Uncertain about how to be uncertain & recovery is becoming confusing

[saddaniels]

Also, I keep thinking about all or nothing thinking.

say with the zoom on my tv

i like all of my tv screen showing & would never willingly choose to have my tv screen zoomed in because that would cut off bits of the screen.

so I'm applying all or nothing thinking here. I should be comfortable with zooming my tv in a bit according to the all or nothing technique.

and yes, I acknowledge my ocd has nothing to do with tv settings right now, but in the future if it did, I would need to habituate to the zoom due to the all or nothing technique. 

My logic is even if I don't have ocd around something at the moment, in the future if I did, I would be asked to habituate to things being off from how I like anyway, so why not start now?

its a mess. All of it. And right now, it's at the forefront of my mind all of the time.

the therapy tools that were supposed to help me recover from ocd are doing anything but. 

 

[taurean]

Daniels 

You simply need to ease away from all this analysing of what should and shouldn't work, and practice what everyone else does. 

Stopping ruminating. 

This whole thread is stuffed to the gills full of ruminations.

Forget what may or may not happen in the future. 

Watch your TV as it is meant to be watched, on settings you like. 

Forget the ifs and maybes and seize the is-s.

Let's see you wrap up this thread with positive intent. At the moment it is simply an instrument of your constant ruminations, and ignoring the wise words you have received. 

[taurean]

Ruminating is going over a thought in your head, again and again, and not getting anywhere with it. No solution or answer is found. It only leads to more ruminating.

This is what PolarBear said on another thread. 

Can you apply that to this thread, and see that this is exactly what you are doing Daniels? 

 

[taurean]

And here is what Paradoxer said on another thread 

Ruminating is nothing but sustenance for the disorder - but without vigilance - so easy to slip into. 

[saddaniels]

Yes, I acknowledge ruminating is happening. However, Im also aware that IF my intrusive thoughts latch on to TV settings again, I should be asked to habituate to settings being off from how I want them. Yes, right now, I don't need to do that. But if my OCD was centered around that, I would be asked to habituate to settings I don't like.

My confusion is at a large trying to understand why, just because I am sick with a mental illness, that'd I'd be asked to habituate to settings I don't like.

None of it adds up. Exposures don't add up because in the real world, human beings do things the way they like to do things. They're not going to habituate to settings the don't like. Why should a person with OCD have to do that? How we not human too?

Until I understand the purpose of exposures, this ruminating will nost likely never stop.

You can't just ignore the fact that I was asked to habituate to settings being off in the past & now say I don't need to habituate to them anymore. Can you see the argument I'm trying to make?

[taurean]

If it doesn't add up, how does ruminating, which goes round in circles and solves nothing, help? 

People that improve their dealing with OCD learn to live with uncertainty and accept things they don't understand. 

To join that happy band, you know what you need to do. 

[PolarBear]

sad, your recent posts are all ruminating and that's what you need to work on stopping. We've told you what to do, dozens of times. You've gone off and obviously you're ruminating like crazy and you came back here and wrote down your ruminations -- what's going through your mind lately. We aren't going to discuss with you about TV settings because that is what your OCD is about and you are ruminating over it.

This is not going to happen overnight. It is going to take time to stop this. Every day you need to wake up and make a commitment that you are going to try your very best to stay away from the ruminating. When you feel yourself slipping into ruminating, you need to stop, then shift your focus onto something else. You have to do this every time, even if it's dozens of times a day. It's work. It's like going to a job. It's not going to be easy but practice and repetition will pay positive dividends.

[Caramoole]

12 hours ago, taurean said:

Let's see you wrap up this thread with positive intent. At the moment it is simply an instrument of your constant ruminations, and ignoring the wise words you have received. 

The thread is getting to a point where perhaps it should be closed.  At the moment it is just a vessel to enable ruminations.

[saddaniels]

I know I'm ruminating and need to stop.

I am just so afraid and on guard for any intrusive thoughts about my TV because say I get an intrusive thought that my TV is zoomed in. Well, for an exposure I would need to habitaute to my TV being zoomed in

This is hypothetical of course, but the thought of habituating to that scares me because I don't think I would be able to do it.

 

I'm going to try and stop, but I'm so lost in my thoughts. 

[PolarBear]

Deal with what's in front of you, not hypotheticals.

[saddaniels]

Yes. I just wish ERP therapy was about letting the thoughts be there without doing compulsions so much, like CBT.

The cognitive stuff resonates well with me, but then I go into doubts about exposures & why I was asked to set things off, etc.

CBT allows you to let thoughts be there without setting anything off.

I'm going to stop this ruminating the best I can. I have to believe that if I was able to get past previous themes, I can get past this one about therapy too, even though I'm all confused.

 

 

[saddaniels]

This is still so strong and it's becoming exhausting to even make through the day. I'm not sleeping & this is awful. I don't understand exposures and what they are for. I cannot accept that. Everyone else seems to know what they are for. I don't know and for that, I must be crazy.

All i want to do is live my life without checking/compulsing so much. That's all. That's all I want. And I dont think it's asking too much.

ERP asks you to set things off intentionally and I truly, truly do not understand. 

Cognitive work tells you to allow things to be without checking so much.

The two shouldnt conflict, but they do. They absolutely do.

And now I feel worthless because I don't respond well to exposures & I'm trying to make myself, but it isn't working.

I am so lost and I don't think I'll ever be able to get my mind back on track. I feel doomed & worthless because exposure therapy isn't working for me, but it saves so many other people's lives, so I feel like I'm doing something so wrong.

This is he**. My whole body feels broken.

[PolarBear]

Somewhere along the way you came to believe that ERP is the end all, be all of OCD therapy. It's just one part of a greater whole that includes the cognitive side and stopping compulsions.

Forget about ERP for now. You don't need it to move forward. You should be, right now, working on the cognitive side and stopping compulsions. That's enough work for you to do.

Learning that you don't have to do ERP to move forward is part if the cognitive side. Learning you don't have to figure out ERP to move forward is also Cognitive work.

[saddaniels]

I'm actually going to a treatment center in a couple weeks to be partially hospitalized for OCD. The program lasts from 8 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon. They are apparently one of the best places in America to get treatment. I am really scared because they primarily use ERP to treat patients. I'm thankful as well because right now my current living situation is not good. I'm not able to care for myself due to my OCD being so bad. 

I know alot of people don't get this opportunity, so I'm going to try my best to work at getting better and explain to them that ERP is the very thing I'm obsessing over itself. Do you think it would be okay to mention this to them?

[PolarBear]

Of course mention it. They must know in order to properly treat you.

[saddaniels]

On 1/18/2017 at 13:16, snowbear said:

Ignoring the thoughts and doing nothing else IS response prevention.

I am having the hardest time understanding what seems to be the simplest statement right here.

When I get an intrusive thought about ANYTHING I'm supposed to acknowledge it and let it go, right?

But it really, really confuses me when let's say I got an intrusive thought that my TV was zoomed in. According to the above mentioned statement, I should just let the thought be. That makes sense.

What confuses me is that my therapist once asked when I was obsessing about settings "would it make you anxious to physically zoom your tv in as an exposure?"

Well yea, it would have. Doing the physical exposure of zooming in my TV is not the same as sitting with the original intrusive thought that my TV may be zoomed in, correct?

I guess my question is why even do an exposure when you can just let the thought be?

Surely me therapist would've had a point of wanting to do that as an exposure, but I'm not seeing it.

 

I know this is me seeking reassurance & I know that's bad, I am just really confused of what it means to expose vs. sit with the thought. Therapy makes it out to be that they are basically the same, but using the above example, they aren't really.

I feel like I could sit with the thought of may be maybe not the TV is zoomed in way easier than actually, physically setting the TV zoomed in & then habitauting.

 

Grrr. The process shouldn't be this complicated & stressful & just so anxiety producing. Apparently other people are getting it. What am I not seeing in my logic?

Edited February 28, 2017 by saddaniels

[PolarBear]

You're stuck on the whole TV zoom thing and you shouldn't be. Your OCD right now has nothing to do with your TV so let it go and try not to ruminate over it. This is what you have to stop doing. You keep coming back to it but you have to push yourself to leave it alone.

[saddaniels]

No, I should not be stuck on it. You're right. I worry so much though that if the intrusive thought of the TV zoom thing was the reality of what I was obsessing about, that I wouldn't be able to habituate to it. The thought I could, yes, the actual act of zooming in & habitauting, no. And since I could habitaute to the thought & not the act, I feel like I would be doing something wrong.

I am so tired. Exhausted & panicked that I will never know how to handle future intrusive thoughts. It seems rational to let them be....But then freaking exposure work comes in and confuses me so much.

Exposures confuse me & they shouldn't. I don't know where I'm going wrong.

I'm trying really hard to believe that this obsession with therapy is just my OCD, but if I don't know how to do therapy properly when I get intrusive thoughts, how will I ever get better?

I'm feel like I'm going crazy. I don't know how to calm down. I need to calm down. I want my life back.

 

[PolarBear]

First off you have to quell this incessant ruminating over how to handle exposures just in case you need to do them in the future. You really need to believe that. It's not doing you any good. It's keeping you stuck.

Now in the future, if your theme shifts, we'll tackle it then. But you don't need to worry about it right now. You're putting the cart before the horse.

The other thing you need to wrap your head around is that ERP is NOT the cure for OCD. ERP should never be done on its own. There are two other critical factors that come into play with recovery and that is the cognitive side and stopping compulsions. So solely focusing on ERP is not good. 

[saddaniels]

I do feel like stopping compulsions is the most important factor. Deep down, I believe that. Also, I feel like the cognitive part of accepting that my intrusive thoughts, no matter what they be (TV being zoomed in, settings, therapy, etc.) are really just silly thoughts. I like that. I can play with that.

But then there is exposing yourself to the thoughts. And that's when things become deadly serious in my mind. Like I must expose myself to all my thoughts someway artificially and be comfortable with the original content of the thought.

What makes me angry, even more so, is that I can see that I'm stuck. All I want to do is the first part because it clicks, but the OCD is so heavily focused on exposures that I must not dare skip those.

Part of me worries this belief has come from intense ERP treatment that I went through on its own.

[PolarBear]

Maybe it did partly but your OCD latched onto the concept of exposures amd that's what you're doing ruminating over.

Another thing is that you do NOT do exposures every time you have an intrusive thought. They don't work that way.

[saddaniels]

The ruminating has to stop. No doubt. This ridiculousness needs to end. The problem is that my brain has been so used to ruminating over this that the pull is so strong. Also, the thoughts of therapy are so strong that it sometimes confuses me as to what I should be doing. It's like real therapy vs OCDs weird warped view of therapy and the two get confusing. 

The simple approach of not ruminating becomes too much alot of the times.

[saddaniels]

4 minutes ago, PolarBear said:

 

Another thing is that you do NOT do exposures every time you have an intrusive thought. They don't work that way.

Because the original obsessive thought (ex. What if my TV is zoomed in?) is the exposure, right? And then my response is do nothing because it's a silly thought. The TV is probably not zoomed in. 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is this not the cognitive part/stopping the compulsion part?

My confusion comes when an exposure, like physically zooming the TV in comes into play during therapy.

If the original thought is supposed to be meaningless, I guess I'm confused as to why a physical exposure would be used.

It'd be harder for me to habitaute to my TV actually being zoomed in vs. just acknowledging the original intrusive thought was meaningless. Does this make sense?

Yes, OCD is not focused on this. It's focused on my therapy currently. Yes, I need to leave it alone. Questions are still raised, but I'm going to try and leave them be.

Backing away... And trying to break the pull.

 

 

[Caramoole]

18 hours ago, saddaniels said:

Backing away... And trying to break the pull.

This is what you must now work on.  There are now 9 pages of this thread and much of it is repetition, a written rumination about the problem, about your OCD.  It's no longer really working as an informative thread but one that is helping to sustain the problem.  Breaking the habit of rumination is a hard one, it will keep pulling you back in.  The urge to look at and consider the facts will be strong......but this is where you start the process.  When you feel that urge to dissect every fine detail, to try and find an answer to resolve the distress....this is where you stop and be aware of what you're doing.  Resist the urge to go over things.  Your brain will very quickly try again to slip into "thinking about it", you again remind yourself that it is OCD, that the rumination is a compulsion done to lower the anxiety and distress.  Be prepared for that anxiety as it will happen.

For starters, you could try to resist (on this thread) the need to write about TV settings or zooming or the problems with the settings.  We are aware of them and of all the problems you encounter around them, so we don't need to know those details at all anymore.....what's really happening is that "You" feel the need to write them down as part of your need to understand your current problem, try to work on not carrying out these written ruminations.  I know it's not easy but you have to try and start somewhere and then things will get easier.  Give it a go

[saddaniels]

My rumination is like wildfire. I feel like this is never going to end. I've never had an OCD theme last thing long with this much intensity. Apparantely accepting uncertainty about therapy & how to do it a correct way is too much for my brain to handle. This is awful. I feel like I'm going crazy. Now, I want to stop. Desperately. I need to stop.