Back in therapy

[Ryukil]

So, I'm back in therapy. Just had my second session last Tuesday. The first week was kind of a mixed bag as far as ignoring compulsions, but this one has been better.

One of my problems is that...sometimes obsessions just seem too terrible to ignore. I have the attitude of...ok...I'll expose but not to THAT ONE, that one is awful.

My obsession/compulsion thing now is...things get "contaminated," like an account I made. I'll get a thought like...if I do this, God will punish me by making me do this terrible thing. And then I sort of nervously laugh at that thought - possibly because I know it's ridiculous.

But the fear is I'm laughing at God which means he's even more likely to make me do it. Know what I mean? 

Bleh...

Don't know what advice I'm looking for. No one's going to tell me to give into compulsions. Haha.

But has anyone had this experience? Where they feel that, ok, I can ignore this compulsion, but this particular possibility (in my case God making me harm a loved one) is too much to handle, I'm going to make a new account and contaminate with a different, less severe thought.

I really want to be done with OCD already. 

[PolarBear]

The sooner you do it, the sooner you break free.

[Ryukil]

Is it possible for the anxiety from an obsession to NEVER go away though? That's kind of my main fear, that by taking on too much I'm setting myself up for failure. 

[PolarBear]

I would say no.

However, I guarantee the anxiety and distress will stick around so long as you keep reacting badly to obsessions and doing compulsions. 

[Ryukil]

Just now, PolarBear said:

However, I guarantee the anxiety and distress will stick around so long as you keep reacting badly to obsessions and doing compulsions. 

Agreed.

[malina]

Hey @Ryukil, it's good to hear that you're back in therapy! Well done for taking the step!

3 hours ago, Ryukil said:

One of my problems is that...sometimes obsessions just seem too terrible to ignore. I have the attitude of...ok...I'll expose but not to THAT ONE, that one is awful.

I've had this same thing before, but it's the wrong attitude. If you make concessions for one exposure, soon enough there will be another that is too awful and then another and then another and, before you know it, you'll be back where you started. I really think that this is one of the reasons I had a relapse about 8 years after I got better. I managed to get by for years by not facing certain fears and by doing compulsions that became part of my daily routine. I thought I was doing okay, I rationalised that it was all fine...but at some point it wasn't. You have to tackle it now so that you can be free!

2 hours ago, Ryukil said:

Is it possible for the anxiety from an obsession to NEVER go away though? That's kind of my main fear, that by taking on too much I'm setting myself up for failure. 

You won't know unless you try. I really do understand your fears, but I think that, to get better, you have to fully commit. Don't be scared of failure, the biggest failure would be not doing it at all.

Good luck, I hope the therapy helps!

[snowbear]

On 16/01/2021 at 17:37, Ryukil said:

So, I'm back in therapy. Just had my second session last Tuesday. The first week was kind of a mixed bag as far as ignoring compulsions, but this one has been better.

One of my problems is that...sometimes obsessions just seem too terrible to ignore. I have the attitude of...ok...I'll expose but not to THAT ONE, that one is awful.

Hi Ryukil,

Good to hear you're having therapy again and that things were better after the session this week. I hope you continue to improve.

Regarding some obsessions being too terrible to ignore... I've been there, done it and got the t-shirt.   It was many years ago, but I haven't forgotten the lesson I learned, slowly and painfully, from adhering to this sort of thinking.

I used to make bargains with the universe (God, or whatever power you believe in) that I'd stop doing compulsions for some of my anxieties as long as the 'biggies' remained off limits. It was in fact just another attempt to retain control, for me to set the boundaries instead of God deciding my fate. Looking back I can see I was simply not ready to face the issues underlying my OCD and this kind of bargaining was in fact a sneaky avoidance compulsion.

There was a lot of semi-conscious thinking behind the bargaining. The things I'd labelled as too terrible to ignore went to the very core of my belief system, seemed to threaten my values to the extent I'd rather die than be that person, resisting the terribleness seemed to define me...etc.

Notice I said 'seemed to' there. In my thinking at the time it was a definite 'they DO define me, they ARE terrible' and I was unable to step back and accept that was just how things seemed at the time. A lot of cognitive therapy later I was able to put a different interpretation to those same thoughts and accept the thoughts and beliefs were making me feel that way only because of the interpretation I gave them and not because of the thoughts themselves.

My suggestion is two-fold.

1. Have a chat with your therapist about this and describe it exactly as you have here. Discuss a stategy to deal with your fears in progression so you build your confidence on a few smaller issues first, but then tackle on of the bigger ones, and then go back down the list and re-build your confidence on some smaller ones again. This ensures you don't fall into the trap of wasting all your therapy time on insignificant progress while putting off the real issues ad infinitum.

2. Consider looking more closely at your core beliefs and why something which is in itself unimportant and without power (a thought) has the ability to leave you feeling so threatened and scared. What is it you truly fear? Not the surface thing of 'God will punish me' or 'bad things will happen' but the deeper core fear of what you're really trying to avoid or control by targeting specific things with compulsions. It usually comes down to a simple phrase such as 'I'm afraid of not coping', 'I'm afraid I wouldn't cope with thinking badly of myself', 'I'm afraid of becoming someone I'd despise' ..etc. The truth is in every case the person IS more than capable of coping and CAN get to a point where their self-esteem and self-valuation isn't tied to their obsessive thoughts. It can take some digging (soul-searching) to reveal your core beliefs if there has been years of covering them up with diversionary obsessions and compulsions, but the effort is always worth it.

 

[Handy]

Remember, you are choosing what to think about.

[Ryukil]

Well, I met with him today and made a commitment to stick with that contaminated account. So. Here we go  It'll be rough but hopefully in a week or two I'm not so concerned about it.

[Handy]

Good luck again on this.