Obsessional Thoughts...

[Guest ocd13]

Hi,

I am still reading my book (the one which I posted an extract from the other day), and it got me thinking...

With OCD, our threads always contain thoughts, fears or mental images of 'negative' things. And these go on to cause anxiety, etc.

But, if it is down to there being a glitch in our brains - that ANY thought we have could be processed in the wrong way - not the content of the thought, then surely we would have the same reaction to positive thoughts??

What I mean is, we become obsessed and worry about all the negative or bad things that pop into our minds, but nobody ever mentions being obsessed about positive thoughts.

Does anybody have any thoughts on this?

Andrea :clap: :dontgetit:

[Jinky]

Hi,

I think that this could be because positive thoughts dont cause us anxiousness (if there is such a word :tongue: ) But negative thoughts can, and I think that part of OCD is that it can feed off of anxiety. I dont think positive thoughts gives OCD the fuel it needs, to keep spiking us with thoughts that make us anxious....

Hope this makes sense, just some of my thoughts....

Luv Ooba xxxx

[Guest ocd13]

Hi Ooba,

Yep that does make complete sense!! Thanks for sharing your ideas. :clap:

I just wondered because sometimes, if I feel good about something or get something into my head that I think I would enjoy, then it's like that could become an obsession as well (which I guess sometimes they do). So I guess the reason we don't care so much if we obsess about positive things which make us feel good, is because they don't cause us anxiety.

So, is it actually the glitch in our brains we need to work on? Or the anxiety itself?

Blimey no wonder scientists are only just getting to grips with the brain!! There seem to be so many avenues to explore - it's fascinating really.

[Guest waul46]

So, is it actually the glitch in our brains we need to work on? Or the anxiety itself?

I would say its the anxiety we have to learn to tolerate as the content of the thought is really meaningless! About obessing on postive things! I am quite into football, boxing and tennis and for some reason i can recall very accuratly who won what and in what year! For example i can probably name almost every fight that Lennox Lewis had in his career and which round he won even though i havent read up on it that much!

I'm trying to use this to better recall what information before exams and its working quite well! Apart from that OCD has very little positives on offer and i would rather do without it!

[Caramoole]

Ooba's quite right on this one :clap:

I used to wonder about this as well, why didn't we obsess or gain benefit from positive thoughts. I discussed it with a pyschologist and he said that it was because there was no threat to us from positive thoughts, unlike negative thoughts which kick in the Fight or Flight response and the need to protect ourself from perceived danger.

Shame it doesn't work quite the same way with positive stuff. Although some thinkers think it does to some extent, the book Think and Grow Rich (Napolean Hill) is an example of this but we need to think positive stuff consciously, rather than it being an automatic response.

[Guest Dennis912]

Hello all,

I am currently seeing a new therapist (shes great so far) anyway

she tells me to focus on the anxiety and not the OCD..

Meaning: instead of always saying "it's not me it's ocd" say, "it's just anxiety"..

she says that when you take the OCD part out it makes your mind think differently. In other words if you donot dwell on - "oh my god I have OCD" than

your brain will eventualy forget about it?? does this make sense!

I hope I explained it correctly - I see her on fridays..

Dennis..

[Guest whirlwind]

Hi ocd 13

I think you have valid point - my family have always described me as obsessional - I used to have a horse and be obssessed with dressage to the point that I trained my horse to quite a high level, rode everday and would come home to books videos go to every lecture demo I could. The good thing was i could do it all year round every day and keep my negative thoughts at bay.

Unfortunately I lost him but decided not to get another one becuase of the expense. I am now into motorcycling and again I am pretty obssesive, joined the Advanced group, taking my advanced test etc. Trouble is I dont do it much through the winter and have more time for the OCD to do its darstedly work

The only problem though is I have bad and guilty thoughts about the expense :clap:

[catherine]

My mental images/intrusive thoughts are always negative.........that's what makes them so anxiety provoking and I can't substitute a horrible image for a nice one.

But I also 'ruminate' and that can be either positive or negative. I tend to re live scenes in my head over and over but don't think of these as being the same as my intrusive thoughts.

[Guest Brainstrain]

I just wondered because sometimes, if I feel good about something or get something into my head that I think I would enjoy, then it's like that could become an obsession as well (which I guess sometimes they do)

Hi,

I totally agree with this. If I get an idea into my head that I want to do something positive I really get carried away with it. Like for instance, if I decide I am going to cook my husband a nice meal it starts of being basic, for example, I could just use up that chicken from the freezer, then before long I find myself in Tescos buying loads of stuff and finding things to decorate the table with, trying to have a bath, do my hair, finding something nice to wear, trying to make the house look pristine etc. !!! And when I am doing this it is like I am taken over by some 'force' ! For a while it takes over from everything else and is the most important thing! (Normally ends up costing a lot too unfortunately!)

I got it into my head the other day that I wanted to start a new hobby in order to not be so needy around my husband so I finally decided I should do an evening class or something to do with Drama and literally spent nearly four hours searching the internet for things I could do! Now the moment has passed and I probably won't do anything of the sort but at that moment it just seemed like a wonderful thing to do that would solve all my problems!!

Probably just sound like mad ramblings but I would be interested to hear what you think!

brainstrain :huh:

[Guest Steviemfc]

I think that it would be fair to say that we obsess about both positives and negatives, however as previously stated, when we obsess about negative/unwanted thoughts and images it causes us severe distress, fear and anxiety and we dwell on them.

With positive thoughts and images, we act on them differently and we don't dwell on them because instead of causing us distress, fear and anxiety, they give us pleasure, joy and happiness.

Did any of that make sense!

[Guest ocd13]

Hi everyone!!

Thanks so much for all your replies - it was good to hear everyone's different opinions!!

It makes so much sense to me what most of you have said; that the reason we don't react the same to our positive 'obsessions', is because they don't cause distress and anxiety like the negative obsessions do.

we need to think positive stuff consciously, rather than it being an automatic response.

Hi Caramoole - the book I'm currently reading, describes how our subconscious mind has been programmed with negative talk pretty much since we were born. A lot of the time we're not even aware of this yet society manages to programme our subconscious minds without us knowing. This is why positive thinking books, motivational conferences, etc. only have a short-term effect - because although we can consciously try and behave more positively, our subconscious is trained to work against that. Mmmm it's quite hard to explain and I'm still in the middle of reading the book, but once I've finished it, I'll be able to hopefully understand and explain more...

[Caramoole]

I understand what you're saying Andrea, we are the sum total of what we think...simply, if you don't have the thought you don't have the fear (or corresponding emotion)

All day we are programming ourselves..Next time you're fed up, try to catch what you think. It will usually be a running dialogue on the lines of 'I'm really tired, I'm fed up, can't be bothered, I'll do it tomorrow, what a pain, I need to sleep, can't be bothered, what's the point'...and so on ad infinitum. Not once or twice but over and over, hundreds of times...and yep, the mind responds faithfully to the message it's receiving :hug: We also respond subconsciously to everything we are told, hear or read about.

With OCD it is slightly different because there is a glitch in the wiring which latches on to danger messages but we can still over-lay this message with positive ones, the Re-label step, 'This is not me it's OCD' but it's not enough to say the sentence glibbly, you have to feel it, you have to challenge fearful thoughts over and over, even if you don't believe it.

[Guest ocd13]

Hi again Caramoole,

Yep everything you said there makes complete sense to me!

A part of my book that I did find informative was the following:

Behaviour - directly affected by our feelings;

Feelings - directly affected by our attitudes;

Attitudes - directly affected by our beliefs;

Beliefs - directly affected by our programming.