L.M.

Glad to hear you are getting back to normal after a bout with COVID... Hope your day went ok with getting on with things without too much rumination. My challenges have been going ok...ups and downs for sure... Mostly just working with the days as they are offered to me rather than any set out challenges, but should get back to that...

@Ma29 You are really such an inspiration! Good for you for all the work you have done. @northpaul Awesome! Must be nice to achieve a nice clean clutter-free place as a result of following through with advice you got through therapy!

Hope you're feeling better determination. That is excellent you are using this time to step up to that extra challenge of not ruminating while not feeling your strongest. That does sound really tough having to manage a chronic pain condition along with the ocd. Good for you for doing your best with it!

@GreenyGreen23 Sorry to hear you had a rough time after the run. Yes, sometimes we can put all the things in place that seems like should make us feel better, but ocd can still hit. So we just keep on learning. A big thing I think is learning how to not avoid the anxious feelings but to just move ahead without compulsions regardless. That is when it won't matter if the brain goes into anxious panic. We just carry on not trying to get rid of it. It sure is difficult in practice but once we see how it works on during our less anxious times, we start to gain confidence that it will work as we move up our hierarchy. I still have lots of difficulty when the anxiety really hits hard but when I can remember to not to engage in compulsions and just move on with my day, it goes so much better. Really looking forward to hearing how your CBT sessions go!

That's awesome James! Hope you have a great weekend too!

That sounds good.--getting on with the day. I know rumination can be a tough one. I have had some good successes last couple of days. Pushed myself out of comfort zone the other day and felt the anxiety come on later on and wanted to just sink into rumination and googling and despairing....but got up and made a meal, and did my laundry and the day went much better then. I also opened and used some food that I had put away a while back because of contamination fears.... however, now i have a new grocery item with more contamination fears! lol.

@howard These are the recommendations I would classify as adding compulsions/avoidance behaviours that will just fuel ocd further: Those are all recommendations that would only fuel the ocd further. I completely agree with all what @ocdjonesy said in her posts. Move on, go to the gym when you feel like, look around the room. No big deal!

@BelAnna Awesome! Sounds like a really good day out. Good for you for facing those fears and doing it anyway! Ah yes! Breaks are allowed! How was the weekend?

Hey @GreenyGreen23 Yes I can well relate to ocd taking up so much time. Hopefully you can find the way that suits you best to really start on CBT because that is what really gave me so much freedom and so much more time in a day as well as relief from the terrible distress I felt on a regular basis. I don't know what is 'normal' for laundry,(i think it's good to realize there is no 'normal', we get to decide what we think is ok for us), but I do know for me that by facing the ocd stuff I had around it, laundry has become so much more manageable. I decided what is 'normal' for me and my laundry and am so glad to not be having to do so much of it these days! How have the last few days been for you?

Yes that is common to feel it will go on forever or it will be too much to handle...but that is where the cognitive methods are helpful and then learning how to use a hierarchy to break our approach down into small manageable steps so the anxiety isn't overwhelming. I would really recommend getting a book that uses cbt as a method and reading through it so you can see how the whole process works. Or there might be some good talks on this website that might make you feel more comfortable with the idea too...

The workbook I used and still refer back to on a regular basis is called "Getting over OCD--a 10 step workbook for taking back your life" by Jonathan Abramowitz. I found it excellent for getting into understanding CBT and how it works, and for helping me find the motivation to face the anxieties around doing cbt. Lots of excellent worksheets, and methods all broken down to what I found a really manageable approach.

I actually have ocd about posting links! lol! But yeah I was just googling it and while I did find various worksheets that come close to what I used, it wasn't exactly what I used and it would also not be that beneficial if you don't have the write up about it and how it is applied to ocd... I can say that the workbook I used, which includes the worksheet I used, is called "Getting Over OCD-a 10-step workbook for taking back your life." It is by Jonathan Abramowitz and I found it really helpful.

I have found this whole thread an interesting and informative read. It is really good to hear from people who have either supplemented their CBT , or found another route that seemed to work for them. I know @taurean has often mentioned additional approaches he made that made a big difference in his recovery as well. I know for me I am currently looking at more ways to add to the improvements that CBT and meds has made for me, since I still have a ways to go before i would consider myself recovered, so it is good to read about what others have explored. And yes I would hope that people posting would always be shown respect, and allow for a respectful discussion about it. I had been wondering what psychoanalysis worked for people, so thank you @Handy for specifying which type you found helpful.

This is so great! Wonderful for not giving in to the compulsions!

Did you begin with this? If so how is it going? I am feeling quite happy with how my week's gone in general... Put away laundry I was afraid was contaminated Didn't shower or change after feeling triggered at grocery store Ate from my garden that I had contamination fears about Touching lots of trees, rocks, flowers out on my walks

Hi lukas This post will likely get lost in here--it would be good to start a new topic with this to get some response...

Yes I know how that feels And good you know it's not the answer. We can't normally just cut out compulsions over night so good to not beat ourselves up about it when we end up doing them. Reassurance will likely just become like the cleaning where you have to ask again and again and you still won't feel sure (that's how it goes for me anyhow)...drives my family nuts!...so just as long as you know that won't be the long-term solution to switch from cleaning to reassurance seeking... Yes hopefully there might be some good help there! Does the book you have (i think you mentioned one in the Dummies series?) have a good layout of how cbt would work and steps you can do to start on it yourself?

Really good! I just posted a longer post in the other contamination thread...but yes my ocd used to be extremely severe and I went through a dreadful time with it. So my ocd went from rituals that took up quite literally my entire day, and feelings of extreme distress about it, to where I am at now--generally pretty happy and with compulsions greatly reduced. I still have ocd and would really like to see myself drop a lot more compulsions and see myself facing things that I am still avoiding (top of my list is trying to get myself to use other people's toilets!) So definitely still working at it, but really the degree of freedom I got from using cbt methods along with medication is just amazing to me and I am so grateful for it. Yes if you feel motivated enough to work through a cbt self-help book (make sure it's specifically about ocd) then you can really make a lot of good progress like that. I found it much better than any therapists I had actually. Although I did also benefit from an 8 week general cbt series that was done as group therapy...

Sure! I used to have cleaning compulsions that took me about 10-15 hours a day. Showering (including cleaning it before and after) took me 7 hours but I still had to take one every day... washing hands took forever, and then would be all the other rituals...my hands looked horrific, I was lost so much weight because I couldn't fit meals in (and needed them prepared for me) I was in severe distress...so that was easy to find the motivation back then! (That was all around 10 years ago now) I did also end up taking medication to help me with the cbt but even that required overcoming fears around taking medication...So I worked my way back from all those compulsions using cbt methods...A shower now takes me about 15 minutes, and so many other compulsions just completely gone, or greatly reduced. Now my ocd is much more manageable and I live a pretty happy life. However, I do get times when the ocd gets worse and then I need to go back and find that motivation again to drop compulsions. So a more recent example was when covid hit I developed lots of rituals around grocery shopping. I had to change and shower after shopping, and had to clean all my groceries. So I worked through this one recently facing that feeling of contamination when I didn't do those things. My motivation was I hated all the extra work shopping took me, it was painful and tiring. Also I hated all the extra laundry, I hated all the unnecessary garbage i was creating by wiping the groceries with paper towel... I worked with my book and did lots of posting on this forum about that and got lots of support to help me let that go. Now I love the feeling of just popping into the store without any anxiety or compulsions. Whenever I get a good success like that it further motivates me to drop more compulsions as I know that while facing that fear or feeling of contamination in the short term is uncomfortable, it gives me so much more freedom and joy in the longterm. This right here is a wonderful place to begin with seeing your motivation to begin cutting out compulsions!

Yes that's all part of CBT--I also have that fear of making everything contaminated around me if I don't engage with the compulsions. I think that would be a common fear with a lot of us with the contamination theme. That is why we work our way slowly up with cbt so we don't get overwhelmed by whatever our triggers are. I would recommend either getting a good ocd cbt self-help book so as to gain a good understanding of how cbt works, or talking over your fears with a cbt therapist. Working through the cognitive aspects (or the 'c' part of CBT) will help you address the dreaded feelings of working with the ERP aspect. I know my self help book has a whole section on just trying to address getting up the motivation to work with cbt to deal with ocd. I found that really helpful and still go back to that section when i am trying to address my current ocd issues. Remembering our motivation to work through this stuff can really help us stick to it even when it's really hard.

Hey Greeny, I've never had that specific compulsion but I've had plenty of compulsions that took me doing things over and over again until it 'felt right' (and of course the more you engage with that compulsion, the worse it gets and it ends up never feeling right) And yes needing to rewash or resanitize immediately after. Yes for sure. A lot. One thing to think about is none of these compulsions are really new, just more of the same patterns that are feeding the ocd. The cbt is just about addressing that pattern by not engaging in compulsions and just accepting that it doesn't feel right, or it feels dirty or whatever your brain might be telling you and you learn to just move on with the day while that feeling is present. And of course, it is a difficult practice, but that's why we take it in small manageable steps, learning how to accept those feelings in small increments. Have you had any more cbt sessions?

Hi @Ross Knight! And welcome to the forum I wouldn't give up on CBT working for you after that short time with it. Maybe you will need to explore with a CBT therapist the reasons why it didn't work (maybe it was working up too fast, maybe you need to gain more trust with the therapist etc) It isn't an easy therapy to engage with since we are asked to work with so much that we are fearing, but if it's done properly it can ease our way into it in a manageable way. Once we have some small successes with smaller triggers, we start to gain confidence in the way it works and it helps us to keep up with it. For me it helped a lot to read a good OCD CBT self help book. I ended up doing most of the work on my own using that book, but even if you are to go to a therapist I would recommend at least reading through one to really gain a thorough understanding of the method. But, yes, if after that you still find it to hard to engage with CBT, there are also medications that can help. I am on an SSRI and do find that helped me to engage with CBT.

Have you done any CBT @Blueskies? I've had lots of issues with contamination and washing and stuff and by working through the cbt practices it has gotten way way better. With cbt the goal would probably be to address a lot of your beliefs around body fluids/contamination. And then to work through ERP by reducing time spent washing and accepting the anxious or unclean feelings and just moving on with the day. But this is done in small manageable steps...

Yesterday got yet another surprise exposure while doing laundry. I was so disappointed as my first thought was that I would have to redo it all. But I did think I will leave it to the next day and see if I feel I can let this go. So that is my goal. Let it go, put away the laundry and move on.

Wonderful post @determination987 Yes always encouraging to read about someone making good progress in the journey!