Probability

[taurean]

To those of us who are dealing well with our OCD, using probability will have led to this success if part of our issue was the  demand for certainty. 

We can't beat such an aspect of OCD by believing what the OCD is saying, nor by carrying out compulsions. 

But we can beat it by teaching ourselves to accept probability instead. 

If everyone else is telling you it looks like OCD, and you just have a feeling that, however small the possibility, it might not be - it just could be true, and it's just too important to dismiss - what do you do? 

You disregard that feeling and go with the probability that what everyone else is telling you is true. 

And when you keep on doing that, your reward will be less intrusions of less power, until you reach a point where, if they do occasionally return, you can effortlessly just ease them away. 

And that's the wonder of accepting probability, and refusing to believe OCD. 

[KaKop]

@taurean What is your recommendation in the following cases:

• Other people consider the probability as - let's say 50:50 - but their recommendation is to wait until it occurs because it is not clear when this will be. 
• What if the other's opinions is contradicting - some concur some negate that a feared event could come true.

Oliver

[taurean]

Feared events may come true. If they didn't no-one would ever have bothered to buy the insurance I sold in my career

The difference is that everybody knows and understands that fires may occur, terrorists may strike, accidents may happen, storms rage floods result. There is no doubt, no lack of certainty - people understand they can manage minimise and offload some of that risk. 

We can obsess then carry out compulsions leading to disorder (OCD) about anything. 

But the common areas we see time and time again on the forum are easily recognisable (at least to others) as OCD because they follow a typical pattern - falsehood, exaggeration (often of minimal risk) or revulsion. 

So what is your particular fear, and was there a "seeding" event that originally caused this fear and it now repeats obsessively? Look for repeating obsessional thinking, trying to resolve the fear by carrying out compulsions, and distress such as anxiety, depression. 

[dksea]

@KaKop - Taureans reply is excellent, so definitely take in what he has to say here.  Just a few thoughts to add:
 

15 hours ago, KaKop said:

Other people consider the probability as - let's say 50:50 - but their recommendation is to wait until it occurs because it is not clear when this will be. 

People very seldom consider specific odds, its generally a very vague categorization (almost never, rarely, occasionally, often, almost always, etc.). I would try not to get too hung up on the specific numbers, and focus on the generalities.  "But what if I left the door open and the heater on! A cat might get in, knock the book off the table, which will fall next to the heater, catch on fire and burn my house down".  You don't need to consider the exact probabilities for each event, you can simply categorize it as something extremely unlikely and go with that.

 

15 hours ago, KaKop said:

What if the other's opinions is contradicting - some concur some negate that a feared event could come true.

As Taurean said, feared events can and do come true.  People do have heart attacks.  People do get robbed.  The idea is to frame your responses to these possibilities in a way thats in a reasonable fashion.  In software development we generally consider two factors when decide whether to fix a bug or not.
Severity:  How bad is the impact of this thing DOES happen
Frequency:  How often does this thing tend to occur.
A very rare, but very severe bug (lets say if you enter 200 commands in a specific order it will erase your bank account) you might want to spend a little more time on.
A totally common, but completely minor bog (every time you click on a link the upper left pixel on your screen turns pink for 1 nano-second, is probably not worth worrying about.

So when you are trying to decide how to react consider that as well.  How likely is this? If it does happen how bad will it probably be.  In most cases the answer is going to be its not likely and it won't be the end of the world if it happens.