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1 hour ago, Lost_in_a_Dark_Maze said:

Thank you :)

At first I was worrying a lot and starting to 'mentally check', trying to remember if I put something in that I shouldn't, but I managed to recognise it was a compulsion and stop it.

Awesome! So empowering when we can resist that urge to do a compulsion.

Bet it feels great to get rid of some rubbish too :) 

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3 hours ago, Lost_in_a_Dark_Maze said:

Thank you. :)

Does anyone know why I always 'crash' after making progress?

Do you mean that you get exhausted after making progress or that you find it hard to continue to stand up to ocd after making progress?

I find I can usually manage to stand up to ocd for a few rounds, but if I continue to be bombarded, or if a bigger trigger comes up I end up resorting to compulsions.

I think its because I only have so much energy, so I get worn down.

I do find facing triggers tiring but the nice thing is i find if i keep facing them it no longer takes so much energy to face that particular one. In fact it eventually takes no energy because it ceases to become a trigger.

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2 hours ago, leif said:

I find I can usually manage to stand up to ocd for a few rounds, but if I continue to be bombarded, or if a bigger trigger comes up I end up resorting to compulsions.

Resorting to compulsions is the worst possible thing to do, as it doesn't fix anything. 

I suggest rather working on just noting the intrusions, however powerful, and keep otherwise busy, keep refocusing away without connecting to or giving belief to the intrusions. 

When that becomes the automatic default behaviour - instead of believing and carrying out compulsions - it will stop this slide happening :)

 

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11 hours ago, leif said:

Do you mean that you get exhausted after making progress or that you find it hard to continue to stand up to ocd after making progress?

Both, I think.

After a good day, when I feel I've made progress and am starting to see through the fog and recognise the OCD for what it is, the next day I often wake up feeling dreadful physically and back in the fog mentally. Sometimes I even get worse afterwards. For example, the last time I went out, in the summer of 2012, I went for an appointment at the optician's, to get new glasses. I actually coped quite well, doing fewer decontamination compulsions when I got back. And then I never went out again.

Since reading about people's experiences of autism, I am wondering if perhaps 'burn out' plays a part. Has anyone else on the spectrum gone through similar?

Edited by Lost_in_a_Dark_Maze
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20 hours ago, taurean said:

Resorting to compulsions is the worst possible thing to do, as it doesn't fix anything. 

yes that's always my goal to resist compulsions--just not there yet where I can always resist.

12 hours ago, Lost_in_a_Dark_Maze said:

Both, I think.

After a good day, when I feel I've made progress and am starting to see through the fog and recognise the OCD for what it is, the next day I often wake up feeling dreadful physically and back in the fog mentally. Sometimes I even get worse afterwards. For example, the last time I went out, in the summer of 2012, I went for an appointment at the optician's, to get new glasses. I actually coped quite well, doing fewer decontamination compulsions when I got back. And then I never went out again.

Since reading about people's experiences of autism, I am wondering if perhaps 'burn out' plays a part. Has anyone else on the spectrum gone through similar? 

I think it's quite common to make some progress and then to fall back a bit...but the goal should be to be able to see progress for the longer term. So not looking so much what happens day to day but more like over a month or something. That's how I look at mine anyhow. I often have setbacks here and there but as long as I'm making progress in the longer term I feel I'm on the right track

I've found I get the most success if I can follow through with approaching the ocd issue a little bit at a time. Do you work at all with a hierarchy? I find if I just start lower on the anxiety end and do exposures a little at a time it is less tiring and I get more success and the success builds on itself. The anxiety levels stay at a more manageable level too. I still fail a lot when I get surprise real life exposures, but working at that...

Really sorry to hear that you haven't been able to leave the house for a number of years--are you working with a therapist at all? I think the long term CBT approach and understanding how it works helps a lot to make longer term progress.

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