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What strategies have best worked for you?


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Hello there,

Me again. So I have decided to take a running sweep at things. I figure from all my therapist sessions that while my therapist is a good guy, I am pretty confident now mind wise that the only way that I am going to accomplish this thing is by myself.

So this is where I need your help. I think my main two things are contamination and checking although I have suffered equally with moral OCD and rumination. I need to get a plan that works for me and I am willing to try different things that may work. I am so fed up and tired from all of this stuff, I am actually scared that I am going to ruin my Christmas break through all the OCD madness that has been running wild these past few weeks. And if anything is true, I really do need to be able to rest this holiday. Otherwise, I will eventually burn out. 

So what sort of things do you think I should try that have worked for you? I have tried the hierarchical plan of rating things based on what freaks me out most and avoiding the compulsion but the problem I find with them is that there is never a situation where that is all-encompassing. Essentially, for every 20 I write down, I can think of 40 more. Is that the only way for success? any advice would be lovingly accepted.

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It's really very simple. Three words:

STOP  YOUR  COMPULSIONS

Yeah, there's the cognitive side, which is very helpful. And there's ERP, which really puts OCD in its place. But the lion's share of the work is stopping your compulsions.

You already know what most of your compulsions are. Figure them out, write them out and start with the stopping.

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Hi Dave - Your brain is locked into an aethos of creating triggers around your obsessions. I identify with that from  a slightly different take. . When I got into an episode of OCD, my brain would suck out triggers that had previously bugged me in the past, then roll them out again :(

How did I overcome this?  I learned not to give belief to the original underlying OCD core beliefs of each theme (in my case harm and checking) by working hard on the cognitive side of things - so I could identify that underlying core belief and see why it was actually false, or exaggeration of minimum threat (there is a third type in OCD - revulsion- which didn't apply to me but applies to some contamination themes or just things like vomit).

Once I could really see the obsessions in the same way as a non-sufferer, I could then tackle the compulsions much easier - because I then saw how the compulsions solved nothing and actually strengthened my belief in the obsessional thoughts and resultant triggers, and added attempted restrictive rules to my life - e,g, fear of going out in case I came across adverts on a bus, or posters, for what I deemed violent films or TV programmes. And I would avoid newspapers in case headlines grabbed my attention and constantly whirred around in my mental chatter. 

And I began to be able to set   the unwanted "scanner" in my brain's switch to off. That scanner stopped searching for these adverts and posters, and I no longer focused on them or gave them a meaning in tandem with that OCD core belief.

Result - no , or very infrequent, intrusions. And when they did come, I was able to gently ease them away. And no compulsions, and no anxiety and mental distress (the disorder part of the OCD)

You might say "but they seem so real" or "I need to be 100% certain that they aren't true". But that is how OCD works and how it causes so much damage. Learn to give the lie to it through CBT, accept the probability not the certainty (which can't be had)  that it is just OCD - and you can get better.

Here is another powerful statement to go with PolarBear's. To a non-sufferer- or a non-sufferer from our own particular themes of OCD - OCD core beliefs and resultant triggers are simply worthless nonsense. When we have worked through our therapy and can see that too, we will be cured - or at the least, be managing the illness and better in control.  

 

 

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Thank you for spelling it out for me guys. I am going to try more and more of these cognitive behavioural experiments but I’m not sure If I like the idea of ERP more because it’s more full on. I’m not sure if I can do something that is so gradual in such that I think it will give me a reason to a cop out. 

I think my main and significant concern however is my brother. I feel in somewhat of a dark place about it because it is pretty damn difficult. The thing is this. I don’t know how I am ever going to effectively deal with with my OCD as long as my brother is the way he is i.e. autistic. Because I realise that I’m far out on the proverbial left with these things but he is so far on the other side. I find it hard to get my head around. For example, he doesn’t aim in the toilet and pees around everywhere. How am I to feel comfortable in ordinary environments when he is providing disgusting ones? My parents accept it - they just clean it up and I have no qualms with that. Sometimes I feel though like it’s unfair on me. But I know that’s selfish because he’s disabled and everything and that makes me a jerk and I get that. 

With the Christmas period at hand, I find it hard to get filled with the merriment. It will just be a struggle because I will be faced with the same battles every single day and the same barriers. In a way, I feel like my only option is to drop my standards below what is acceptable standards for most normal people just to not be a complete mental wreck and that’s pretty darn sad in my book. As such, everything I own and have earned has to be subjected to that sort of situation. It just seems to make it all seem pointless and a waste of time.  What is worse is that I know that I can never really bring it up with my family because they will never understand or say that it is my OCD being unreasonable. And yes, to a degree, I suppose that is true. But shouldn’t I be given a bit of time to get better for me?

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Hi dave

I'm sorry you're having to deal with this - but actually what you say about having to "drop your standards" is a great strategy against ocd.  Most people when treating  ocd have to go above and beyond what normal people would do. It puts ocd firmly in its place. So maybe you could think about it another way as being a good thing? 

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Dave, I understand what you are saying about having to drop your standards. What you have to understand is that your 'standards' are way, way out there. Think about your parents and how they deal with your brother's challenges. Do they go all out, wiping and cleaning everything just because your brother touched something or may have touched something? Of course not. But why? Are their standards so low as to make them slobs? Or is it a case that they have reasonable standards and simply aren't concerned about some phantom contamination -- something that only seems to be a problem for you (oh, and about 50 million other OCD sufferers!)

I don't really think of this situation as one where you have to lower your standards. Those standards shouldn't exist in the first place. You are fighting the risk of contamination, but that contamination simply doesn't exist. That's something you have to get your head around. All those thousands of times that your mind has screamed at you that something is contaminated and it's a BIG EMERGENCY! were all lies. Every single last one. It's a fault in your brain, and although it is not so easy to directly fix the fault, you can become aware of the lies and change the way you react to them.

I know you clean your personal stuff, sometimes relentlessly. But really, does your brother pee on your phone or other items constituting your stuff? I suspect not. No, OCD wants you to think your brother's pee is radioactive and will cause your skin to slough off if you don't decontaminate everything you touch after just seeing pee on the floor, but that right there is one big lie. You can choose to not listen to those thoughts and chill out when it comes to compulsions. Nothing bad will happen if you don't do your compulsions. Yes, you'll have the feeling your stuff is contaminated, but that will pass, in time. It's just a feeling and they too are lies.

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21 hours ago, PolarBear said:

Dave, I understand what you are saying about having to drop your standards. What you have to understand is that your 'standards' are way, way out there. Think about your parents and how they deal with your brother's challenges. Do they go all out, wiping and cleaning everything just because your brother touched something or may have touched something? Of course not. But why? Are their standards so low as to make them slobs? Or is it a case that they have reasonable standards and simply aren't concerned about some phantom contamination -- something that only seems to be a problem for you (oh, and about 50 million other OCD sufferers!)

I don't really think of this situation as one where you have to lower your standards. Those standards shouldn't exist in the first place. You are fighting the risk of contamination, but that contamination simply doesn't exist. That's something you have to get your head around. All those thousands of times that your mind has screamed at you that something is contaminated and it's a BIG EMERGENCY! were all lies. Every single last one. It's a fault in your brain, and although it is not so easy to directly fix the fault, you can become aware of the lies and change the way you react to them.

I know you clean your personal stuff, sometimes relentlessly. But really, does your brother pee on your phone or other items constituting your stuff? I suspect not. No, OCD wants you to think your brother's pee is radioactive and will cause your skin to slough off if you don't decontaminate everything you touch after just seeing pee on the floor, but that right there is one big lie. You can choose to not listen to those thoughts and chill out when it comes to compulsions. Nothing bad will happen if you don't do your compulsions. Yes, you'll have the feeling your stuff is contaminated, but that will pass, in time. It's just a feeling and they too are lies.

Thank you Polar Bear. That does help. Does that mean though that a little bit of urine means absolutely nothing however? Or just that the contamination isn’t spreading as much as I think? Or both?

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