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Something to keep in mind


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Hi guys :)

These are just a few things I’ve been thinking that I would like to share with you guys:

I just want to send a huge hug :hug: to all the people that is suffering this tough mental illness called OCD.

Remember that just because you think something, doesn't make it true. Just because OCD says something, doesn’t make it true.

Let's choice not to listen to our OCD. OCD is just a big fat liar, we have nothing to lose if we don’t listen to our OCD.

The only way to deal with OCD fear is to face it. Avoiding it prevents us from moving forward—it makes us anxious. When we can sit with our OCD fears without reacting to them, we develop an inner resilience that silences them over time. I know it is not easy but at some point we have to face our fears to start recovery.

Big HUG :hug:

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So very true Andrea. 

If we are stuck, what must we work hard NOT to do? 

Give meaning to our obsessive thoughts - that only makes them stronger. We need to learn about the cognitive side of CBT so as NOT to do this. So we see them as the falsehoods exaggerations or revulsion that they really are. 

Respond to the intrusive thoughts by carrying out compulsions. They are "fool's gold" - they appear to be helpful by "fixing" our fears, but any benefit is purely short-term, beyond which they strengthen and empower the belief in the intrusive thought. 

As Andrea highlights, we must face our fears (avoidance is an unhelpful compulsion). We can do this through structured sessions of exposure and response prevention. 

No-one will have recovered from OCD by giving belief to it, connecting with it or carrying out compulsions. 

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Big hugs back to you Andrea!! You are very right, life always involves a bit of risk and uncertainty and we have to accept. In fact, I think that some of the uncertainty is what makes life dynamic and interesting!

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19 hours ago, taurean said:

So very true Andrea. 

If we are stuck, what must we work hard NOT to do? 

Give meaning to our obsessive thoughts - that only makes them stronger. We need to learn about the cognitive side of CBT so as NOT to do this. So we see them as the falsehoods exaggerations or revulsion that they really are. 

Respond to the intrusive thoughts by carrying out compulsions. They are "fool's gold" - they appear to be helpful by "fixing" our fears, but any benefit is purely short-term, beyond which they strengthen and empower the belief in the intrusive thought. 

As Andrea highlights, we must face our fears (avoidance is an unhelpful compulsion). We can do this through structured sessions of exposure and response prevention. 

No-one will have recovered from OCD by giving belief to it, connecting with it or carrying out compulsions. 

Hi Roy :),

Loving your reply. You are so right: "No-one will have recovered from OCD by giving belief to it". This is so true.

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19 hours ago, paradoxer said:

Gracias para los abrazos - a tu tambien amiga. Yes, OCD hates nothing more than not being reacted to - or not being run away from.  

Hi paradoxer :)

Your spanish is really good :57439eb60db27_thumbup: Gracias Amigo por tus palabras (Thank you my friend for your kind words). You are so right: "OCD hates not being reacted to" 

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16 hours ago, malina said:

Big hugs back to you Andrea!! You are very right, life always involves a bit of risk and uncertainty and we have to accept. In fact, I think that some of the uncertainty is what makes life dynamic and interesting!

Hi malina :)

Let's make life a dinamic adventure :57439eb60db27_thumbup:

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5 minutes ago, Andrea said:

Hi paradoxer :)

Your spanish is really good :57439eb60db27_thumbup: Gracias Amigo por tus palabras (Thank you my friend for your kind words). You are so right: "OCD hates not being reacted to" 

Gracias para las palabras amables amiga. Pobre OCD verdad? Sin attencion es perdida! 

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18 minutes ago, paradoxer said:

Gracias para las palabras amables amiga. Pobre OCD verdad? Sin attencion es perdid'a! 

Wow paradoxer I am very impressed, your spanish is amazing! Are you bilingual ?:Spain:

I am going to reply in english, this way the rest of the members will understand the conversation.

You are right: Poor OCD, without attention is absolutely lost. We have to be very brave and ignore our OCD. This is the way to win the battle against OCD:sport_boxing:

Edited by Andrea
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I specialised in languages in my youth, and did a Linguaphone self-help Spanish course in 1971 prior to a road trip around Spain with another guy and a girl. 

Sadly, after all that time, the only thing I can now specifically remember is:

"Tiene usted dos habitaciones para la noce?" (do you have two rooms for the night?) :)

Though I could guess the meaning of perdida from its similarity to other languages. 

My main focus had been French and German, with a couple of years study of Russian thrown in. It gets tougher when you have to learn a new alphabet as well. 

But I digress. Indeed, forum rules do lay down that we conduct our conversations in English, though we very much welcome our overseas members! 

Before I came across this lovely online community in an Internet search, I was struggling with my OCD. 

I sensed I needed more than the disciplines of CBT, which I had undertaken thanks to private medical insurance funding. 

Here on the forums I could focus on getting the basics of that right, but also work with the members on identifying what other concepts were needed to get me truly on the road to recovery. 

I had four types of other thinking distortions - which needed to be challenged and overcome. 

I needed to learn mindfulness skills in order to break out of continuously-repeating intrusive thoughts in my mental chatter, and I needed to apply self-forgiveness and love, kindness. 

So my additional message to those who are struggling is to learn about CBT from the guidance on the main OCD-UK website and find a therapist or self-help. 

Don't ignore other negative thinking distortions that may be working with the OCD and also hold you back (in my case black-and-white thinking, personalising, overgeneralising and diminishing the positive were the unhelpful ones). 

Learn relaxation skills such as meditation to help relax and ease anxiety. 

And take a look at using simple mindfulness exercises to shift focus away from obsessing and carrying out compulsions, and into just the present, only in the moment - where we leave such thinking behind (though it must still be rendered benign through practising CBT). 

However bad, however crushed by OCD, we are, learning and applying such principles can make a whole lot of difference. 

When my mouse clicked on the link that led me to OCD-UK and these forums, that so very much changed my life for the better. 

We can all learn to do this, it needs no special mental skills. 

But it does need my "three graces" of patience, persistence and perseverance. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, taurean said:

I specialised in languages in my youth, and did a Linguaphone self-help Spanish course in 1971 prior to a road trip around Spain with another guy and a girl. 

Sadly, after all that time, the only thing I can now specifically remember is:

"Tiene usted dos habitaciones para la noce?" (do you have two rooms for the night?) :)

Though I could guess the meaning of perdida from its similarity to other languages. 

My main focus had been French and German, with a couple of years study of Russian thrown in. It gets tougher when you have to learn a new alphabet as well. 

But I digress. Indeed, forum rules do lay down that we conduct our conversations in English, though we very much welcome our overseas members! 

Before I came across this lovely online community in an Internet search, I was struggling with my OCD. 

I sensed I needed more than the disciplines of CBT, which I had undertaken thanks to private medical insurance funding. 

Here on the forums I could focus on getting the basics of that right, but also work with the members on identifying what other concepts were needed to get me truly on the road to recovery. 

I had four types of other thinking distortions - which needed to be challenged and overcome. 

I needed to learn mindfulness skills in order to break out of continuously-repeating intrusive thoughts in my mental chatter, and I needed to apply self-forgiveness and love, kindness. 

So my additional message to those who are struggling is to learn about CBT from the guidance on the main OCD-UK website and find a therapist or self-help. 

Don't ignore other negative thinking distortions that may be working with the OCD and also hold you back (in my case black-and-white thinking, personalising, overgeneralising and diminishing the positive were the unhelpful ones). 

Learn relaxation skills such as meditation to help relax and ease anxiety. 

And take a look at using simple mindfulness exercises to shift focus away from obsessing and carrying out compulsions, and into just the present, only in the moment - where we leave such thinking behind (though it must still be rendered benign through practising CBT). 

However bad, however crushed by OCD, we are, learning and applying such principles can make a whole lot of difference. 

When my mouse clicked on the link that led me to OCD-UK and these forums, that so very much changed my life for the better. 

We can all learn to do this, it needs no special mental skills. 

But it does need my "three graces" of patience, persistence and perseverance

Hi Roy :),

Are you saying that you know to speak 4 languages?!?!?!?! THAT IS AWESOME ROY!!!!

I found the OCD-UK website thanks to The Aviator DVD that includes the address of OCD-UK website on the DVD aditional material. I still remember that moment. It is been 10 years since then. I am so grateful for having OCD-UK in my life.

Roy you seem to know a lot about mindfulness. Could you give an example of a mindfulness exercise? I think that wouuld be really helpful for the people (including myself) that don't know about mindfulness. 

 

Edited by Andrea
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1 hour ago, Andrea said:

Are you saying that you know to speak 4 languages?!?!?!?! THAT IS AWESOME ROY!!!!

I did, but that was way back in the early 1970s. 

The French and German come back quickly when I need them and I have been to France a lot, and worked in Germany for three months. 

Working in languages was going to be my career, but instead I became an insurance broker. 

 

 

Edited by taurean
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Snowbear helped me to be able to switch into mindfulness more or less when I need to. 

Essentially, I gently but wilfully ease my mind away from what I have been thinking about, and just focus solely on what is around me. 

This could well be classic fm playing on the radio, a book, a TV show, a gentle chat with my wife or friends, or a mindfulness walk taking in just what I see and hear around me. 

On those rare occasions when an OCD intrusion threatens to stick a little, the switch to mindfulness takes my mind away from it. 

So it progressed from just being a way to ease anxiety to being a way to ease away from obsessing and carrying out compulsions. 

We need CBT to challenge, render benign, and ease down on OCD's power and frequency, but adding in mindfulness to CBT was a major game changer for me. 

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3 hours ago, Andrea said:

Wow paradoxer I am very impressed, your spanish is amazing! Are you bilingual ?:Spain:

I am going to reply in english, this way the rest of the members will understand the conversation.

You are right: Poor OCD, without attention is absolutely lost. We have to be very brave and ignore our OCD. This is the way to win the battle against OCD:sport_boxing:

Cheers Andrea, your English is very good. My conversational Spanish isn't bad, and I guess I speak low-intermediate Japanese. Anyway, in any language, we've got to put this inane disorder on the run!

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14 hours ago, taurean said:

Snowbear helped me to be able to switch into mindfulness more or less when I need to. 

Essentially, I gently but wilfully ease my mind away from what I have been thinking about, and just focus solely on what is around me. 

This could well be classic fm playing on the radio, a book, a TV show, a gentle chat with my wife or friends, or a mindfulness walk taking in just what I see and hear around me. 

On those rare occasions when an OCD intrusion threatens to stick a little, the switch to mindfulness takes my mind away from it. 

So it progressed from just being a way to ease anxiety to being a way to ease away from obsessing and carrying out compulsions. 

We need CBT to challenge, render benign, and ease down on OCD's power and frequency, but adding in mindfulness to CBT was a major game changer for me. 

Thank you very much Roy for taking the time to reply in a so informative way :thumbup:

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14 hours ago, paradoxer said:

Cheers Andrea, your English is very good. My conversational Spanish isn't bad, and I guess I speak low-intermediate Japanese. Anyway, in any language, we've got to put this inane disorder on the run!

Thank you paradoxer for saying that my english is very good. Wow! japanese language seems so difficult lo learn. I agree with you: we have to fight :sport_boxing: OCD can't win!

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On 01/05/2019 at 15:04, gingerbreadgirl said:

This is a lovely positive reminder, thanks Andrea :) 

You are welcome gingerbreadgirl :) I am glad you think is a positive reminder :57439eb60db27_thumbup:

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OCD ebbs & flows with our hormones, circadian rhythms, what we eat, sleep, do. Some things mimic it, caffeine, nicotine, alcohol.  

If you can forget your OCD you’ll be in a better state. There is new research on meds that make one forget it in California. 

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Guest OCDhavenobrain

Good Handy that you are able to forget OCD in California. :)

 

I do agree with the thread and the message, it is crucial and also every sufferer who has ever lived have thought that her/his thoughts are an exception to the rule. Not taking the thoughts seriously is the key. No more what ifs and I need something more, that is just OCD, actually doing it is what is needed. 

Edited by OCDhavenobrain
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23 hours ago, Handy said:

If you can forget your OCD you’ll be in a better state. There is new research on meds that make one forget it in California. 

 

3 hours ago, OCDhavenobrain said:

Good Handy that you are able to forget OCD in California. :)

 

There is research into meds that make you forget that you have OCD? This has to be a wind up, surely! :a1_cheesygrin:

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1 hour ago, felix4 said:

 

 

There is research into meds that make you forget that you have OCD? This has to be a wind up, surely! :a1_cheesygrin:

Actually I think it was one of my first forum posts 3 years ago about a college in California paying $300 for OCD research subjects to test another use for a common drug. NHS actually uses it for  depression with success. The patient forgets why they are depressed.  But only for a few hours but enough that they can get to a better mental state. Works on OCD by the same theory. As a matter of fact it takes 20 minutes to be effective & not twelve weeks likes SSRIs. 

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