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Uncertain about how to be uncertain & recovery is becoming confusing


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He is fixated on getting better and believing that exposures need to be done when they don't need to be. What he needs to do is put the brakes on his ruminating and accept that he can't be perfect in his recovery. He says it but doing it is another matter.

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What is certain is that for now, every variation of advice is contained within this thread.  Continued discussion is simply colluding with the doubt & need for certainty and as such, isn't helping at all.

As Snowbear suggested, it is probably better that the thread is closed and Saddaniels reconsiders the thread as a whole..it isn't helping to continue in this way.  I will leave things for now but we do need to think seriously about how much this interaction is harming rather than helping.

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I am sorry. I'm sinking underwater with anxiety, confusion & doubt. This is the worse that my OCD has ever been. I'm going to try and stop ruminating. When anything about therapy pops into my head, I'm going to try hard to stop ruminating. I want my life back. I've put such an importance on therapy & its going to be hard to get out, but I'm going to try.

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No need for apologies, OCD is a tough opponent.

Your anxiety, confusion & doubt is high because you're locked into a compulsive cycle...rumination & the need for certainty.....no different than any other type of OCD..sometimes just hard to identify or spot.

Ruminating is hard to control but with repetition, discipline & practise, we can do it.  We are the ones who maintain the internal dialogue..so we also can stop engaging with it.  It seems automatic but it's not quite.  It needs working on, repeatedly.  The urge will strike to think it through, to work it out.  That's where we stop.  You control that thought process, you can direct it, you can stop engaging.....but it will cause anxiety.  You will feel compelled to get drawn back in...you stop again, you refocus.  This will keep happening, you keep refusing to engage and refocus as best you can.  It's this need to know, to resolve, to be certain that's keeping you well & truly stuck.  Come on.....you can do this.  Let it go, it's a mirage, a falsehood :)

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The ruminating remains extremely hard to quell. My palms and feet are sweaty all day from the anxiety. Doesn't matter if I'm out & about, doing something relaxing, etc. This intrusive thoughts about doing the therapy wrong remain to be huge & scary. It sucks because I can't even sit to watch TV without feeling the awful urge to change things around/thinking if it makes me anxious to put settings off, then I should do it. What makes it even more awful is that I know whats happening inside my mind is OCD, but I haven't yet figured out how to quiet it. I want to get better, but I'm beginning to wonder if its possible at all. Perhaps the chemicals in my brain are too distorted for this ruminating to ever let up. I just want my life back. A life where I can focus on whatever I'm doing in the moment & not paying attention to pointless thoughts that are circling round & round & round.

Edited by saddaniels
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You've given it, what, a day or two? Given the severity of your current obsession, I would think it would take months for you to get to a better place, and that's following the principles of CBT, including avoiding compulsions like the plague. You can't expect a miracle in a couple of days. You have to practice not ruminating. You have to practice it every time you get the thoughts about therapy, day in and day out.

It won't work right away. You will fail miserably. But you keep going. Then one day it will work. You will quell the nonsense work going on in your head. Then you'll fail again. Then you'll win. And on and on. Slowly, but surely you get a handle on it. You get better at not ruminating. And it becomes easier.

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None of this is subsiding, in the least bit. I'm not even sure how to do therapy anymore. I'm too afraid that I'm avoiding putting my settings on something I don't like. Because for a normal person, the settings I don't like may not bother the normal person in the least bit & so something must be wrong with me for even having a preference. It goes round & round & doesn't stop. Questions like "What if settings that are 'distressing' to me are actually fine for my therapist to watch the TV on?" just keep recycling in the upstairs.

I am so afraid of my OCD & how there is something I may need to fix underneath just accepting "they may or may not be off."

What if I have a cognitive distortion when it comes to settings? What if my limits don't match up to my therapists limits? In the future when OCD latches onto something else, what if I start comparing myself to my therapists/normal people again & trying to habituate to things I don't like? What if my wants aren't valid? What if I should stick to the bare minimum when it comes to everything? What if OCD attaches onto everything in my life & I have to limit myself because of OCD?

These questions never stop & not only am I extremely anxious all the time, but I'm going into a deep state of depression where I feel like every move I make in life has to be corrected/fixed to make sure OCD isn't at bay.

The chains are heavy. This theme is terrifying. OCD knew where to hit big time. Some of my top fears, now that I think about it, are not living up to to other peoples' standards & my own OCD. Because both have really affected my life in a negative way for as long as I can remember.

Edited by saddaniels
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Once again you are using the forum to write down ruminations. I get it. I get what you're going through. But going over it in your head and coming here and writing it down to show us what's going on is not going to help you at all.

You need to focus and concentrate on not doing compulsions, chief among them ruminating. Your TV should be on normal settings and you should leave it as such, despite what OCD is telling you. There is no need for exposures. If you try your best to resist compulsions and leave your TV alone, you're doing therapy properly. It doesn't matter what OCD tells you. It lies, all the time. It does not know what is best for you.

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I know its lying right now. At least deep down, I do. The problem is, I can't figure out exactly where because there are so many specific thoughts circling round in my head. OCD just throws more evidence to convince me to give in. It feels so real. And since its throwing therapy techniques at me that OCD has warped, it feels more real. 

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12 hours ago, saddaniels said:

The problem is, I can't figure out exactly where

The answer to the problem is to resist trying to figure it out :)  Realistically, you are going to be bombarded with these thoughts, the urge to resolve them will be strong (just as someone will be overwhelmed to take a shower).  That is what OCD does.  You have to snuff out the source of the fuel you're feeding it with.....compulsions/rumination.  It's difficult, it will test you to the limit but it's that simple :(

Be aware that these doubting thoughts will strike, you will feel compelled to work them out.....DON'T, you can resist this, by being aware, being mindful you can keep guiding your mind away from these internal debates.  It has become a habit, it's what you're used to doing and now you have to retrain your brain by changing your response.

There is nothing wrong with your brain, it is not caused by a chemical imbalance.....it is a result of a chronic anxiety condition.

Don't be disheartened, you're in the midst of a battle for freedom....stick with it.

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Thought of a new way to approach things, but unsure as to if its a healthy approach to dealing with OCD.

Do what I want, like what I like, just don't go overboard with compulsively trying to fix things.

I think it should be that simple & of course the OCD part of my brain hates this, telling me that I'm only kidding myself & avoiding exposures, etc. The above approach feels right though and I want to know what you guys think.

Also, I've been thinking about techniques to delay my rumination. Say, set a time in the evening that is devoted to ruminating, maybe for 30min max? And anytime I catch myself ruminating during the day, to push it to this time. 

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Yes, I know this is what you guys have been telling me. Just trying to practice it myself. Isn't working though. Tried watching my TV the way I liked it, but immediately got a thought I needed to watch it how I didn't like. Now, I'm watching my TV how I don't like it. I'm watching it though, so I guess that's a step. Hope to eventually be able to watch it on my own terms, how I like it. The urge was too strong to set it how I didn't like due to therapy terms & my fear of messing my recovery up.

I agree as well that there is too much focus on exposures. I really wish the therapy was just response prevention instead of exposure response prevention. I feel like I could deal it if I didn't have the word exposure ingrained into my mind. Always afraid I'm avoiding something, always afraid that I need to habituate to something, like settings I don't like, etc. because in therapy, I did all of these things. Its really hard, but I'm going to try to put exposures out of my mind even though the therapy is called ERP.

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Not ruminating isn't working. I keep trying and its not working at all. I feel like I should just accept that recovery is hopeless. All day, 24/7, every second I'm ruminating over therapy. I don't want to do exposures because they make zero sense. I understand not doing compulsions, but the exposure part doesn't make any sense to me. I don't know how to correctly do ERP and until I get answers, I fear I'm never going to get better. 

I feel like a worthless human being for not being able to habituate to my settings being off from normal. My therapists reiterated that in order to get better I must expose myself to what makes me anxious & then habituate to it. Well, I can't do that. I have limits, but they didn't understand that. They kept pushing me to be anxious without explaining to me how ERP worked.

I genuinely believe that I don't deserve to live anymore because I can't habituate to my settings being off. I know it sounds dumb, but I believe it now. Apparently my therapists can habituate to settings being off, but I can't, so there is no hope to get better.

Thank you all for your feedback on this forum. You all make sense. My therapists do not. And I'm tired of being chastised by them for doing my therapy wrong. There is only so much a human can take until they completely break. Its no wonder people stray from therapy. ERP is torture. And honestly, I wish I would've never went to therapy to get help for my OCD. I would've been better off.

 

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I hate OCD. I hate it so much. I feel like I know the best approach to take, but it doesn't matter. The "what ifs" are too strong & the feel so real. I'm able to see that I'm in an OCD episode, even though I can't pinpoint where, but OCD doesn't care. OCD just makes the questions and doubt even stronger. 

If it's me who is in control, why is it so hard to just let it go. All I want is to let it go & get on with my life, but it doesn't work. The more I try to let go, the louder OCD yells at me.

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To the people who have this awful illness under control, like PolarBear, you guys are my heros. You've done something extraordinary within yourself to defeat this beast & I hope one day to be well enough that I can get back on this forum & be a help to others instead of scared ******** by this irrational disease. 

Edited by saddaniels
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Daniels 

The therapist has it wrong. Just set it how you want it, and expose to the OCD telling you it's wrong, the therapist is right etc. 

Resist changing it. Switch it off if need be. 

Make this your focus. 

I ended therapy with my first therapist because he was wrong. I carefully explained why I felt that way and we parted on good terms. 

To stop ruminating, every time gently but firmly switch your focus to something beneficial and useful. Every time. Gradually the intense pull of the OCD will ease. 

Learn mindfulness - it gets you into the here and now only. Download an easy guide to it or an app. 

Remember, your obsession is unwanted negative irrational nonsense. They usually are, they cause enormous distress over something others would simply dismiss. 

 

Edited by taurean
typo
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Look, Sad, you're going to have to make a decision here. Your therapist told you to do one thing and it's not working. It is causing you distress and anxiety. We are telling you something completely different. You start doing what we say but then you fall back and go with what your therapist says. You get stuck again. It's time to decide. Either stick with what your therapist says and stay stuck for a very long time or discard what he/she said and try our way. That's it. We can't keep on telling you a different way to get on the road to recovery if you're going to constantly revert back to something that is not working.

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Got the courage up to watch a movie on my DVD player on my TV today. Things went well for for about 5 min & then the thought of "Would it make you anxious to zoom in on your TV?" There is an option on the DVD player to zoom in. When you hit zoom, the picture zooms in a moderate amount, cutting off maybe 10% of each side of the screen. Would this make me anxious, yes? I like watching my TV with all of the picture showing. All the thoughts of "would someone else find it extraordinary to zoom in? What if it's no big deal to zoom in? What if it's OCD that I'm not comfortable zooming in? I need to zoom in & habituate."

This is all so awful. Part of me feels like all of this **** is OCD, yet would it make someone else uncomfortable to zoom in? Sure, maybe you could still watch the TV, but there would be a chunk missing once you zoomed in. Maybe it doesn't bother anyone else, but it bothers me. And if it bothers me, I need to habituate to it & desensitize myself to to the zoom

This is awful. So awful. 

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I thought that the point to behavioral therapy was to help stop compulsions and make them minimal. I didn't think I'd have to have to change what I liked/disliked/thought was reasonable to watch my TV on. What's going on here? It scares me to death that normal people may be comfortable with zooming in on their TV and I'm not. 

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I'll go as far to say that I need my TV to be on normal settings, & I cannot have the TV zoomed in. I don't want to check a million times, all I need to do is watch my TV not zoomed in. That's all I'm asking for.

I feel like if I need something, that's bad & so I need to set things off and habituate to not needing my TV to be on normal settings/not zoomed in.

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I guess I need a refresher course on what ERP is to be used for. Some people say it's used to desesentize. Some people say it's simply used to minimalize compulsions. Some people, like my therapists, say it's used to expose yourself to what makes you anxious so that thing won't bother you anymore aka having my TV zoomed in.

I can't habituate to having my TV zoomed in. I know it's off & I know that having the screen with a full picture is more reasonable/watchable than that. I'm not a rat in a lab test.

Edited by saddaniels
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20 minutes ago, saddaniels said:

Got the courage up to watch a movie on my DVD player on my TV today. Things went well for for about 5 min & then the thought of "Would it make you anxious to zoom in on your TV?" There is an option on the DVD player to zoom in. When you hit zoom, the picture zooms in a moderate amount, cutting off maybe 10% of each side of the screen. Would this make me anxious, yes? I like watching my TV with all of the picture showing. All the thoughts of "would someone else find it extraordinary to zoom in? What if it's no big deal to zoom in? What if it's OCD that I'm not comfortable zooming in? I need to zoom in & habituate."

This is all so awful. Part of me feels like all of this **** is OCD, yet would it make someone else uncomfortable to zoom in? Sure, maybe you could still watch the TV, but there would be a chunk missing once you zoomed in. Maybe it doesn't bother anyone else, but it bothers me. And if it bothers me, I need to habituate to it & desensitize myself to to the zoom

This is awful. So awful. 

No you don't. You should have resisted changing the settings and gone on to watch your movie. There was no reason to do anything else.

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