsessive behaviour with compulsions so definitely explain it. It may hold a key to understanding yourself and your OCD that you can't see on your own.
  6. I think this is a very interesting point. Do you think there are sometimes hindrances - blockages to finding this out or is pondering the question repeatedly enough?
  7. Obviously you don't want to mention the specifics of your issues. But for the benefit of us reading could you expand on this idea of reaching and understanding these deep beliefs and how this would be achieved and then solved in therapy. What process should this take?
  8. No I didn't have to do it over and over. Just every time an intrusive worry came up. I just agreed with it. It hasn't cured my OCD but has made me more stable.
  9. Interesting that being 'sensitive' or being called sensitive has a link to this illness.
  10. The reason you feel calm is because saying those words worked! I did the same with my sexual abuse worries. I agreed with them and like magic the worry went away. It didn't mean I had actually done the harm I worried about. This is OCD we are talking about.
  11. What I was saying is, it's ok to be upset. It doesn't matter why. You can't stop yourself from being upset by things, you will only repress it then. Then when you've validated that emotion you can logically decide what to do. Sorry if you understood already ?.
  12. This happened to me a lot growing up. There is truth in it, but what I was totally lacking was somebody to validate my feelings. To say it was ok to be me. now we are grownup we can do this for ourselves. If you learn to validate your own emotions you won't need to ask others if it's ok. This means saying "I feel upset right now and that's ok." And not adding right or wrongs to it. The truth is, the upset may not be justified. But that's not the point, because once you've validated how you are feeling you can use your logical calm reasoning side to work it out for yourself, without suppressing the emotional side. Or you can let it go.
  13. Not sure this is relevant but... I believe that ocd is a coping mechanism for our fears about the world, and negative ideas that we have about ourselves. So I would imagine that before ridding yourself of the last of your OCD you need alternative, more 'healthy' ways of thinking, different interpretations, ready to put in place. Otherwise it could really backfire.
  14. I’m not going to answer that because that would be reassurance. Anyway it’s not the point you need more help for your ocd.
  15. the decision was taken without therapy. It doesn’t matter about whether I’m brave or not. We both think our worries are of the utmost importance. I think reflecting on the results of me NOT letting it be was helpful for me. But it might not for you. I think finding the right therapist is the right way to go
  16. This sounds great and challenging- how are you doing with the homework? I know I’d find it difficult. another idea. When you’ve done self help in the past how rigorous have you been? I mean this homework is very thorough and if you don’t want to do it or fail, you will have to tell the therapist would this bother you?
  17. If we knew deep down it was ocd there would be no need for a leap of faith. The leap of faith is that you choose to treat it like ocd even if you don’t think it is deep down. So for example I worried my husband was sexually abusing my kids. The leap of faith for me was to say to myself, maybe he is, but I’m going to treat it as ocd. This was very very difficult because if he really was abusing the kids I would be culpable by ignoring it. I would be ruining their lives. I had to say I’m going to accept that I don’t know for sure. But I’m going to stop obsessing over it. I’m going to let it go whatever the consequences. I’m going to put my faith in that it’s ocd. I’m going to treat it like ocd. I don’t know how I did it, but I did and now I no longer obsess over it. Actually I do know why, it’s because I was straining my relationship and ruining my own life with this worry. I had to take a chance.
  18. So that's a really really good question to ask your therapist. But I suspect if you stopped ruminating, naturally this feeling/belief would change on its own. I think your partner believing it's OCD and telling you so is fine. It is reassurance of a kind but it sounds like he is doing all the right things for your recovery. And my husband used to tell me the same and it helped when I was really bad. Maybe imagine you are climbing a mountain. I used to climb mountains regularly in the Lake District with my dad when I was growing up. Most of the way up I would angrily wonder why I was climbing the darn thing! It hurt and it hurt and it hurt. Then it would start raining. And there always seemed to be some old bloke, who would trot past me making the whole thing look easy as i huffed and puffed. And then the cloud would come down so we couldn't even see the views. And the nail in the coffin, I'd get a blister in my foot. Get the picture? But when we reached the top it was always pure elation and a feeling of real achievement. Of knowing I had done something really difficult and I hadn't given up.
  19. Well get your anger out and then forgive yourself. You have OCD and you've only just started therapy. You have only just started to try and understand why you have these thought patterns. You have only just started to resist them. No you wouldn't. This just feels worse because it's happening right now. And anyway would you really want to go back to that state of mind with all the effect it had on your partner? everyone has bad days/weeks/months. That doesn't matter. Just keep persisting without any thought of success. But no thoughts of failure either. So you have learned something from what's happening. You have learned your OCD spikes when real life is difficult for you. Thus OCD becomes a signpost for what is really happening. It's not personal it's just showing you something is wrong in your life. Do what if other people get 'on with it?' And how do you know they do really... youve been doing really well. And you can again. I believe you can.
  20. Battlethrough I really think you and your wife need to start seeing this as a manifestation of OCD. It's not helpful for her to be so upset about whether you fantasised or not and she needs to understand that some of your fantasisies were involuntary. Likewise you are running a mile with this and you need to start at least delaying your ruminating. If after you've stopped obsessing about this you want to change your behaviour, fine. But thinking about it now is not a good idea as because of your OCD.
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