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Cant get past an event. Every day its there.


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Struggling  badly at present and sliding backwards. i am finding it so hard to stick to my tecnique i had been out to every eight weeks in therapy and now back to 4 as my ocd is really strong and i feel out of control. Rummination is a constant. My ocd is attached to an event 1 year ago its stuck everyday its there.when i fight it and say this is my ocd reacting to the event and i ignore it i feel good then the i cant ignore the thoughts and relate it back to the event as part of the evidence.  The event i have wrote before was a night out drunk and having words with my cousin. Who got agressive and into my face and i cried she has been known to get physical. This triggered my ocd really bad and for a year it rarely leaves my mind i get intrusive thoughts about the event. It is really important to me to beable to stand up for myself and i do and can but the ocd is making me doubt myself and ocd has latched onto i tell myself i am a confident person and am assertive and ocd brings it back to the event as well if you are then why did you cry. Why where you afraid etc. I have had ocd for 20 years and managed to beat a theme i had for ten yrs and the other for 5 year the topics change. I have had ocd about confidence as a topic so dont want to get into that as it triggers. My therapist has been with me along time now and said it is ocd and nothing else ..she said it may be time to try erp i i do exposure as I dont avoid my cousin we talk go gym etc.  My issues is that i find it hard tonlet the situation go and the meaning ocd has attach to the event and what it says about me its making me ill.  I am so sick of the battle and wonder why do i keep picking the scab.  How do i stop relating back to the event.

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Sorry no one else has replied angels, as I had hoped they would when you messaged me, and I explained you needed to post a topic on the boards. 

So I will have a go for you. 

15 hours ago, angels said:

i do exposure as I dont avoid my cousin we talk go gym etc.

That's more not carrying out the compulsion of avoidance . It's not exposure and response prevention - your therapist is right. 

It will help you to carry out a behavioural experiment. 

For side A of the experiment  on the left side of the page you list all the evidence as to why what OCD is saying might be true. 

For side B you work out all the evidence as to why what is really happening is that you are fearing that what OCD is saying might be true. 

 

Aside from this, remember that all of us have varying levels of emotional resilience and in a conflict situation emotions will out.

Looking again at what side A of the experiment shows, remember that this disorder may challenge our true core values and allege that we acted differently.

So when you then come to go into some sessions of ERP on this event, find a calm quiet place and bring up the event in mental focus, let it out bring it on and make a note of how much anxiety it evokes on a scale of 1-10.

Then consider what you have learned from the behavioural experiment, and the review of what OCD says against your true core values. Then review how your anxiety level now is. 

Then close down the session.

Next day go into the exposure again ,  but applying all that you have learned on the cognitive side of analysis. Note the level of anxiety induced.

As you repeat the ERP in different separate sessions you should find that the anxiety level continues to reduce and that the power of the intrusion regarding the event begins to ease. 

Once the anxiety level drops away and you have learned to replace the intrusion with other beneficial thinking,  you should find this obsession fading back out of focus. 

People tend to avoid carrying out the process of ERP because it invokes the obsession, brings it on, gives it attention makes us sit with it during the session. But the anxiety is only short-lived, because when the process is correctly carried out that anxiety is going to start to fade away. 

Edited by taurean
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Thank you for you reply taurean i feel so tired and emotionally drained. When i apply the tecnique of seeing all intrusive thoughts and doubts as ocd and  not my truth it makes me feel better and gives me the strenght to ignore fight back and not do other compulsions.I come back to myself again then the urge to attach meaning to the event and what it means about me is what is destroying me the thoughts and doubts are constant. I know ocd has latch to the event and if i did not have ocd it would be gone.The issue being it is a real event and telling myself this is ocd and the thoughts go but how is it this happened.reopening of the event and trying to reframe it as saying i am a confident woman and assertive like an affirmation agsinst ocd.there is plenty of evidence to prove it or i try saying crying is normal its not a weakness just because i have ocd and feel fear does not i am capable. Then i cant seem to let the importance of the situation go. Its stuck. I find it harder to ignore. I was doing really with the tecnique. But i compulsively go back over it again.  I not sure what is meant by ocd going against true core belives. Taurean. My issue is not being able to ignore the thoughts and let the situation fade. I am just so scared that my therapist is going to think i am untreatable. We had been doing really well and progressing but it never goes away all i am doing is managing it. But this week i have opened the flood gates.

Edited by angels
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There is a book called "Brainlock" that describes how in OCD the mind can keep going over and over the obsessional thought like a needle stuck in the groove of a vinyl record. 

I did some digging into this sticking of the mind, and what i found out revealed that when it occurs it can be mild, moderate or severe. In my own case it is severe - an intrusion once it's  locked into the brain's mental chatter just constantly churns over. 

Your lock seems less severe than that. But what you are doing isn't the right way to go about this. In effect you are using neutralising thoughts to counter what the OCD is saying, but that actually only strengthens the power and frequency of the OCD.

OCD works by a false exaggerated or revulsive core belief that then triggers the adverse emotional behavioural response when we give belief and connect with the intrusion. You won't get rid of it without going through the exposure and response prevention method I described. And it will help you to put down the evidence of why OCD might be  true on a piece of paper, then on the opposite side put down the arguments for it actually being OCD therefore your response is worry that it is true. 

When you do this, it "outs" the core belief of the OCD, and shows you how it is manipulating things to allege it is true. 

OCD can challenge our true core values and allege that we have acted or could act opposite to them. If we are caring it might allege we might harm. If we are heterosexual it might suggest we are gay. If we are law-abiding it might suggest we have or could act unlawfully - do you get the drift?

As I said before, no one is going to get better from OCD without going through the ERP part of CBT. This is facing out the intrusion head on, understanding that it is false exaggerated or revulsive, in a number of sessions until the anxiety drops off so too the power of the intrusion.At this point we must also learn to resist connecting with it, giving it meaning, and stop carrying out compulsions. 

The compulsive response you describe is probably partly Brainlock and partly because you describe yourself as connecting with, giving belief to the intrusion. Then carrying out the compulsion of neutralising. 

Here is an idea of how we can , once we have done the ERP, practise stopping giving belief to the intrusion then use tools to break the Brainlock of repeating thoughts.. 

Looping Thoughts

If we experience this, for me, this is an example of the brain focusing in OCD, then locking and repeating. Techniques to ease away the loop include planting new lines of thinking, prefixing – “I am having the thought that”, gently but firmly easing the mind away and into positive thoughts and love kindness. A strong distraction can also knock it off its perch.

You  are welcome to bring these ideas up with your therapist. I am a long-term sufferer myself and have had loads of professional one to one CBT and read a number of books plus been active here for 7 years. Sharing insight and knowledge learned is a wonderful way of seeing things in a different light that might result in a breakthrough. 

You should find that your therapist can help you undertake the ERP process. See if you can work out what that false, exaggerated or revulsive core belief is in your case. If not, get her to help you. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by taurean
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That's good. 

You can see what you need to do. Work through the ERP after understanding more about the cognitive side, break the compulsive urge to connect and give the OCD meaning. You can do this through gentle but firm refocus to something involved and distracting. And keep doing that - even though the mental effort will be tiring and somewhat distressing - until the refocus has more accumulated power and the compulsive urge fades. 

It's a three -pronged approach - cognitive understanding, ERP and breaking the compulsive urge and Brainlock. 

It takes time, be patient. Small steps lead to long strides. 

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