How to answer question raised by obsession.

[worriedjohn]

Hello fellow sufferers. I have a question. In my case my OCD spike comes as a question which needs answer. It is whether a past incident has happened or not. Now how can I answer this question. One way may be to answer it which "I don't know, may be or may be not". Or it may be " No it didn't happened". The third option is to not answer the question at all or refocus my attention away. I have noticed that the third option cause me most minimum rumination. Fully agreeing with obsession and assuming "no it didn't happen" also cut the rumination loop. But in that case some other thing I fear have (harm to a person ) chance of being happened. What is your tips about answering the question raised by my OCD?

Edited April 5, 2018 by worriedjohn

[mdlbrightchild]

Recovery from OCD means you simply have to accept that you don't have the answer to everything. You have to accept uncertainty, about your obsession and everything else as well.

Saying "no it didn't happen" therefore is unhelpful, you aren't going to convince your OCD and you shouldn't try. 

Saying "maybe it did and maybe it didn't" is a good response and many therapists recommend that approach, so long as you don't take it further and start performing compulsions to "figure it out".

Personally I do the third option. If a thought comes up, and I get a lot of "what ifs", I do my best to acknowledge I had the thought (so I'm not just ignoring it which isn't helpful), and then while I'm anxious because I want to analyze and figure it out, I bring my attention back to what I was doing and continue, all the while my anxiety has to be put on the back burner and it goes away after a while because it doesn't have my full attention.

I do it this way because I want to treat my OCD like any other thought that pops into my head unwanted. I don't give these thoughts any attention, so why should I do any different to OCD thoughts?

Either of those two choices will work, it just depends on which one works best for you. 

[worriedjohn]

Thanks for your reply. Anybody else has any opinion?

[worriedjohn]

22 hours ago, mdlbrightchild said:

Saying "no it didn't happen" therefore is unhelpful, you aren't going to convince your OCD and you shouldn't try. 

 

In my case, the fear is that it didn't happen. So when I say it didn't happen, I am fully agreeing with obsession and I have no chance to ruminate.

[PolarBear]

You need to get into the mindset where you don't have to answer these questions at all. You are under no obligation to answer them.

[mdlbrightchild]

2 hours ago, worriedjohn said:

In my case, the fear is that it didn't happen. So when I say it didn't happen, I am fully agreeing with obsession and I have no chance to ruminate.

Either way it's a statement of certainty and you want to stay away from those. You want to accept uncertainty, that is the only way to recover. I would still go with one of the other options. Stick with "maybe I did, I'm not sure and that's okay", or simply disregard the question entirely and bring your mind back to your current situation or activity. 

That's not to say quickly distract yourself and ignore the thought in order to get relief, just push it to the back of your mind where you can still feel the doubt and the questions, but you aren't giving them any focus.

[paradoxer]

Best response? Don't engage with the question. 

[worriedjohn]

12 hours ago, paradoxer said:

Best response? Don't engage with the question. 

Don't engaging with question is tough as it creates immense anxiety and a feeling that something is not fixed which needs to be.

[PolarBear]

That's the nature of the beast. The anxiety will dissipate as you get on with your day without resorting to compulsions.

[paradoxer]

On 4/7/2018 at 07:54, worriedjohn said:

Don't engaging with question is tough as it creates immense anxiety and a feeling that something is not fixed which needs to be.

How you feel doesn't matter (it sounds callous, but it's not) - if you want to beat OCD you have to be prepared to feel bad - in order to feel good.