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I am trying not to do compulsions but need practical tips


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So I try my best not to carry compulsions. Biggest being rumination and confession in my case. It takes a lot of effort to leave the thought to it being only thought but okay. My thoughts feel like reality. I was trying to skip office and I am always looking for being with someone (and not alone) in the past few days.

Now the thing is this - If I am alone, I start feeling I am cheating on my husband, I am harming someone (like in present tense then). After a while when I am with someone, I start feeling convinced that I did cheat, I did harm sometime back.

And then I go back to avoiding being alone. This happens so often then I start confessing and ruminating. The cycle continues..

How do you deal with this? Please help.

I read PB or DkSea's and every advise saying don't do compulsions, I did that..but I feel stuck again to an extent where I feel this is not OCD even!

Can someone please help?

I would really appreciate some practical tips/advise.

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To stop compulsions note when you are doing them, stop and refocus back to what you were doing. 

Keep doing this, or another beneficial activity each time you spot the compulsions. 

Compulsions will only make OCD stronger. 

Separate to that you need to accept that your intrusions aren't true, they are actually fabrications of OCD. 

To do this you need to go through the cognitive part of CBT to understand why this is so. Then carry out exposure and response prevention. 

Until you stop giving belief to the intrusions, and carrying out compulsions, the intrusions are going to continue. 

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As I know only too well, with OCD the main areas to focus on are our belief in the intrusions and the resultant compulsions. 

The combination of these fuels an ongoing cycle. 

If a particular med for a particular person happens to reduce the intrusions and maintain mood they may be beneficial. 

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35 minutes ago, taurean said:

As I know only too well, with OCD the main areas to focus on are our belief in the intrusions and the resultant compulsions. 

The combination of these fuels an ongoing cycle. 

If a particular med for a particular person happens to reduce the intrusions and maintain mood they may be beneficial. 

Thank you everyone. Yes the struggle is to not do the compulsions while I am having the thoughts, which I feel tempted to believe as something in reality. And then I am with someone and go back on that moment, my mind has already believed and sitting anxiously.

 

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You need to challenge your belief in the thoughts. 

Consider all the evidence why you think the thoughts may be true against the evidence why you think they might not be true and so are really the falsehoods of OCD. 

Test the evidence using behavioural experiments. 

Then you will be able to to move past that sticking point. 

 

 

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6 hours ago, Handy said:

You should also research Avoident Personality Disorder. 56% of those with OCD have it. It’s not mentioned on the forum but it’s a great thing to research. 

Brilliant! In an uncertain world of flux, Handy brings a reassuring constant. 

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11 hours ago, Handy said:

You should also research Avoident Personality Disorder. 56% of those with OCD have it.

Nope.
ONE study suggests that UP to 56% of people with OCD MAY have it.  That is not the same at all as saying 56% of people with OCD DO have it.
But setting that key detail aside, did you even look at the symptoms?  They do not match Pranjali's symptoms AT ALL.  
APD sufferers AVOID being around other people, they TRY to be alone.  Pranjali's problem is the EXACT OPPOSITE, she is avoiding BEING ALONE.
Sending an OCD sufferer down a research rabbit hole into a condition that doesn't match the symptoms is not helpful.
 

Edited by dksea
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17 hours ago, Pranjali said:

I read PB or DkSea's and every advise saying don't do compulsions, I did that..but I feel stuck again to an extent where I feel this is not OCD even!

Can someone please help?

I would really appreciate some practical tips/advise.

While the ultimate goal is to avoid doing compulsions, its important to remember you aren't going to break the cycle easily or quickly in most cases.  While its important to strive to avoid compulsions, also remember that when you do slip up, when you do give in, its not going back to square one.  Its bound to happen, none of us are perfect, and recovery doesn't require you to be perfect.  Your primary goal right now should be to work on reducing your compulsions with the ultimate end goal of stopping them, eventually.  I apologize profusely if I hadn't made that clear in my previous advice.  

There are a variety of techniques and approaches you can try to reduce symptoms rather than outright stop them completely.
For example, many people find that delaying compulsions is an achievable goal.  One technique is to try and put off doing a compulsion for 5 minutes.  Then after 5 minutes see if you can put if off another 5 minutes.  Maybe 5 is all you can manage today, or maybe you'll get to 15 and the anxiety will be just to much for you to handle, but at least you got 5/15 etc. better than doing it immediately.  Then the goal becomes to try and delay a little bit longer each time.  Sometimes maybe you won't, you had a bad day, whatever.  But the overall trend should be longer and longer delays.  Often people will find that once they are able to postpone compulsions for awhile the desire goes down and they don't have to do them at all, which is great.  But in the interim, at least you can delay it.

Another technique some people use is to set aside a specific, fixed amount of time each day for compulsions.  When you get the urge to do it during the day you remind yourself, no, not now, I'll worry later.  Then, at the appointed time (and for a set duration) you allow yourself to ruminate, or check, or whatever.  Again the goal should be to reduce how much time you are allowed to do this so eventually its little to no time at all.  Maybe at first you give yourself 30 minutes of rumination time.  After a little while you cut it down to 25 minutes, then 20, etc.  You still get some relief from anxiety by doing the compulsions but you are containing it and reducing it, its like slowly coming off a drug or slowly smoking less.  Gradual change is often easier to manage than immediate change.

A third technique, and one I've found helpful, is journaling.  I have used this in conjunction with the setting a time to do compulsion technique above.  During the time you set aside each day you write out your thoughts and worries in a journal.  I found that writing things out helped me process them differently than just going over and over them in my head.  And confessing to a journal is less troublesome than confessing to your partner, but still provides some of the relief.  I also like to note how I'm doing anxiety wise each day in the journal, just briefly and roughly, 1 out of 10 scale sort o thing.  It helps me look back and see how things are slowly improving when I  am really struggling.  Or to remind myself that things were bad before and I eventually got better, I can do that again if necessary.  Some people may keep journaling long term, I usually only do it when I was in particularly rough patches, most of the time I don't bother now.  But its up to you, so long as its limited in time (i.e. only 30 minutes a day max, etc.). Other people use a similar technique but keep brief notes throughout the day.  A quick  "its 11:39 am now.  I had an intrusive thought about X.  I'm feeling anxiety of about 7 out of 10.  I'm going to try some relaxation breathing."  thats it, just something to center them and help stay on track.

The goal of all these techniques (and others) is to help limit and gradually reduce your compulsions, but you don't have to try and stop 100% right away.  OCD recovery is a marathon, not a sprint.  As much as we'd like to get better faster, going too fast will wear you out and you'll end up worse off than if you are patient and methodical.

Anyway, I hope some of that helps.  I know how frustrated/angry/scared you are right now, do your best to be kind to yourself and patient.  There is hope.

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Thanks a lot @dksea. I will try doing these, especially the first one. But the anxiety is so soaring high that I give in and end up feeling miserable. Yes, I guess the trick is to take it slow, baby steps and small victories.

Yes, my fear is being alone because I have thoughts which are so pathetically real that I can hardly distinguish and label them as only thoughts. It is like the minute I am alone, I have everything going in my head which is saying I am cheating, I am doing some harm. And 10 minutes from then when I am with someone, I feel like I harmed or I had done something with someone. It all is real!

Is that how every sufferer feels here? The inability to just look at them as thoughts? I guess so, right? Or is this mental condition something else?

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7 hours ago, taurean said:

You need to challenge your belief in the thoughts. 

Consider all the evidence why you think the thoughts may be true against the evidence why you think they might not be true and so are really the falsehoods of OCD. 

Test the evidence using behavioural experiments. 

Then you will be able to to move past that sticking point. 

 

 

Thanks a lot @taurean for your practical advise. Yes, looking for evidence is one way yes true. 

Just one query - so when I am alone, I have everything in my feeling I am cheating and I am harming someone. When I am alone, all of those things start to feel true and real. I have two thoughts which follow:

1) if I did harm, shouldn't that person go and complain about me? if not, then shouldn't I ask him to complain and take an action against me?

2) if he and I did something, I should tell my husband about it.

I have two questions. Are both these thoughts rational? Even if you say this is OCD and it is all a lie, but how should one proceed? I am thoroughly confused..

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