The curse of the TV - been freaking out for days and am so tired

[BigDave]

Hi,

So I have been having an issue with my television that kind of started from a knock on effect of seeing some damage to my computer screen. So anyway, basically, the other day I was looking at my TV under my mobile phone light (rookie mistake I know) and I noticed smudges here and there. In a flat out panic, I got the television cleaner and cloths and desperately tried to get rid of every smudge I could. But, as I was looking at the television under the light of a mobile phone, no matter how many smudges I got out, there was always more. Just more and more and more. And here I am spending an hour cleaning a television screen over and over again to try and get to the point where it is is perfect and I am trying to tell myself that actually, ACTUALLY, it is near impossible for something to be completely immaculate, that isn't how the world works but it isn't sinking into my brain. Also, the more I try to fix it, the further away I feel from being sorted. In fact, I was close up to the TV wiping it a few minutes ago and I burped a little and I was like OH MY GOD, I have got burp on MY TV! So I ended up wiping the TV again. I avoided using any cleaner this time because that could have opened up a whole bag of worms but frankly I am in a really bad place at the moment.  I spoke to my therapist about it earlier and he spoke to me about not avoiding my fears but I am not sure how this applies to the television. I mean, surely by not avoiding them, that would mean looking at my television under a light and seeing all the blemishes and smudges and being okay with that? But I really don't want to do that. I would think that is overkill and it would be just punishing myself for no reason. So I am really not sure what he meant. But really, I don't feel that I should be that carefully assessing any screen or anything.  And isn't a burp just gas anyway? I'm hardly going to get much in the way of condensation on my TV from a burp?

 

Thanks,

David

[PolarBear]

So, at any point, did you think to yourself, "all this wiping is just nuts?" Because that's what I would hope would filter into your mind.

After all the talking with you over a fairly long period of time, did you at least consider that all that wiping and cleaning was a compulsion and that (Big Surprise) it wasn't helping?

[dksea]

2 hours ago, BigDave said:

spoke to my therapist about it earlier and he spoke to me about not avoiding my fears but I am not sure how this applies to the television. I mean, surely by not avoiding them, that would mean looking at my television under a light and seeing all the blemishes and smudges and being okay with that? But I really don't want to do that. I would think that is overkill and it would be just punishing myself for no reason. So I am really not sure what he meant.

Not avoiding your fears means you don't take steps to avoid them and if you experience them in your day to day life you don't run away.  In this particularly situation that would mean if you notice a smudge on your TV screen you do nothing about it.

Confronting your fears means actively seeking them out, and would be the next step up.  Yes it means putting yourself in a situation to intentionally feel anxiety, but it is not overkill and it is not punishing yourself, it is training yourself to realize that the anxiety you feel is not tied to actual reality.  If you can force yourself to look at the smudges on your tv AND do nothing, just sit with the anxiety and wait for it to fade, your brain will learn that there is no real reason to feel so much anxiety from tv smudges.  If you do this enough times your brain will forget to feel anxiety from that situation.  Of course you don't want to do it, but if you want to recover from OCD someday you might have to.  Just like many people don't WANT to exercise or don't WANT to eat vegetables and other healthy food, but they do because in the long run it is better for them.

Maybe you are not yet ready to confront your fears, but at the very least you should not be doing compulsions.  If you notice a few smudges on the TV the best action is to do nothing about it.  Don't wipe it, don't clean it, don't do anything.