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How Can We Prevent Triggers /External Issues Causing Setbacks?


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This seems a common problem, and one which has frequently set me on a rapid downward spiral - especially when I am in a very strong place with my OCD immediately before it. 

So I wondered if our wonderful forum members might pool their ideas here? 

Stress is certainly one of the causes - so it seems to follow that if we strengthen our stress-hardiness, this will be helpful. 

Learning anti-worry techniques and applying them also is likely to be helpful - so that when a worry tends to overcome us, we can calmly put things into perspective and take appropriate action. 

Laughing things off perhaps, assuming a less rigid attitude to reverses?  I learned from one of my therapists that "so what?"  interpretations are helpful in not falling down the OCD rabbithole - because when we connect with, give belief to, an OCD core belief or consequent intrusive thought, then an anxiety spiral is at risk of forming. 

It may help to consider the vicious flower diagram that represents how our OCD response builds. There is guidance on this using the search field on the main OCD-UK website. 

For me, "spoking the wheel"  of that vicious flower circle of distress is a good way to halt the spiral - stop it in its tracks. 

And a good point to do that seems to be at that place between giving meaning to an intrusion, and allowing our mind to awfulise. 

Our brain can respond in this way in milliseconds, so if we are going to overcome this we need a strategy to automatically kick in and damp down the awfulising. 

One I picked up from learned OCD-UK members has been working for me. 

It's a combination of having to mind the cognitive knowledge that my OCD core belief is false, therefore anything stemming from it is negative and untrue. 

Then, I apply a gentle but firm shift of mental focus from this issue that is threatening the damage, and into love kindness positivity and beneficial distraction. 

That now kicks in automatically when an OCD intrusion threatens to muscle in, and catastrophise. 

So there are my "starters for ten"  to the discussion :)

 

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The two big triggers for me is always stress and reading certain unpleasant articles in the news. 

I've found that reducing my stress levels helps tremendously. I use mindfulness meditation and taking lots of time to do relaxing and easy hobbies to avoid the stress. I used to spend my free time working, and though I kind of liked the work, it had an obvious effect on my stress levels. OCD symptoms would rear their head and I was too tired to apply any sensible strategy. 

The triggering news articles are still a bit of a problem. For now, I avoid reading the news (which is not ideal, but is an okay stopgap solution). 

Thanks for sharing, Taurean. Your posts are very helpful. 

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The news was always, previously, a big problem to me, linked with my harm OCD. 

I used to avoid it. I would turn the radio down at news time, not watch TV news, just read business and sport in the press. 

But I have overcome it using CBT tools - now the OCD isn't picking out, homing in on, triggers - nasty headlines, violent stories - so I can read all the newspaper, which I do daily, listen to radio news, watch TV news, and pick up news on this phone. 

Wishing you well with your ongoing efforts Publius - you will see from my experience that we can disarm those triggers, render them benign so the illness no longer focuses on them. 

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Probably an obvious one but for me triggers are correlated to where we are with our ocd. More we scratch more we get. We can't avoid them and am learning to not blame others i.e. made up kids on tv etc. It's hard for sure but even in a bland external world we'd make our own triggers in our heads in a room with no windows eventually.

I've always thought people with mental illness are focused when real life events hit us and can cope admirably as used to high anxiety. People ask me why I don't worry about money or losing job etc and I say it's because I worry about my identity, the worthiness or not of my soul, being able to walk about feeling human or sick to the core.

External life events are of course triggers but for us I think we have the normal ones of stress, exercise, diet, alcohol and drugs etc. Slippery slope that is fuelled by excess. I can't abstain from beer but we have to limit it and my wife is right that no matter the amount for me, 2 nights in a row, even 1 pint a night sends me low.

We have to allow external events to do their worst but be sure we are like end of world preppers for serious events. I have seen a man crushed under a truck, seen shooting right before me, been attacked by a knife loon and had so many bullying bosses I can't count but we deal with that **** as we know we've faced our personal hell many times.

Edited by njb
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It’s a great thread Roy, will join in soon, it’s just a little hard at the mo after the last couple of days :( but hopefully this will give me a little insight on how to overcome this issue easier. 

Thank you as always, lost :)

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8 hours ago, taurean said:

The news was always, previously, a big problem to me, linked with my harm OCD. 

I used to avoid it. I would turn the radio down at news time, not watch TV news, just read business and sport in the press. 

But I have overcome it using CBT tools - now the OCD isn't picking out, homing in on, triggers - nasty headlines, violent stories - so I can read all the newspaper, which I do daily, listen to radio news, watch TV news, and pick up news on this phone. 

Wishing you well with your ongoing efforts Publius - you will see from my experience that we can disarm those triggers, render them benign so the illness no longer focuses on them. 

I definitely need to work on this aspect. It's problematic, though, because a trigger from the news can set me off on a spiral of rumination for weeks. It's a little reassuring to know I'm not the only one though. :)

 

4 hours ago, lostinme said:

It’s a great thread Roy, will join in soon, it’s just a little hard at the mo after the last couple of days :( but hopefully this will give me a little insight on how to overcome this issue easier. 

Thank you as always, lost :)

Sorry to hear your having a tough patch, lost. I'm a lurker on this forum mostly, but many if your posts to other sufferers have been immensely comforting to me. I hope things pick up soon. 

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3 hours ago, Publius said:

Sorry to hear your having a tough patch, lost. I'm a lurker on this forum mostly, but many if your posts to other sufferers have been immensely comforting to me. I hope things pick up soon. 

Thank you Publius, this means a lot to me :) to think that some of my posts can bring comfort and help to others is great :)

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Over the two years since I started my CBT therapy I’m totally shocked that things havnt knocked me down and I havnt stayed down. I’ve faced more than my fair share of emotional stress and unpleasant life events, things that we can’t possibly control. So why have I still fought on even when things have hit me hard? Life experiences and issues are going to happen regardless whether we have OCD or not,  sadly it’s part of life. By working on our OCD and having life event issues too we also learn how to cope better at these times when they occur. Before doing CBT a knock like this could spiral out of control and continue on a downward spiral for months after. However even though it’s really tough at first and the OCD strikes straightaway going down the total negative road I can usually manage to turn things back around again in a few days, which is so much better. This is because of the cognitive side of CBT that I’ve learnt along the way.

Something occurred a couple of days ago, something I don’t want to go into. My OCD went straight into overdrive. I then literally believed that I had done the most awful, worst thing imaginable, one of my greatest fears. I went straight into black and white thinking and no grey area inbetween. I am a terrible bad person, good for nothing or no one, who couldn’t be trusted to do anything. This then spiralled from this one obsession to every other obsession, that if I’m capable of doing this one then I’m also capable of doing all the others things I think I do too. So straight away my thinking went into im guilty as charged, regardless of any evidence, facts etc. Within hours I went straight into panic mode and I was guilty as charged, even though the facts and evidence didn’t support this.

The first 24 hours was horrendous and I was totally inconsolable, crying, Im a terrible person etc. But then without realising it and with a little help from my therapist I started to remember the things my therapist has taught me during therapy.

Fact-eg: putting water in the kettle.

Evidence- what evidence do I have to support that I acted upon this thought?

Fact is it is just a worry, there is no supporting evidence that I did this.

I know the kind of person I am and it’s not in my nature to behave in this way.

The best thing to do is to throw yourself back into therapy ASAP and tomnot avoid doing them, otherwise this will only reinforce the belief that there is something to fear.

 

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I think your experience here posted lost is in keeping with the vicious flower process isn't it, and the mental distortions bolstering up the OCD? 

From one petal to the next, those distortions are making irrational negative giant leaps, so that it only takes a third or fourth petal to reach catastrophic thinking. 

So coming back to my earlier posting, if we can put a psychological spanner in between the petals at the start of the vicious flower, we will contain the setback, stop the cycle of distress from building. 

I think we have to work on our own vicious flower diagram - find the page from the search field on the OCD-UK website, or check the feature in "Break Free From OCD. 

What can we use to put the spanner in the OCD works at the start of this cycle of distress and stop a setback from taking place ?  Let's have some suggestions please... 

Edited by taurean
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Couple more points. 

I like to look at adverse external events as "things sent to try us" , the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune"  as referred to in Shakespeare's "To be or not to be" question from Hamlet. 

If we paraphrase them in this way, it takes emotion out of them. We are expecting, not fearing them. We believe we will handle them well. The ship of the line is primed for action, ready to do battle and deliver a broadside to stop them in their tracks. 

We can also utilise the concept that "we aren't bad, and we never were".  When we look for evidence, we are only likely to find some small contra element which the OCD is making more of - if we let it. But we do not have to. 

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