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Anyone got any quick tips?


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I’m desperate to be free of this awful condition. I feel like I can do the erp when it’s structured but not so good when it’s the everyday stuff or a surprise trigger. My mind races and I do a load of compulsions really quickly. 
 

anyone got tips of what helps in those situations? How to calm yourself down? My fear is that if I don’t act quick the ‘contamination’ spreads and I won’t be able to ‘track and neutralise’ it all. 

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ERP by definition is structured. Dealing with triggers is something a little different but hopefully you learn the right response from doing ERP repeatedly.

My snapshot idea is that when facing a trigger, stand back and take a few deep breaths. You need to step back from that initial shot of anxiety and not react to it without thinking. You need to force yourself to not react the way you normally do. It will be uncomfortable at first but will get easier over time.

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Well, some people have fears of a lot of things but it's not necessary for your heirarchy to include all of them. The hope is that you learn the right way to deal with exposures over time and then can apply that to any trigger.

If you sat down and made a big list, and thought about them, you'd probably find that you could group triggers by how much anxiety they would cause. Some would be low, some medium, some high. So pick a couple on the low end as your exposures and work on them. You don't have to do ERP for all the low ones. Once you've mastered those, pick a couple of mediums, and so on.

Does that help?

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Yeah it does. I posted the other day about going out with my therapist and I felt great after but bit fed up with myself this weekend after doing compulsions in other areas. Maybe I need to invest some time in writing a structured hierarchy. 

It’s hard realising the only way out the other side of ocd is right through the anxiety. 

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It’s very frustrating isn’t it, I really dislike myself for being like this and I don’t want to waste any more of my time and energy on it. The contamination I fear isn’t nearly as bad as living with ocd and yet that part of my brain seems so loud and powerful!

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On 03/11/2019 at 18:35, Hopingtorecover said:

My fear is that if I don’t act quick the ‘contamination’ spreads and I won’t be able to ‘track and neutralise’ it all. 

Part of recovery is going to need to involve letting the 'contamination' spread and not trying to 'track and neutralize' it all, or any of it.

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On 03/11/2019 at 01:35, Hopingtorecover said:

I feel like I can do the erp when it’s structured but not so good when it’s the everyday stuff or a surprise trigger. My mind races and I do a load of compulsions really quickly. 

I found exactly this for quite a while. I feel like the structured erp is the first step and then surprise ones are a next step...or leap.

Happily i have found myself getting better with them over time. Trusting more that the anxiety will indeed pass, that the anxiety does not indicate that there is actually any danger, being ok with just letting the anxiety be there--this is what the structured erp trains us to do and it does seem to eventually teach us that we can indeed handle anxiety, even when it comes unexpectedly. I found that handling the surprise triggers was similar to how the structured hierarchy went--first i found myself handling small surprise triggers, and it has slowly increased to bigger triggers. I still find myself doing compulsions around ones higher up on my trigger list, but i do trust that if one continues to do the CBT work, it will eventually reach all areas...

Try not to be too hard on yourself when you do slip into compulsions with the surprise ones--know that you are moving in the right direction by doing structured erp.

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Guest dimmerswitch
On 03/11/2019 at 09:35, Hopingtorecover said:

I’m desperate to be free of this awful condition. I feel like I can do the erp when it’s structured but not so good when it’s the everyday stuff or a surprise trigger. My mind races and I do a load of compulsions really quickly. 
 

anyone got tips of what helps in those situations? How to calm yourself down? My fear is that if I don’t act quick the ‘contamination’ spreads and I won’t be able to ‘track and neutralise’ it all. 

Yes. Laugh at it. Whether it’s out loud or in your head. Laugh at it. OCD can’t stand happy people, try it. It works. 

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