ivybasil

First of all, congratulations on doing the presentation! It sounds like you handled the situation very well to get through the presentation at the time, and that you already know that reassurance seeking and confessing is an OCD trait. I totally understand wanting to work on the physical symptoms too though, aside from OCD. I'm not a very confident public speaker and I'm working on that. Maybe some sort of yoga/visualisation exercise might help? Like working on poses that help you feel rooted to the ground when you're not presenting, and then being able to sort of channel that when you're presenting? A little like what you said about breathing and refocusing, maybe it would help you feel physically grounded? 🙂

It makes sense, but recovering from OCD, I think, means learning to just 'be' with that uncomfortable feeling and not give into what OCD or anxiety wants you to do to make the feeling go away. I've only just started working through CBT, so maybe someone with more experience will be able to articulate it better than me, but I think it's okay to be scared and uncomfortable, and it doesn't matter if you call it OCD or travel anxiety. It just matters that you use any recovery tools you've learnt to be in the presence of the uncomfortable feeling, accept it, and don't respond as OCD might want you to. 🙂 It's okay to feel fear and anxiety. Recovery depends on how you respond to it. (I'm new both here and to CBT methods, and totally happy to be corrected if anyone with more experience/knowledge disagrees with this. This is just how I've understood what I'm trying to achieve myself, and wanted to share in case it helps!)

Hope you got on okay today! 🙂

This is fantastic! 😃