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Going back to CBT this Monday - Intense anxiety (Merged Thread)


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12 hours ago, dksea said:

If you really want to change things you should go touch the door.  You should do exactly the opposite of what OCD is telling you.  Touch the door, your life will go on.  You may suffer anxiety (probably) but you'll have taken a step towards beating OCD.
Or you can keep living by these irrational rules, still feel the anxiety AND have your life way more limited because of it.

That is true I agree.

My goal with therapy is offcourse to improve the ocd but I also want to see if I can reach my goals like flying or learning to drive. She spoke a lot about comfort zones. 

She said there is times my ocd is dormant that’s perhaps the best I can hope for? I find it hard to believe I can ever fully recover. I have been battling this for months and years now and just feel I am always going to be battling? I worry I need to stay in my comfort zone to avoid the ocd becoming any greater. 

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10 hours ago, Phil19 said:

I worry I need to stay in my comfort zone to avoid the ocd becoming any greater. 

If you want your OCD to improve you need to step OUT of your comfort zone, at least some of the time.
Staying in your comfort zone will simply fuel avoidance, a compulsion, which in turn will fuel your OCD, and your comfort zone will shrink smaller and smaller.  You've seen that already where more and more stuff around you becomes "contaminated" in your mind.  Thats not going to stop if you keep doing things the same way.  its going to stop if you start challenging the OCD.
 

10 hours ago, Phil19 said:

She said there is times my ocd is dormant that’s perhaps the best I can hope for? I find it hard to believe I can ever fully recover. I have been battling this for months and years now and just feel I am always going to be battling?

I don't know if you will ever reach a point in your life where you can completely forget that you have OCD and never think about it again for the rest of time.  I'd love to tell you you can but I just don't know.  Some people believe you can be cured from OCD, though I think the evidence is more that it is (at least for now) a chronic condition that you can reduce the symptoms of (often dramatically) and manage. 
I think you will need to battle OCD quite a bit at the beginning, thats the nature of recovery, right now you are in a bit of hole as far as OCD goes.  That said it gets easier over time, not just because you get stronger, but also because the OCD gets weaker.  Even if the OCD is never truly gone, you CAN get to the point where its nothing but an occasional nuisance, rather than a full blown disaster like it is today.  So maybe not 100% cured, but say 90% 95%?  Seems like even 10% or 20% better than where you are now would be worth it no?

 

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I am struggling with the thoughts still. I have thoughts so I avoid touching stuff around the house this is a real problem. I worry my hands touched the bin even if I never and I worry some items are dirty. I do resist it and touch stuff but still don’t touch everything.

Back to the Cbt side of things I am unsure if I can reach my goals of driving or flying. For me New York seems too much for me right now. I just can’t see myself as a regular flyer especially long haul. My therapist thinks I can reach my goals but I just don’t know if I can?

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10 hours ago, Phil19 said:

I am struggling with the thoughts still. I have thoughts so I avoid touching stuff around the house this is a real problem.

Yes, it is a real problem.  But as I said in the other thread, the problem is not that you are still having the thoughts, the problem is you are setting your goal of not having the thoughts before you can move forward.  You have to change your behavior FIRST, then, in time, the thoughts will fade.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the thoughts are not going to stop over night.  If you keep getting stuck every time you have an intrusive thought you'll remain stuck forever.
 

10 hours ago, Phil19 said:

Back to the Cbt side of things I am unsure if I can reach my goals of driving or flying. For me New York seems too much for me right now. I just can’t see myself as a regular flyer especially long haul. My therapist thinks I can reach my goals but I just don’t know if I can?

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
If you work towards recovery maybe you'll be able to achieve your travel goals, maybe you won't.
If you don't work towards recovery you probably will never reach those goals.
So if you want to reach those goals you have to start working towards them.  Even if you don't make it in the end, you'll at least be better off than you are now.

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My partner doesn’t have such goals like driving or flying. She is going a family holiday next year by plane without me but i went on many holidays down south for years she seemed to like that. I had become obsessed with big life goals past few years I have been unable to enjoy simple things like the cinema. 

But yes my partner doesn’t wanna move home, change jobs or drive right now so perhaps not everybody has life goals? Thing is I don’t know if it’s maybe human nature but anytime I mention goals people say go for it? Very few give me no reasons to do so. 

I mean i want goals but I have to be realistic I am more a homebody type for years I stayed in growing up. I use to get panic attacks just by going to the cinema which was partly why things ended with one of my ex’s. So the good news is I am not at that stage anymore at one point I couldn’t hold a job down. People mention doing things too fast? That’s possibly true. 

But i have to be realistic for me to fully travel the world would be surprising given my upbringing and how I use to be. Driving almost caused a breakdown so I believe it could be a real challenge to go back to it. Flying as I say I take a notion for it now I get the train to Europe that notion is less I was flying and training it in 2018 though. I really love Ireland though I have bigger fears of ferries than planes so it’s a real challenge to go there never mind NYC. CBT probably won’t help me overcome the fear. I mean if I could get a train to Ireland perhaps I’d visit every year but the idea of getting a flight every year guaranteed would be hard for me.

Again the good news is I can still go holidays by train I can still see nice places however seeing Europe gives me desires to see every country it’s quite addictive but sadly i am not adventurous nor am I a celeb who goes round the world so I mean how realistic is this?

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I am struggling with my parents car. Basically my green bin was outside and they parked up beside it. I know logically if it did hit the car door it can only have been the front door but I fear touching the back doors the risk is I will want to replace my wallet and door handle only these. Lately I have worried about taking my wallet some places. I mean logically my mum touched her bin and touched the door handle a few months ago I replaced the handle but not right away I waited a few days. Her bin germs are similar to the green bin. I mean I can get in there car and wash my hands at the next possible moment but I fear even hand washing won’t cure my problem and the germs could spread? 

I could go on the opposite side back door of where the bin was but I Duno. The day I got picked up it happened I touched the car door no worries went to work and continued my day but now I fear by my over thinking? 

Edited by Phil19
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3 hours ago, Phil19 said:

Also I need to add I am not going to Cbt now as it never worked and I noticed little improvement 

You have stated you are unwilling to do the things required for CBT so its unfair to say that it never worked. 
If you go to a personal trainer but decline to do the workouts they assign then the personal trainer didn't fail.
If you want to improve you have to do the hard things CBT (and we) are telling you to do.  
You continue to refuse to do most of it, or do it once or twice then declare that it didn't work.  
Recovery from OCD is a long term process, especially when you have been engaging in compulsions for so long.
The post above is more of the same of one thing we've told you you should avoid, using the forums for journaling of your anxieties.
If you are going to ignore what we say, ignore what the professionals say, then what do you hope to achieve by posting here?

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The problem is right now I believe if u touch the door handle even if I wash my hands after touching the car door I worry everything I touch is spoiled. I mean I feel the car door is like touching the bin. My therapist touched upon how if say my partner touched the bin and washed her hands that’s ok for me and fine for her to use this is true but I feel for me if I touch the handle or the bin for that matter the only way I would feel clean is to shower. I know that’s extreme as well the bin couldn’t have touched 4 handles on a car door but my ocd is in such over drive if I touch it well. I mean logically only the passenger door could have been close to the bin. The ocd will say even the back doors are dirty that’s how the ocd operates right now. 

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8 hours ago, Phil19 said:

The ocd will say even the back doors are dirty that’s how the ocd operates right now. 

The problem that is blocking your progress is not that the thoughts feel real, that you really feel like things are contaminated, thats how it feels to ALL OCD sufferers.  You aren't telling us anything we don't already know first hand.

The problem that is blocking your progress is that you refuse to make a conscious choice to act differently.  OCD recovery happens when you act how you should act if the thought wasn't real EVEN THOUGH you still feel it is real.  

My initial OCD fear was throwing up, particularly in public.  I would genuinely feel like it might happen, there were times I felt like I was on the verge of being sick.  Medication helped making it easier, but I didn't begin recovery from my OCD until I went out in public, went and did things like fly on a plane, despite the fact that I was STILL having these very real feeling thoughts.  I had to make myself do things even though I was scared to do them.  I had to MAKE myself go out of the house and to the store or to a friends house or to work even though I was feeling anxiety.  Sometimes it was minute by minute, just sitting there trying to face down the fear.  And sometimes I failed, sometimes I let the fear get the better of me and would retreat or avoid going out.  But more and more I didn't retreat, I didn't avoid.  Not because the fear stopped happening, but because I decided that I didn't want the fear to run my life.  I made a CHOICE to do things that were hard and scary and THEN they started to become less hard and less scary.  But that took time.

No, the problem is you aren't willing to do the scary things, you aren't willing to challenge your OCD, you aren't willing to take on the fear.  Until you are willing to do that you will remain stuck, your goals will remain out of reach and your life will become more and more restricted.  If you wait until the thoughts stop happening to do things you'll be waiting probably forever.  You do things and THEN the thoughts will fade, the anxiety will fade, but you have to do things WITH the anxiety first.  Its not fun, its not easy, but its necessary.

The problem is living by OCD's rules.  Doing that you'll remained trapped.  Do the opposite and you can become free again.

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I have been practicing some exposures lately anyway like when I worry the window pole is dirty I use it to try and see how stressed I get. Today I plan on touching the car door handle and I may wash my hands but will see how stressed I get. I hope if I wash my hands that’s enough I admit it’s a compulsion to wash but it’s better than avoiding the car isn’t it? My anxiety and ocd says touching the car door is like touching the bin and requires a shower but I know logically the bin couldn’t have hit all the handles.

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Today I sat on my dining room chair and my backside wasn’t clean when going to toilet it had a mark so I worry i will spread toilet germs? I know the exposure therapy will say sit in the seat I mean it has happened before but I have forgot about it? Should I sit in the seat?

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5 hours ago, PolarBear said:

What do you think?

I opted to sit in the chair tonight not happy about it but earlier today I was ready to dispose of the chair.

My ocd tonight has been obsessed about booking a flight I am still to afraid to fly?

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A bit of an issue I have is people say touch the item I worry about so I do it like say at my work they sell plumbers but if I touch one even after a hand wash that hand becomes “out of bounce” almost. I use the other hand to open door handles and so on. I’m planning on touching my parents car door which I fear but I will won’t want to touch anything properly until I shower. I’m finding that a real issue. Like I say on the chair I worried about now I think the chairs are full of poo germs? So yes I have worried all day about touching the door handle of the car that would be like imagined exposure therapy but I feel all this anxiety and if I touch an item I can’t fully accept that hand a simple hand wash isn’t always enough I mean it is for 99.9% of things I worry about expect the odd one? An example of this I refuse to touch the outside bin without showering after it. 

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I have to touch my parents car door tomorrow I admit I am terrified because even if I wash my hands my head says the handle is as dirty as the wheelie bin with toilet germs? I hoped washing my hands will help but what if it doesn’t?

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Hi Phil,

15 hours ago, Phil19 said:

I have to touch my parents car door tomorrow I admit I am terrified because even if I wash my hands my head says the handle is as dirty as the wheelie bin with toilet germs? I hoped washing my hands will help but what if it doesn’t?

Do you think it might perhaps be worth going back over some of the excellent advice you’ve been given here to help you decide how best to deal with this issue around your parent’s car door? I’m really worried when the doubt strikes you’ve fallen into the habit of immediately posting here...we need to try to help you break that loop, and begin building a bit more confidence in your own judgement with what to do, or not to do.

That’s only going to come if you give yourself a fighting chance by putting into practice the tips and suggestions you’ve been given, and start relying a little less on the community for guidance.

You can do this Phil, really you can...you have all the tools now...try when the next ‘what if’ strikes to pause and work through what you can do that will help you kick the disorder’s butt.

To begin with the urge to ask the community’s opinion will be strong, but the more you can stick with it, the easier it will become. Could you set yourself a goal to give it a go for the next day or two and see how you get on?

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Yes I did touch the car door I am sure most on here would say touch it but I forgot how I closed my front door so I went into ocd overdrive thinking I need to replace the front door handle. I’ve replaced it 3 times already. I tried to challenge the thought and say well the bin wasn’t at the back door but the ocd says it was and it’s like a fighting going on in my head? 

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My ocd has been playing up. My partner touched my phone after going to the green bin she did wash her hands but as I shower if I touch the bins I worry I need a new phone? All I can see in my head is green bin germs spreading. If she touches my clean clothes or remotes this doesn’t worry me only my phone?

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12 minutes ago, gingerbreadgirl said:

OK maybe your phone has been bin germs on it. Go ahead and use your phone as normal. 

I believe that bin needs kept apart and it’s dirtier than other bins as it had a toilet plunger in it which contaminated toilet water and I fear this is a cocktail for forever contamination? That’s what my ocd is telling me.

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Just now, Phil19 said:

I believe that bin needs kept apart and it’s dirtier than other bins as it had a toilet plunger in it which contaminated toilet water and I fear this is a cocktail for forever contamination? That’s what my ocd is telling me.

It doesn't matter what your ocd is telling you. Carry on as normal. 

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I have been obsessing over the washing machine again. A few days ago I worried there was no powder on machine but tonight my partner went to the bin, she usually washes her hands before shutting the door. The door was shut but I’ve went on a journey thinking there is green bin germs on the washing machine as I never seen her wash her hands? It’s probably not true but like the letter box my head believes it? What can I do about these worries?

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