Harming others

[PolarBear]

On 30/04/2020 at 04:09, PinkPrincess1981 said:

Caramoole can I ask, if you start resisting the compulsion to ruminate will you eventually get to a place where you will see that the thoughts are nonsense?  I can't bear the thought of always wondering if they might be true. 

What I have found is that you can reach a point where you simply don't care one way or the other, where not knowing is an okay place to be.

On one big level, OCD is a search for certainty. Recovery includes being okay with being uncertain. 

[PinkPrincess1981]

1 hour ago, PolarBear said:

What I have found is that you can reach a point where you simply don't care one way or the other, where not knowing is an okay place to be.

On one big level, OCD is a search for certainty. Recovery includes being okay with being uncertain. 

How do you get to that place? Is it just not giving the thoughts your attention and not ruminating?

[ecomum]

That's the big question.

Logic would say take a leap of faith ,get busy etc. Use CBT techniques.

Also if we go  on the proviso that it is not true ,looking at at what has caused us to get into this frame of mind, stress etc. use relapse prevention plan to prevent getting to that point.

However having said all that, when you think this is the one time you have harmed someone it is not that easy.

Getting busy is the only thing that helped me ( other than meds) . I'd been in bed for days unable to function frozen by fear. My husband said let's give the kitchen a big clean. It was so hard to get up and do it but once I had my thoughts started to loose power and I began to care less and less until I got to that point.

Going back to my burglar analysis , I am using all this lockdown  time ( I have 5 children - now in 20s and teens and full time job, so never had much head space ) to try and get to the root of my problem. If I had been burgled or indeed run over then I would probably fear those things more than I do. Something has happened to make me fear making a mistake and harming someone. When I was a kid my parents were very unforgiving of mistakes. Not in a physical way or anything.but if you made a mistake it was the topic of conversation for a long time and kind of became one of your traits.my mum has this thing where she has to say things . So if she thinks something she can't not say it out loud.so everytime we visited or bumped into someone new she would have to tell them the mistake , to sort of get it out the way so she could relax. Anyway this among other things has lead to my fear of making a mistake. My therapist told me to go back to myself as a child and talk to her. I have also read 're wire your anxious brain'. I'm going to explore all of these things and try and nail it so I can be as relaxed about this as I am about everything else.

Sorry this is so long, it's kind of a progress report but also thought it might help someone else.

[PinkPrincess1981]

I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos by sufferers and ex-sufferers which I find helpful. Chrissie Hodges has some really good insights.  I just find it hard taking that initial leap of faith - my brain keeps saying "well what if this is the one time it's not OCD and it is true?" and I find it hard to let go.