FranticS

Oh - and I should say I'm a massive hypocrite, because I do EXACTLY the same thing ALL the time! :D

Compulsion! You're trying to test yourself. And it won't work because you wouldn't be responding to an actual real-life event but to a simulation you're trying to run inside your head. It's a bit like... if the fire alarm goes off at work and you've been warned beforehand that there's going to be a fire drill that day, your emotional response will probably be quite different than if it went off unexpectedly. You're trying to force yourself to feel something, and I don't think that's really how feelings work...

I had my first session with a new therapist today, and I felt this too - felt very hard to be open about my thoughts and I was skirting around them and finding myself being very vague about the content. Its going to be a struggle to open up fully about them but I also don't want to go through session after session not being entirely open

No, MarieJo. It made me feel concerned to see you wishing this for yourself. It made me think "my goodness - she cares SO much for her children". What it DIDN'T make me think was "how selfish!" - now give yourself a break. OCD's horrendous enough without you beating yourself up over it.

Thanks both! I think I'd just become aware that I'd gotten into some habits that, if not exactly unhealthy in themselves, had become a way of distracting myself whenever I felt anxious or ruminatory. It just felt that meditation might be a healthier way of spending some time with myself without just trying to drown everything out...

This is very true. I find I can go from one theme straight to another in the space of a few minutes. In a way, I find it almost reassuring that this happens, because it makes it feel a bit more obvious that it's OCD probing to find a "weak spot". Its almost like the OCD's "trying to be clever", and giving itself away for what it is in the process...

Just wanted to ask the community their thoughts on this and get an objective perspective. I've started meditating daily - not excessively, just for an hour a day. It's something I'm finding I'm very much enjoying and look forward to each evening. There's a part of me though that's now wondering if it's not just a "closet compulsion". It doesn't feel like one. I don't feel like I'm doing it in response to an intrusive thought, but I do chant a mantra and am now wondering if it isn't just becoming a subtle way of keeping thoughts at bay... hmmmm What do you guys think?

Thanks @PolarBear- I'll check it out Update: Thanks - that WAS real helpful (I was going to say it was real food for thought, but I guess feeding them is the last thing you wanna do). But what's the difference between refocusing and distraction. I've read a lot of things here where people have discouraged 'distraction' because that's a compulsion in itself, so a little confused as to where the distinction lies...?

Thank you both for your kindness and suggestions. I will try and join one of the zoom meetings, although they look usually to be at a time when I'm working. I find my big problem is with rumination - the thing is, looking back, I've ALWAYS ruminated, and although my thoughts haven't always been as frightening as they are at the moment, I have always amplified every little worry in my head: going for walks, turning everything over and over. I used to think I was just a deep thinker, but now I realise I've been trapped in a habit that other, healthy, "normal" people aren't, and I don't know a) how to not do that b) what "thinking" is like without doing that c) if I can ever stop...

I've been suffering from harm ocd for a long time now. It's been particularly bad over the last few months, and I'm not sure if social isolation has just made things worse At the moment I feel so disconnected from everyone, I feel like I've stopped caring about people I used to feel close to and, in fact, the anxiety and confusion has become so intense I feel like I'm having some kind of "bad trip" (I've never done drugs, so I don't know what that actually feels like, but I can imagine this feeling pretty close... ) I feel like I've completely lost any ability to live, love, laugh or function as a human being anymore... I've just self-referred myself again asking if I can have an appointment specifically with an ocd specialist, but my first appointment will be a month away and I'm not sure i can last that long...

Laboratory

I'm beginning to realise now just how much of what I thought was just "me thinking" throughout my entire life, has actually been the familiar cycles of obsession/rumination that are characteristic of OCD. Like when I was a schoolkid and wasted my entire weekends panicking about something 'stupid' I'd said the week before, or later on in life where I got myself into an unhealthy relationship and spent hours of every single day going for walks alone in order to worry about it. In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if my tendency to "prefer my own company" wasn't in actuality just me seeking the space to go off and addictively ruminate... I guess the thing is that, since this has been a habit/pattern throughout most of my life, I'm now wondering how easily I can break that, and even wha t it feels like to not be stuck in these loops and to have any kind of inner peace... ?

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It feels so lonely. I start doubting that love and compassion really exist, if the beliefs and feelings can be so fickle. The world suddenly becomes a terrifying place. And more, I become such a terrifying person to myself ?

But have you found, as you've stopped worrying about it, that your "true self" has returned? Do you feel affection and love and kindness and compassion again?

How much of this is related to us feeling alone and isolated and like we're separated from the rest of society at the moment, though, particularly when you live on your own...?

Thanks @Doubt_It - that's reassuring. I've been really struggling with this over the last couple months...

That's super exciting, Agrippina! Good luck!!

Thanks GBG, Its so hard *not* to press on with these questions because you start doubting the nature of your own reality, and you feel like you need to restore yourself to a point where things make some sort of sense again... There are times when I simply "forget" to worry about this, and life seems quite easy at those times, but then I just start wondering if I'm not just blithely deluding myself, and off we go again...

I am having the most horrendous time at the moment. I am questioning my motive for every single action I'm taking. I talk to a friend, and I start thinking "do I really care about what you think or feel, or am I just being polite out of habit?", I look after my cats and then I'm wondering if i really care about them as beings or if I'm not just trying to convince myself I'm a "good person" and then I start wondering why I'm so keen to be a "good person" anyway, and if my fears of being a "bad person" aren't just selfishness, I mean surely if we do anything just because it makes us "good", rather than because we want the best for the people involved, then it's just about our egos isnt it, and round and round I go, until I've convinced myself that I'm completely amoral and totally unfeeling towards my fellow beings... I mean, IS this normal for ocd? Is it just me? I feel like I've completely fallen down a rabbithole with all this...

Hi Ar33, I think there's a few people expressing similar feelings/fears here at the moment. I'm wondering if lockdown is increasing our feelings of isolation and disconnection from others, making us ruminate on that more? I found this article yesterday. It really helped: https://www.madeofmillions.com/articles/ocd-checking-emotions

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Hi Agrippina, My experience was slightly different to yours - I started to experience very bad OCD symptoms again a couple of months *after* starting a relationship. Prior to this I'd had a bout of OCD about 10 years earlier but had come out of the other side, as it were. So I hadn't even thought about it for years, but it was enough to recognise what was happening when it flared up again. I was very concerned about what my partner would think, but I was also aware that it was something I needed to get out into the open, particularly since I knew that my anxiety would be pretty apparent to her anyway. She was absolutely wonderful about it. Listened to me, and then went and did some reading up about it. She has been fantastic and massively supportive, even when I've been at my most vague and distant and lost in my thoughts, and in my absolute darkest days. Obviously, it depends on the person, but I think that if you're able to have some literature to hand so that you can say "look - it sounds weird, it might be hard to understand what I'm trying to say, but... this explains about it" is useful. I think that any person truly worth their salt would be prepared to make an effort to understand, and, if they really liked you, to support you as best they could. Good luck!

Right, and I don't think covid/lockdown really helps either, as we now have oodles of time indoors to get bored and start ruminating/testing ourselves...