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How do you ignore a trigger?


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Hello. Wondering if anyone can give me some detailed advice about something  

I have contamination ocd and at the moment the trigger is worrying that me or my family will get threadworms and won’t be able to get rid of them  

here is my question - it is spread through people scratching their bottoms and then the eggs being inhaled by others. So how am I supposed to ignore this trigger if for example one of my kids has a friend over to play and I see them scratch their bottom?

i know that the effect ocd has on my life is far worse than worms but I don’t know how to respond to that trigger  

any wisdom is greatly appreciated 

 

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Hi threadworms are not too common, but they are easily treated. My grandson had them once, but with treatment they were quickly. Just wash hands after using the toilet and you will be fine. Lots of kids unfortunately scratch their bottoms. This doesn’t always mean they have worms. I am seeing a new therapist next week for contamination OCD, I really feel for you it’s horrible, we have to try and keep going. Are you having any treatment?? Take care x

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Your ocd is at play here.. you have ocd about contamination and it has switched to what if  the kids get thread worms?? Which is an ocd question try and treat all intrusive thoughts of this nature as ocd ignore the doubt and what if and refocus. Compulsion over analysisng reassurance seeking trying to find solutions to a problem that has not or may not happen

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Hopingtorecover, I would suggest you treat your theme like other themes. You could obsess about something like being near someone with the flu and then worry your family members could die from complications arising from the flu. I used to worry and obsess about various medical things and also harm coming to others. It was only when I reached the stage of being truly fed up (not just fed up but seriously fed up) with my obsessive compulsive life that I began to slowly change my responses and be willing to take the chance that what I was worrying about might come true either to me or loved ones. It's horrible to let go of your fears as you feel massive amounts of discomfort, but after years of 24/7 obsessive compulsive behaviour involving every theme imaginable and hitting rock bottom , I just decided it's now or never. I can't live like this anymore. I'm going to start taking the chance my fears could happen , and I'm going to start living a productive life instead.  Obviously this change of mindset didn't come to completion overnight , but bit by bit you can start to develop new responses to your fears. So if I would have had the fear you had about seeing a kid scratch  their bum and me and my loved ones inhaling threadworms that would never go away , i would begin to respond like " maybe we will inhale threadworms and never get rid of them". Or I would let the intrisuve thought come and go from my mind without answering it. Or i would respond  like " yep we all more than likely inhaled threadworms and will live horrible as a result".

 I realise those responses right now seem awful to consider, but they are what got me free from obsessive compulsive behaviour and back to loving life. 

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6 minutes ago, Carooba Manooba said:

Hopingtorecover, I would suggest you treat your theme like other themes. You could obsess about something like being near someone with the flu and then worry your family members could die from complications arising from the flu. I used to worry and obsess about various medical things and also harm coming to others. It was only when I reached the stage of being truly fed up (not just fed up but seriously fed up) with my obsessive compulsive life that I began to slowly change my responses and be willing to take the chance that what I was worrying about might come true either to me or loved ones. It's horrible to let go of your fears as you feel massive amounts of discomfort, but after years of 24/7 obsessive compulsive behaviour involving every theme imaginable and hitting rock bottom , I just decided it's now or never. I can't live like this anymore. I'm going to start taking the chance my fears could happen , and I'm going to start living a productive life instead.  Obviously this change of mindset didn't come to completion overnight , but bit by bit you can start to develop new responses to your fears. So if I would have had the fear you had about seeing a kid scratch  their bum and me and my loved ones inhaling threadworms that would never go away , i would begin to respond like " maybe we will inhale threadworms and never get rid of them". Or I would let the intrisuve thought come and go from my mind without answering it. Or i would respond  like " yep we all more than likely inhaled threadworms and will live horrible as a result".

 I realise those responses right now seem awful to consider, but they are what got me free from obsessive compulsive behaviour and back to loving life. 

That’s so helpful and that’s exactly where I want to be. Where I can just think “yes we might all have it forever” shrug and move on. Thank you for sharing. 

How did you get to that point? 

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You're welcome.

I got to that point after years of anxiety and subsequent depression.  Whatever activity I did , the thoughts would still be there. I never laughed.  I was in a bad place.  I couldn't go on living like I had been.  So I figured I had 2 choices. I either commit suicide.  Or I commit to changing my responses and how I go about life.  I chose the latter and was super aggressive in my approach to changing my life around.  And bit by bit there began to be more light at the end of the tunnel.   Exhausting and challenging times to let go of your fears. But worth it in the end.

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7 minutes ago, Carooba Manooba said:

You're welcome.

I got to that point after years of anxiety and subsequent depression.  Whatever activity I did , the thoughts would still be there. I never laughed.  I was in a bad place.  I couldn't go on living like I had been.  So I figured I had 2 choices. I either commit suicide.  Or I commit to changing my responses and how I go about life.  I chose the latter and was super aggressive in my approach to changing my life around.  And bit by bit there began to be more light at the end of the tunnel.   Exhausting and challenging times to let go of your fears. But worth it in the end.

Did you do it by yourself or with a therapist? Was it just a question of saying or thinking “well yes that’s a possibility” and feeling anxious and waiting until it faded?

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Hi hopingtorecover 

I don't want to muddy the waters here so feel free to ignore me. Personally I find it problematic trying to find the right way to respond to thoughts. I end up becoming somewhat obsessed (should I agree? Should I say maybe? Etc). 

For me I've found the best way is to really not engage with the thought at all even to agree with it or whatever, and the exposure is just leaving it there. So you get the thought "thread worms are a threat" - and you acknowledge that you're having a thought and you get on with your day without evaluating the content. You will feel anxious and that's OK. And the same thing if a child scratches themselves "I am having a thought that this poses a threat" and move on without evaluating the content of that thought. You want to get to the point where your brain sees the thoughts as meaningless guff and I think the best thing is to treat them as such rather than getting sucked into the content. 

Not sure if that makes any sense! 

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33 minutes ago, Hopingtorecover said:

Did you do it by yourself or with a therapist? Was it just a question of saying or thinking “well yes that’s a possibility” and feeling anxious and waiting until it faded?

I had tried various therapists and medication, but got nowhere.  When I really decided to commit to changing my responses, I did however use some of the advice from the therapists , so it's not like they didn't contribute to my recovery.    I stopped using medication after reading how important it is to feel discomfort if you want to recover.  As it was explained to me, you have to show yourself that you can handle any discomfort level.  If you take a substance to dull the discomfort, you aren't teaching yourself you will be ok no matter how horrible you feel.  You are more likely to have a lapse or relapse later in life when a stressful live event triggers discomfort - discomfort that you didn't train yourself fully to be ok handling because you dulled the chance to experience it.   I did a lot of bibliotherapy (learning from books) .  And read lots of articles. The following website and particularly the linked article with the recommended therapeutic responses are what helped me more than anything else https://www.ocdonline.com/rethinking-the-unthinkable  But as I mentioned , it's one thing to learn about what to do, it's another to be able to really put it into practice with aggressive care free responses. You have to be so fed up of things that you just are willing to take the chances. 

As gingerbreadgirl touched on above, I didn't get caught up in doing planned responses whenever I had an intrusive thought. I just used any of the recommended responses I had learned.  So sometimes I would use the "maybe such and such will happen"  , other times it would be the "letting the thoughts come and go", other times it would be "yep I'm well and truly going to have (whatever I was fearing) happen."  

Edited by Carooba Manooba
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22 minutes ago, gingerbreadgirl said:

I don't want to muddy the waters here so feel free to ignore me. Personally I find it problematic trying to find the right way to respond to thoughts. I end up becoming somewhat obsessed (should I agree? Should I say maybe? Etc). 

 

Gingerbreadgirl, the 3rd and 2nd last paragraph of page 3 of that article I linked above touches on the topic of how people start to worry about whether they are doing therapy right/responding in the right way.

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Guest OCDhavenobrain

Okey, you can't avoid triggers, or you can, but that would be a really bad thing to do. Do not go down that route, that would be my first advice.

Second, there will be anxiety when you are faced with one of your triggers, that anxiety needs to be there if you want to overcome OCD. 

Sorry for the bad news, I know that you probably want some relief in the moment but try to think about it longterm. Please take care and treat yourself good but try to be bad to the OCD.

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14 minutes ago, OCDhavenobrain said:

Okey, you can't avoid triggers, or you can, but that would be a really bad thing to do. Do not go down that route, that would be my first advice.

Second, there will be anxiety when you are faced with one of your triggers, that anxiety needs to be there if you want to overcome OCD. 

Sorry for the bad news, I know that you probably want some relief in the moment but try to think about it longterm. Please take care and treat yourself good but try to be bad to the OCD.

I think that’s really helpful. It feels like the solution to ocd is to remove all triggers, but in reality the solution is to have them and not respond. 

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Guest OCDhavenobrain
4 hours ago, Hopingtorecover said:

I think that’s really helpful. It feels like the solution to ocd is to remove all triggers, but in reality the solution is to have them and not respond. 

That is very right and a very important thing to realize, removing triggers are actually really bad. OCD will always creep back into your life.

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