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Let's Believe, And Impliment, What We Learn Here


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My wife and I just watched a historical documentary with several gruesome segments, and my wife kept looking at me to see if I was going to switch it off. 

She knows, as I do, that three years ago I could no way have carried on watching that programme, my harm OCD would have been triggered. 

But I was fine, it didn't bother me - it hardly registered on the trigger "Richter scale" and the images and words didn't stick. 

Why? 

Because I have worked hard to put into practice what I have been taught in CBT. 

I uncovered the false core belief of my OCD. I laid bare how it works in my case. 

I learned not to believe its intrusions, not to connect with them and calmly to refocus. And not practise avoidance. 

Separately I worked the necessary exposure and response prevention until my behavioural anxiety response evaporated. 

And I shifted my thinking out of obsessing and carrying out resultant compulsions and gently into the present, in that part of the brain where we just "be", in the present in the moment. 

And, since I recognised the OCD thoughts as attributable to OCD not me, and that they said nothing about me as a person, I lost feelings of guilt and applied self-love and kindness instead. 

I believe that if more of us made the effort towards the thinking and behavioural changes made possible by these elements of CBT, then many more of us will be able to break free from the agonising chains and rules of OCD. 

We have to believe what we are being told to do, we have to stop believing what the OCD tells us, we have to keep working away at the changes and just treat setbacks as mere blips. 

Remember, to everyone else our OCD worries and fears are worthless nonsense on which they would spend no time at all. 

CBT helps us on the path towards that enlightenment. 

All the best everyone, we can do this. 

Roy 

Edited by taurean
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Top post here by Roy and I think it really gets to the heart of the matter. Essentially, what’s been said is the very key to getting on with OCD. How you do that varies so, for example, mindfulness is a great way through which you focus on being in that part of your mind when you just be. The key is to recognising that obsessions you are having as just that. Obsessive thoughts. It’s just the OCD and you gently have to ease that away. Easier said than done. But Roy, bless you and thank you for sharing!

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The truth is that we are not going to get better by carrying on doing the same old things - intrusion, what ifs, try and fix with a compulsion, resultant anxiety, plus the intrusive thought and its underlying OCD core belief made stronger. 

That's what we refer to as the "vicious flower" representation of our OCD - a repeating circle of distress. 

We must break that cycle, remove the strength given to the OCD by believing and connecting with it, before we will start to get better. 

And if we follow the simple CBT guide principles we can do this, we really can. 

The mindfulness element added to the CBT really works for me. It centres my mind in the present in the moment - away from that part of the brain (the active "doing" part) where all the obsessing, and carrying out of compulsions, takes place. 

When we reach the dizzy heights of tasting this success in the rarefied air of the road to recovery, it's very sweet. 

More of us can taste this success if they will follow these guidelines. They can work wonders. 

Edited by taurean
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Glad to help leif. 

It's the basics that work the magic, if we believe and find that inner strength - and we all have it - to resist the power of the OCD, so gradually weakening it. 

These essential elements of CBT really work; we have to believe, impliment and keep going with them. 

We will then cross a "gain line", where the power of the OCD starts to fade, and our regain of control of our thoughts and feelings strengthens. 

I believe many more of us will make that transition, cross that gain line, if they start to make the necessary thinking and behavioural changes. 

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Going back several years I was stuck. When I got into an episode of OCD it was perpetuated by  concurrent constantly-repeating intrusive thoughts - as if my mind was running a repeating photographic memory. 

None of my previous therapists or psychiatrists had found a way to stop these looping repetitive thoughts, and thus help shut down an episode of OCD. 

CBT alone just didn't do this. 

But a combination of a particular way to induce the mindful state, along with some self-love and kindness, which took the sting out of the harm thoughts, did do the trick. 

I asked for  specific help in the members area of the forum, received it, believed it and implimented it. 

Bingo. The solution I had been searching for for some years - since these episodes started to lengthen - was found :)

And some of the best therapeutic minds in the business, in privately-funded CBT - hadn't found the solution. 

Small wonder then that I consider OCD-UK, its forums and its members as the "bees knees" on OCD! 

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Taking a look around the boards in the last several days brings home to me the difficulty folk are having in not listening to what their own brains are telling them. 

Which of course  plays into the hands of the OCD and makes it such a difficult adversary. 

How good it is that sufferers can come here and at least find out what they need to do on a free to air basis - at least that way having the opportunity to accept and Impliment the essentials of what they need to do, and this can take as long as it takes without time or financial constraints. 

If they can get one to one, or even group, CBT from a specialist OCD clinical psychologist so much the better of course. But the hard personal work may still be needed well beyond the end of the sessions. 

Edited by taurean
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On 28/03/2019 at 19:40, taurean said:

And, since I recognised the OCD thoughts as attributable to OCD not me, and that they said nothing about me as a person, I lost feelings of guilt and applied self-love and kindness instead. 

That's an interesting way of looking at it. I will consider this. I think that my thoughts are here because of my current suboptimal life situation, and my past traumas. I attribute my mind malfunctions to my history. It sounds useful to have a little more distance - to attribute thoughts to a mind malfunction, which is not me. 

I guess I believe that my mind malfunctions do say something about me as a person - it's part of my life experience, even my identity, over time. I try to 'own it'. I'd like to be more like you, and not think it says something about me as a person.

 

1 hour ago, taurean said:

How good it is that sufferers can come here and at least find out what they need to do on a free to air basis - at least that way having the opportunity to accept and Impliment the essentials of what they need to do, and this can take as long as it takes without time or financial constraints. 

If they can get one to one, or even group, CBT from a specialist OCD clinical psychologist so much the better of course. But the hard personal work may still be needed well beyond the end of the sessions. 

Really well said. I am in therapy but it's not for OCD - I have other bigger problems than having the mild OCD I have. I am going to try out using this forum a bit more to work things out, in the absence of full support for my OCD.

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