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Reassurance Seeking


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Is reassurance seeking a good thing or a bad thing when dealing with OCD therapy and recovery?  I often hear people say that reassurance seeking is a compulsion.  Is that always the case?

In my therapy notes, I have been looking again at the 'Tolerating Uncertainty' supplement notes that I was given.  One key point in these notes referring to trying something new that you think will cause stress and anxiety was this: (my paraphrase)

  • Seeking reassurance from a friend or someone you trust is a good thing to start. It becomes a bad thing if the seeking reassurance becomes excessive.

 Where do we draw the line between reasonable reassurance seeking and excessive reassurance seeking?

My own view is that this depends on my overall mood at the time.

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In terms of OCD forums my take is that reassurance seeking is okay at the beginning on a person’s journey but later it can become a compulsion and so unhelpful and repetitive.

In terms of my checking OCD in the real world then reassurance or avoidance becomes a blame allocation issue. If, for example, I get another person to check that the front door is locked or the gas is turned off then I shift responsibility to another person.  I do not want to be blamed for a break in or gas explosion. It is to do with the lack of belief in our own judgement and reassurance that we are not to be trusted. So in the real world also it is not a good technique.

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1 hour ago, Angst said:

do not want to be blamed for a break in or gas explosion. It is to do with the lack of belief in our own judgement and reassurance that we are not to be trusted. So in the real world also it is not a good technique.

I do this a lot too (or did). I would call people to help me fill something in when I knew and was fully capable of filling in a form. It was so that if there was a mistake that I wouldn’t be the one to blame. Funnily enough, more mistakes were made on calls than when I actually just did it myself. 
 

@northpaul I guess that when we try something new, it’s natural to ask for reassurance from a friend. It can be productive reassurance, in that it helps you achieve your goal of trying something new for the first time. However, if I had to keep asking reassurance every single time and I felt compelled to do it, rather than it being simply useful then it would be excessive for me. I can tell by the way it feels. I feel like it’s urgent to check with them.
 

There are so many times that I’ve sought reassurance when I’ve been confident in my judgement. I’ve asked people things and even argued with them to my way of things when they’ve disagreed. I wasn’t actually seeking reassurance, more like permission or to check that other people think it’s okay. That’s unnecessary.

 

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17 hours ago, determination987 said:

There are so many times that I’ve sought reassurance when I’ve been confident in my judgement.

The key word I would like to look at here is confident and add into my own thoughts below:

20 hours ago, northpaul said:

My own view is that this depends on my overall mood at the time.

At times when my mood is lifted, my confidence is lifted as well.  This results in my OCD behaviours being reduced.  My need for reassurance is greatly reduced.  I can see at this point that reassurance seeking is unhelpful in trying to stop compulsions.

On the other hand, when my mood (depression) takes a significant dip, my OCD behaviours tend to increase.  At the deepest times of depression it does not help if someone says to me 'dont seek reassurance - that is a compulsion'.

Based on that, I try to look at someones wider mental health issues when they seek reassurance. 

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21 minutes ago, northpaul said:

The key word I would like to look at here is confident and add into my own thoughts below:

At times when my mood is lifted, my confidence is lifted as well.  This results in my OCD behaviours being reduced.  My need for reassurance is greatly reduced.  I can see at this point that reassurance seeking is unhelpful in trying to stop compulsions.

On the other hand, when my mood (depression) takes a significant dip, my OCD behaviours tend to increase.  At the deepest times of depression it does not help if someone says to me 'dont seek reassurance - that is a compulsion'.

Based on that, I try to look at someones wider mental health issues when they seek reassurance. 

I agree, I was actually feeling really strong in my judgement yesterday. Obsessions that had bothered me became less powerful and I enjoyed my day, confident that I could handle whatever it brought.

Then today, I woke up feeling overwhelmed. I booked lots of appointments yesterday and I think they’ve started to take their toll. My mind today seems to drift into hypothetical scenarios and I’m rehearsing how the appointments will go, even thinking of cancelling or changing them.

I’ve been desperate for my mum to be free so that I can say how bad my thoughts are today and essentially seek reassurance sneakily. This made it worse. Even though I was speaking of them through an OCD perspective and acknowledging them as that, my confidence weakened and now I’m wondering whether they think they’re not. 

Perfect example of how even the smallest amount of reassurance can heighten my anxiety and strengthen the obsessive thoughts. 

My mood was better yesterday and today it’s low. There’s definitely a correlation.

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Reassurance seeking is one of my main compulsions (maybe along with avoidance) so that is one I really need to work on and be careful of. As others have mentioned so many sneaky ways it can come in....

I treat it like I do the other compulsions and avoidance issues in that I don't expect myself to cut it out over night but rather to reduce it over time and challenge myself in ways that I feel able to.

 

 

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2 hours ago, northpaul said:

The key word I would like to look at here is confident and add into my own thoughts below:

At times when my mood is lifted, my confidence is lifted as well.  This results in my OCD behaviours being reduced.  My need for reassurance is greatly reduced.  I can see at this point that reassurance seeking is unhelpful in trying to stop compulsions.

On the other hand, when my mood (depression) takes a significant dip, my OCD behaviours tend to increase.  At the deepest times of depression it does not help if someone says to me 'dont seek reassurance - that is a compulsion'.

Based on that, I try to look at someones wider mental health issues when they seek reassurance. 

 

2 hours ago, northpaul said:

The key word I would like to look at here is confident and add into my own thoughts below:

At times when my mood is lifted, my confidence is lifted as well.  This results in my OCD behaviours being reduced.  My need for reassurance is greatly reduced.  I can see at this point that reassurance seeking is unhelpful in trying to stop compulsions.

On the other hand, when my mood (depression) takes a significant dip, my OCD behaviours tend to increase.  At the deepest times of depression it does not help if someone says to me 'dont seek reassurance - that is a compulsion'.

Based on that, I try to look at someones wider mental health issues when they seek reassurance. 

It is difficult to look at wider mental health issues on an OCD forum. We do not have access to records or people might not volunteer complete information and even if we did how would that help? Would we ask do you have depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder etc. Would bulletin board users be competent? Also in CBT therapy diagnostic categories are bracketed off. They were in my therapy.

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