determination987

It’s so hard isn’t it? I think that feeling under the weather the last few days has taken my strength away as I was doing well with not engaging with them. Tomorrow is a new day though so 🤞I get some sleep and have more strength to be more present. Definitely, mistakes are part of being human. I know this rationally but my mind loves to distort my thinking into horrible worst case scenarios and changes the memories so I have no idea what is real, exaggerated or false. I know, the best thing to do is to leave it as a thought, that’s all it is. To focus on other more beneficial things and let it just be there until it goes. Hope you’re doing okay with it too. I’m finding lots of ups and downs but recognising it as OCD definitely helps me too (as much as at the moment it’s telling me it’s a real threat!)

Thanks Angst. I can see there’s a YouTube video of him so I’ll give that a watch and was thinking of purchasing one of his books. Absolutely, I think I’ve been horribly harsh on myself the last two days. I seem to be stuck in the past and thinking lots of ‘should have’ thoughts and worrying about future catastrophes. I have a horrible headache that won’t shift which I think may have contributed to this way of thinking or vice versa.

A bit rocky today, how are you doing? Bad sleep seems to take away my resistance to doing compulsions and so they creep in and then I get carried away 😩. Back to the focussing on other things technique 🤞. The more tired I am, the less I can sleep and a vicious cycle begins. Hoping a good night’s sleep helps tonight 🤞. Hope you’re having a good Friday?

I did this a lot and still do sometimes but it’s getting easier. As soon as I feel some sort of happiness, I get a feeling of dread soon afterwards like I don’t deserve it. Then I’d think of all of the intrusive thoughts that have come before to check if that was why and the cycle would continue. It’s hard but just acknowledging the feelings and letting them pass really does reduce the anxiety. For me, the anxiety rose at first and I’d check to see if it was still there but it does go down. The more I’m practicing it, the easier it becomes and I’m aware that when I’m tired and stressed that the thoughts feel more intense. Don’t reason with it, just leave it be. I’ve read on here and elsewhere that saying ‘maybe yes, maybe not’ helps and stopping trying to find certainty over whether the memory is false, has meaning or anything else. Thoughts are thoughts, they’re not facts and you deserve to be happy and to enjoy your life.

Thanks, I’ll have a look into Paul Gilbert. Compassion based therapy sounds perfect. I can see that I have little compassion for myself and hold myself to impossible standards. I think it feels that everyone else has it altogether and that they never make mistakes but I know in reality that’s not true. I even sometimes go back to a memory of playing hide and seek as a small child and getting told off for giving away someone’s hiding place. I have no idea why this memory stuck with me as I was very young 🤷🏼‍♀️. I don’t ever forgive myself for mistakes or cringe worthy moments and I think that’s part of my recovery. I’m trying to let the thoughts pass rather than overthink them and to let mistakes be where they belong, in the past. Thanks for you reply and suggestion. I will definitely look into it.

Thank you 😊. I’m realising that so many actions I’ve done, particularly in the last few years have been a result of OCD. I’d been moving from one intrusive thought to another and wearing them out with compulsions until a new one took hold. I’m not willing to miss out on so much life anymore. Living like catastrophes are constantly happening isn’t living. I want to enjoy life, not just survive as OCD makes me feel like I have to.

Thanks Saffron, I’ll have a look through it, thanks so much. I had a brief look through now and can see that I have most of the types of distorted thinking. I think I get a random thought about something and get a sudden ‘what if’ thought and then the anxiety strikes. Then I seem to go to really far fetched catastrophes which mostly centre around being judged negatively. Then it becomes obsessive and the cycle continues with more ‘what if’ scenarios which then become vastly distorted and the need for certainty hits deep and the compulsions start. I’ve stopped most of the compulsions and I’m catching a lot of the ruminating ones early and stopping the cycle but I can see that most of my thoughts that stick come from that black or white thinking, a need to be perfect. It’s like everyone in the world doesn’t make mistakes and that they have it all together but I feel like if I make a slight mistake that it will be horrendous and unforgivable. I’m hoping to reframe my thoughts to not buy into the worst case scenario and think more positively but that seems impossible and I worry that I’ll spend too much time on thoughts if I try to reshape them. Sorry, I got carried away but thank you for the link. I’ll try some of those strategies 😊

A lot of my thoughts end up going to worst case scenario. For example, a simple failure to check a form thoroughly could end up with me being in prison or harm happening to other people or my family. I can see that my thoughts become distorted and no amount of reasoning helps, it often becomes more unclear and catastrophic. I think I’ve always felt like things in life could easily turn catastrophic (likely due to traumatic experiences) and I think I’m always on high alert to prevent or tackle these things. I think my ‘what if’ thinking goes to dark places quite quickly rather than a balanced view. I know with OCD that the best thing to do is to leave the thoughts as what they are and not to fight/avoid/reason with them. I think I read somewhere on here though something about tackling the distortions. Is that a different thing? I feel like whilst I’m understanding more and more about the compulsions and what not to engage in, I’m wondering if I need to change my thinking so that it’s less black and white, but wouldn’t that be tackling the thoughts and giving them meaning, particularly if trying to rate their chances of happening etc which is usually very low. Sorry, if that’s a stupid question.

I’ll give that a go, thanks! I think today because the anxiety was strong and I was tired that it was hard to focus anything beneficial so it didn’t really go. I’ll try and push myself to do something nice in spite of the anxious feelings.

Sorry if I’m adding too much to this thread but I’m finding it really helpful to find the good. Even today where I’ve had huge anxiety, it feels better than last week when I was doing endless compulsions to fix them. I managed to attach some photos to a message without checking over and over and giving up. I realised I nearly went down that route and stopped and sent them anyway, despite having no way to check them afterwards. I went for a small run which made me feel better and I got up and carried on with my day without calling people for reassurance. The anxiety is still there but I’m going to find some way to have a nice evening regardless. Little steps.

Thanks Northpaul, I always find your advice really helpful :). I'm having a rocky day I think but I can see the positives. I had to attach some photos for my friend as she was returning something that was faulty. I attached the pictures but then worried I'd attached the wrong ones so I deleted them and did it again. I realised, 'oh no, this is ocd' and sent them then without checking. It did catch me at first and I think because I'm feeling generally anxious today, it was easier to slip in but I caught it and sent it anyway. I just seem to think that I have to be perfect, even in trying to recover. I know it's not a neat process and there will be ups and downs but the downs are HARD. Today is better than last week though and I can see that I can handle them better. This forum has been invaluable for that. I think sometimes just having that guidance and someone to spur you on, really goes a long way.

Thanks, I'm the same in that I have always been really rule abiding to the point that I would make myself sick with worry that I'd do the wrong thing. I'm sure I made plenty of mistakes when I was younger, particularly when going out drinking in my college and university days but at the time they seemed insignificant but tend to creep up now. The mistake I'm thinking of now is in relation to my early twenties though and I can't remember it clearly. It was a form I filled in but I'm worried that I filled it in wrong somehow. It's not even an important form or anything official but my mind has gone to it and tried to remember the exact details, to the point that last week I was googling forms and looking at the content and seeking reassurance. I've always been worried about unknowingly making mistakes. I even called to check if I owed any tax once when I clearly didn't and they basically laughed at me. I check bills and forms to ridiculous detail because I'm worried that I'll make a mistake that will somehow be catastrophic. Not long ago, my intrusive thoughts were in relation to changing address and missing informing someone important and my mind went to all sorts of catastrophic future events, caused by my stupidity. I'm learning though that everyone makes mistakes and that we do what we do at the time with the knowledge that we have then. Looking back now is pointless and achieves nothing. I will deal with problems as they arise, rather than looking back at things that have past and would be impossible to realistically know what happened.

Having a bit of a rocky day today. I didn’t sleep well and this seems to be a big trigger for me. I woke up feeling anxious and have been practicing not giving into the thoughts but I have this feeling of anxiety that I’ve not been able to shake most of the day. At the moment, I’m noticing that I’m getting random memories pop into my head of mistakes or things I perceive as a mistake from nearly ten years ago. I didn’t even consider them at the time so I have no idea why the random thoughts pop up now. Before I was analysing them to death and they’d lose all meaning or feel like a very real threat at the moment. I see things very black and white I think and it’s hard to see the middle ground. It’s hard to reflect on things from 10 - 20 years ago as the memories are hazy and I’m not sure how much truth is in them so I’m trying to leave them be. Is it normal to fluctuate? I was feeling much more positive yesterday but today I’m feeling quite down and not quite as upbeat. Hoping I can try a run later but I’m exhausted today.

I’m listening to this too on audible. I’ve found it super helpful too 😊. I listen to it in small chunks throughout the day when I’m doing other stuff and a lot of it resonates with me. Breaking Free from OCD is good too. I find audible better as I race through books and don’t always take it all in so this forces me to listen to it all

I love this book! I’m finding it really helpful too 😊. Definitely helps understanding the why and helps to make those steps to not giving in to the thoughts 😊