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Don't look in the dark well of Obsessive thoughts


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Hi and happy new year to all the OCD UK members. I am going to discuss on a topic that is a vital question for all the Pur-O sufferers like me and widely discussed also. I have a OCD thought of trying to remember a particular past event and based on these taking a decession that I haven't harmed a person. That thought takes a violent form time to time and then I have to get help of my clinician. He is treating me for last 13 years. I think there is nothing new in the story. But recently when I had an OCD episode, he suggested me to just stop thinking of these. According to him, the thought itself is the OCD. There is no solution or conclusion to these thoughts possible. He suggested me to stop the thought and DON'T LOOK AT THE DARK WELL OF OBSESSIVE THOUGHTS. But somebody tells that trying to stop forcefully brings excessive anxiety. They tell to accept the thought. What it means? From my experience what I learnt is that as Compulsive hand washers never gets assured that his hand is clean, a "Compulsive Thinker" never gets assured that he has got the right answer or conclusion to his thoughts. This is an infinite loop. So can I stop thinking of these malicious thoughts? Can I think like this-"These are OCD thoughts, don't touch them". Can I "Quarentine" these thoughts as my doctor said? Is stopping the Obsessive thought at all possible?

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Guest Francis

Nil

Like you, I have 'Pure-o' tendencies, and at one stage focused my worries on thoughts that I had harmed people in the past.

For the past few months, I have been undertaking CBT with a very good therapist.

He made a couple of points clear to me, which may help you to unravel the hairball of doubts and worries about what is/isn't OCD and whether you should stop/try to stop intrusive thoughts etc etc.

In our first session he: 1. made it clear that everyone has intrusive thoughts about a range of things - including all the usual sexual, harm, illness, cleanliness ones etc - and produced a lot of research findings to support this point. He made it clear to me: this therapy is not about 'stopping' intrusive thoughts and OCD is not having intrusive thoughts. OCD is obsessing about these thoughts (and either having compulsions to try and relieve them or not).

So what is the therapy about? The therapy is about learning not to worry about having the thoughts; to qeustion their meaning and importance through Cognitive techniques - and to expose yourself to the anxiety they cause, by either deliberately having them, or facing the things you fear. This is the behavioural element of CBT.

I have focused primarily on worry/cognitive techniques - as that is my real problem.

What my therapist says to me is - if you have a thought - acknowledge it, but then do nothing with it. Don't question it's validity or value or importance. Just let it sit there - as he puts it, like a train in a station you don't want to catch, or a train passing through.

This may be what your therapist means: not to try and stop having the thoughts (I think they'll come back with gusto if you ban them) - but to do absolutely nothing with them - and even more importantly, to do nothing with the follow-up thoughts they bring.

For example:

Oh my god I may have harmed someone today - intrusive thought

(Do nothing)

what if it's really true? How do I know it's not? - OCD thought

(Do nothing)

Hang on, am I supposed to stop this thought - OCD doubt

(Do nothing)

What If I'm doing this wrong?

(Do nothing).

You see what I mean. In the model I use - these are all intrusive thoughts/doubts - the first ones about a topic, the later ones about whether it's OCD or not, or whether I'm doing the therapy right.

My advice - ignore them all. Just let them be there. Tough, but worth it.

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Hi Nil

I have pure O as well as other OCD symptoms. Have you heard of the four steps (http://www.ocduk.org/2/foursteps.htm) They are from the book Brain lock i am reading it at the moment.

These are four steps

Relabel

Re attribute

Refocus and revalue

Basically through these steps you are telling your Brain something like it's not me it's OCD, it is a chemical imbalance in my brain. I need to focus on another activity for a least 15 minutes. Revalue saying something like that's just my stupid obssession or thought.

This is only a brief description of the four steps, but i have found them really help full

Hope this is of some help to you

All the best

NGU

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sounds like cracking advice - "just stop having intrusive thoughts" - sheesh, wonder why nobody's thought of that before... :wink::headslap:

if we just stop having obsessions and compulsions, that'll cure obsessive compulsive disorder - your therapist deserves an award for the "most :censored: obvious statement of the year so far"

... of course, as you and lots of others sufferers are completely aware it's a :censored: load easier said than done - obsessive thoughts, imo, are by their very nature unwelcome and intrusive - the advice sounds about as useful to me as advising someone who's had their leg broken to 'walk normally' :dry:

reminds me of an old buddhist parable, where a master said something to the effect of "enlightenment is easy - all you have to do is not think of the white horse"...

or to use another phrase, it's like ignoring "the elephant in the room"

i'm very much more in support of the 'four steps' method - acknowledge the thought has entered your head, but to label it as OCD, and accordingly not feed it - again IMO, trying to resist thinking about something means you're still focussing on that particular something, and making it more prominent in your mind...

however if your therapist has actually managed to instil buddha-like enlightenment in sufferers, i wouldn't mind their contact details :wink: :lol:

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According to him, the thought itself is the OCD
The thing is that the 'Thought' itself isn't dangerous, it's our reaction to the thought that causes the problem.

I have a OCD thought of trying to remember a particular past event and based on these taking a decession that I haven't harmed a person

Delving into the thought and trying to 'remember' won't help and will actually worsen the OCD episode, it won't help because it didn't happen, it's an OCD thought and trying to remember simply plunges us into an OCD episode.

The advice is as Francis and Bobby mention above, acknowledge/label the thought for what it is and then attempt not to indulge the thought.

Takes some doing, I accept but it can be done.

Caramoole :)

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Lot of thanks to you all for your valuable advise. I think my Physician is not aware of the CBT techniques well. But he is an expert of medicinal therapy and with his medicines I was quite well for long span of time in my OCD era. Actually "stopping the OCD thought", is not at all possible. Solution of OCD is not that easy. What I experienced is that if I give less importance to the thought. Thinking that "this is a OCD thought, no problem, I am dealing with these type of thoughts for years and it couldn't harm me very much." works a lot. But whenever I think that I have to clear this doubt otherwise it will create great problem in future or "lets play with the thought, try to remember the event, if I am successful I am cured!"- my OCD becomes very strong. I noticed the 4-step method. It is useful. But if you tell how it worked in your case or what type of thought technique helped you to reduce OCD then it will be very useful for me. Thank you.

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Guest Francis

Nil

I carry an index card in my pocket. On it I have a simplified version of the four steps concept - adapted to my own needs. Try something like this:

Relabel - 'This is just a thought. Everyone has these kind of thoughts. It doesn't need any special attention, it has no special meaning or significance.'

Re-attribute - 'The anxiety this thought causes me, the frequency with which it currently occurs, is linked to my OCD - not to anything significant in the thought itself'

Re-focus - 'I am not going to engage with this thought, or argue with it, or consider its relevance or importance at all. It can stay around as long as it likes, but in the meantime I am going to do something else or think about something else too'

I find this works pretty well for me - the trick is to keep doing it consistently. Sometimes you seem to have to recite the whole thing every 30 seconds!

As I said earlier, my advice to you would be to stop trying to 'stop' intrusive thoughts - if you succeed you will be the first human ever to do so and consign yourself to a very dull, unspontaneous life! What you should do is work hard to stop obsessing about the meaning of the thoughts.

One final thing I find helps too - start noticing all your intrusive thoughts - you'll find that you have hundreds every day ('there's a bird in that tree... my toe itches... my mum can't cook... I want chips for dinner... etc etc) that don't bother you at all. I find this helps to put the ones that currently do cause you anxiety into context

Good luck

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