ivybasil

Chester Zoo are doing live streams of their animals all day today! I've just been watching the red pandas - very cute!

They are just thoughts. ❤️ Distressing ones for you, I'm sure but just because you have a thought, does it make it true? You give it significance because it upsets you. It's no different to if you had a thought that amuses you if you take away the emotional reaction 🙂 Another thought: 'what if, right now, I looked out the window and the crows were doing ballet...' or 'i want to eat 17 chocolate cakes.' A daft thought, doesn't mean anything, don't know why it was my example but I don't need to know that. Don't give the OCD thoughts the reaction they expect and it'll start to lessen. Imagine them as inconsequential as the thoughts you find funny. You'll get through this!

This is exactly the feeling I've been trying to describe to myself. I'm not so afraid of getting ill as I am about the change and restrictions.

I'm finding this difficult too; you're definitely not alone. I was upset about this last night and this morning and I got some lovely words of support from fellow sufferers on this board. I think by sharing our worries and sharing how we're feeling, we can help one another get through this. As the others said, this isn't forever, and we'll all get into some sort of routine soon. I'm in isolation, as are a few of my friends, and we've tried to come up with some digital hobbies - learning a new language together on Duolingo and planning a trip to use it in the future. Allow yourself a little bit of breathing space - allow yourself to be unproductive if you want to! Try and fill some time with things you enjoy. Perhaps make a daily timetable to help structure your day? Stay strong. This will pass.

I'm sorry to hear you're struggling so much! You did the right thing in sharing how you are feeling. You will get through this. All this uncertainty and confusion will pass. Supplies in shops are being rationed to customers and it'll become easier to get these things soon, hopefully. Do you have a therapist you can talk to? The Samaritans website has some contacts for people you can talk to/email in a crisis. You're not alone in how you're feeling. Do you have friends and family around you to talk to? It's okay to share how you're feeling. ❤️ Have a read of the thread on here about coronavirus - Ashley has written some brilliant advice about following the NHS guidelines for hand washing and allowing ourselves to trust that this is adequate. despite the challenging times, we don't need to engage with OCD thoughts that we aren't clean. We only need to acknowledge the official guidelines. Stay strong. We'll all get through this together!

Just wanted to say thank you for this thread, Ashley. It helped me gain a little perspective. I'd thought I was being quite calm and sensible about all this but had the growing realisation that I've been spending a lot of time googling and checking. Being in retail environments has been stressful with the growing pressure that I should be stocking up. Today I did our family grocery shop and bought an extra box of cereal and a few more tins than normal but otherwise tried to carry on as normal. Going to work on cutting the googling down and rely mainly on the information emailed to me from my university. Trying to remember the advice I got as a kid when I was anxious. 'Worrying is like a rocking horse. You can put in a lot of work, but you don't get anywhere.' I think it's important to get back to basics and do some of the CBT work I did in therapy again to remind myself of a few things!

It can be so frustrating! OCD makes me feel desperate to know answers; you're right though - it's absolutely fine to leave things unsolved. 🙂 Glad to hear you're feeling a little better - acknowledge to yourself that it's okay to want to look something up, just that you don't have to do it now. Do something else until the feeling passes 🙂

Hi there! You can get through this! Try telling yourself you can Google in 10 minutes time, then after that time, set another ten minutes, then maybe fifteen minutes. Keep telling yourself you'll do something about it later and keep putting off that time.

Hope today is a better day, @Cub.

Hi, Cub. Sorry to hear you're having such a hard time with this at the moment. If you do not have some medical help for this at the moment, make sure you make a GP appointment. Remember if you are feeling suicidal, there are helplines you can talk to to get support quicker than a GP appointment. https://www.samaritans.org This is here if you need it. Since you are having trouble with thoughts surrounding your faith, would talking to a pastor or a chaplain help you? They can perhaps answer religion specific questions - not in a reassurance seeking way, just helping you work out your thoughts on the matter. My mum brought me to talk to our local minister (even though I rarely attended church) when my OCD was really bad in high school and it helped a great deal in understanding more. Regarding your worries about God, I encourage you to consider these questions: How do you understand sin? How do you define it? What evidence do you have that the things you do are sinful? What evidence do you have that the things you do are not sinful? Is it okay to live life with sin? Isn't the key message of the Bible that we are already forgiven for our sins? I wouldn't normally quote the Bible except that you mentioned your faith being important to you and I just wanted to offer one more thought: there's a lovely passage in John 10 where Jesus is talking about a flock of sheep - an analogy for the believer - and says: 'The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.' This, to me, sounds as though we are allowed to enjoy ourselves. At the end of the day, you will get through this and we're all here to help you. Don't give up - OCD can be beaten.

Hi there! Sorry to hear you're having a hard time with this! I think the most helpful thing to remember here is the common forum adage: if you think it's OCD, it probably is. And isn't testing your fear part of what we do in exposure therapy? Do the thing that scares you and sit with the anxiety it might bring and allow it to fade. Remember though, if you feel you have engaged in a compulsion instead, a set back is not the end of the world. Acknowledge it happened and remind yourself that you do not have to be certain about anything - it is okay to feel the doubt. Incidentally, what do you feel will happen if you say something aloud that you don't want to say to God? What is it you are worried you might say? Could you challenge yourself and say it aloud and sit with the anxious feeling it brings? You might find that the anxiety actually fades away. That way you might not feel you have to avoid saying things out loud, or checking you can say things silently. You'll get through this!

That's okay. Setbacks happen. This is just your OCD and you don't need to listen to what it says. 🙂 The important thing now is to move on quickly and try not to engage with the compulsion to keep googling. What are your interests? Google something you like, find some new facts about something that interests you, not your OCD 🙂 replace the negative compulsion with something better

I'm a great believer in the healing power of dog pictures. No shame in dog pictures over sports! Although, it's worthwhile google image searching 'dogs playing rugby'. Very rewarding. Hope you're doing better today, @AnxiousAnnie?

Download one of those internet blockers - an app like Cold Turkey of something you can set to not let you online for a certain amount of time. If you feel the urge to check something, set the timer for a period of time instead. Then you've got a bit of back up, too, if you find yourself giving in! This helped me with a need to check my sent emails 🙂

If you can't stop the compulsion straight away, try and delay it. Tell yourself you can Google in five minutes, do something different for that time and you might find the need to do it lessens. Even if you have to engage with the compulsion after 5 minutes, that's fine - just next time, wait 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20... And so on. 🙂 You should find the longer you wait, the anxiety will reach a point where it fades 🙂