Is it best to prepare for intrusive thoughts before they start???

[Guest lol]

As I am someone who suffers form many obbseseinal thoughts. I was wondering if is would be a good idea to prepare for new intsrusions should they arrive? Sometimes I have had warning signs that a new obsessions is going to occure, and maybe praparation would be a good idea. Then again maybe it will create new obsessions that might not have occure. I 'm sure this is something that many others have thought as well what do you think?? good idea or not???

lol

[Guest Dark Shines]

Hi :original:

It's an interesting thought, but it may be difficult to do in reality. It's hard to know exactly which way an intrusive thought will form and affect you so it could be pretty tough to fully be prepared. Might be worth a try though I guess..

Dark Shines :a1_cheesygrin:

[Northern Star]

Hi there,

I don't know if preparing for possible new intrusive thoughts might help - that's something you'd really have to discuss with your doc or mental health professional.

I too suffer from intrusive thoughts, and one of the techniques my CB therapist has given me is to prepare myself mentally before I go somewhere where I know I will get such thoughts. Eg I have a fear of harming children, so before I go out to town or the supermarket etc (ie somewhere there will likely be children around) I sit down somewhere quietly, whilst I'm calm, and prepare myself for the thoughts which I know are almost inevitable. It's a lot easier to do this beforehand, when you're nice and calm, rather than when you're in the middle of an OCD anxiety "attack".

[Guest Shar]

Hi there,

I think Northern Star is right and offers some good advice there - you can, to a certain extent, prepare for the onset of upsetting thoughts if you know what they are likely to be before hand. I'm not sure you can second-guess or predict "new obsessions" or thoughts though. Either way, I think it's probably more useful to find a way of dealing with the thoughts when they actually happen, rather than trying to pre-empt them, because let's face it, we don't always know when OCD is going to strike, do we.

Take care

Shar

[Mel1971]

hi

our psychologist has asked marc to use whats called 'anticipated anxiety' (exactly what northern star put) - if youre going to a certain place with lots of possible triggers, like shopping centre for example - marc has to think about where hes going and what could be there, and if he feels anxiety, keep thinking about it until it lessens, then hopefully when he does go there the anxiety wont be quite so bad...

take care

Melissa xxx