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22 hours ago, snowbear said:

If I had a pound for every time I've put things off or limited what I 'could' do because of skewed OCD thinking I'd be a millionaire several times over. :)

 

I think I'd be a multi trillionaire too. 

22 hours ago, snowbear said:

When I started breaking the rules my OCD thinking had created the first thing I noticed was how many more hours there were in a day that you could use to get things done. Stuff that had once taken me weeks to achieve (thinking, planning, putting it off, replanning...) took anything from a few minutes to an hour to complete. And nowhere near as stressful as doing it 'the old way'.

 

Yes I have experience this and of course it can be wonderful. However I do have the worry that I won't be able to fill the time.  I'm always wanting to do things that my back or feet won't allow (physically) and I have trouble filling the time NOW. But that will have to be worked on continuously as well. 

22 hours ago, snowbear said:

Biggest one I had to overcome was 'I can't do anything after dark'. :( 

Thanks for sharing this.  I have a similar thing I think where I don't let myself do certain jobs in failing light because they might not be done properly but I managed to sweep my floor in failing light yesterday.😃

22 hours ago, snowbear said:

OCD would be hilarious if only we didn't take it's 'rules' so seriously. 

 

yes absolutely

22 hours ago, snowbear said:

Keep fighting against doing what that skewed thinking demands of you. :)

I will but I'm sure having trouble today. I always find it difficult when there's a birthday or xmas. I'm guessing that that is super skewed thinking? It got complicated - my thinking says that if I can accept the birthday present I've been given then i must be able to do anything else ie everything must be allowed, but if things aren't allowed then I shouldn't accept the birthday present. I managed to take the present and as it was b4 my birthday, kept it unopened because things "weren't allowed" at that time although I tried to talk myself into the right way of thinking. I hoped that would be okay and that I will be able to allow it on my birthday.

My B'day came and i opened pressie and it was things to eat. I have eaten some but I still haven't been able to order my things online and I feel bad for "accepting" ie eating the pressie. However I do feel headachy and I'm a bit sick of looking at things online and I don't want to make my headache worse so I'm telling myself that it's okay and I'll do it another day. It must be skewed thinking not to have my friends present and accept it no matter what isn't it?  She wanted to give me something nice just as I like to give her something nice on our birthdays or any other day. I'm struggling with it and I think it's because like before it's one obsession piled on another and on a birthday if i am already not allowing things it really feels too much to cope with. How could i upset my friend by not accepting her pressie? I should be able to follow the "rule" below whether things are easily come by for me or not?

On 23/06/2022 at 21:23, snowbear said:

Yup and yup. :yes: All skewed thinking. You only need one rule to deal with all of this. 'When I've identified it as skewed thinking I'm allowed to move on without ever resolving any part of it.' :)

It shouldn't matter that I had (ate) the pressie when I didn't think I was allowed to accept it, because that was skewed thinking and it is okay that I don't yet feel able to order online even though i have acted like i could do things (ie the pressie) because I should be able to do one and not the other if I find one harder to do than the other? Tying things together really isn't helping.

Although I really want to order things I think it should be okay for me to wait till I feel physically and mentally better and I'm allowed to have nice things on my birthday or any other day surely no matter what? I'm sorry I'm making such a mess out of everything when I'm lucky to have friends and a present in the first place

Wow what a mess, i got up really late today and am blaming myself for achieving nothing today and i always hate being so idle. I think that's why I think I don't deserve things because physically I can't do much in the way of jobs before it hurts.  

Thank you for reading this long post I feel I'm in the thick of it at the moment.😢

Edited by bendylouise
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:happybday:    

You're allowed to accept a pressie no matter how you're feeling or what you're thinking at the time. All the 'should and shouldn't' thinking is OCD.

You're allowed to buy things whenever you want no matter whether it's been a good day or a bad day. Rules about what you 'can and can't do' are OCD.

I hope you allow yourself to enjoy the rest of your eating-goodies present. :eat:

It's time you started allowing yourself to live how you want without OCD making up arbitrary rules.

1 hour ago, bendylouise said:

am blaming myself for achieving nothing today and i always hate being so idle. I think that's why I think I don't deserve things because physically I can't do much in the way of jobs before it hurts.  

A better way to look at it is, 'Things are already tough for me because I can't do much before it hurts, therefore I deserve every treat and bit of self-pampering I can get.' :yes:

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32 minutes ago, snowbear said:

:happybday:    

Aw thanks, and i was trying to keep it quiet  😁

32 minutes ago, snowbear said:

'Things are already tough for me because I can't do much before it hurts, therefore I deserve every treat and bit of self-pampering I can get.' :yes:

Really?

 

Edited by bendylouise
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By heck, yes REALLY!  :yes:

It's only because you apply judgemental thinking to things that you conclude 'I don't deserve good stuff to happen.' :mad:

Change your thinking style. Try open-minded thinking, compassionate thinking, empathic thinking, or even just non-judgemental thinking!

The conclusion when you apply any of those styles is very different. 'I'm not lazy, I'm in pain. :hug:  I do my best in the circumstances I find myself in. :flex:  A bit of kindness goes a long way. I'm going to be kind to myself, treat myself the way I would a treasured loved one. :love:  '

Neither way of thinking about it is right or wrong. It's simply a free choice.

You want to spend your life using judgemental style thinking and be miserable as a result, go right ahead! That's your perogative.

You want to change to a different, kinder thinking style? Go right ahead! That's your perogative.

The only person deciding how to think about this is you. :)

You don't have to live your life as if there was a powerful external force constantly standing in judgement of you. Most likely it's a parent or other authoritative voice that you've internalised from your childhood. It has you metering out punishments to yourself just as surely as if you were still 5 years old and had spilled some milk on the floor. :(  Tell the voice to get lost! Start talking to your adult self as a caring and compasionate adult. You don't have to keep doing their dirty work for whoever it was, years after the spilled milk has been cleaned up. :)

 

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Ok. I'm going to try to not make any plans right now but just get busy, start to be positive again and see what I can do. I will try to not entertain the thought of any recriminations or rumination on anything ive done in the last few days and I will go on from now making a big effort to accept that I've done nothing that is not allowed the last few days and try not to be so scared.🙏 Thank you for your advice🫂

Edited by bendylouise
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Is it skewed thinking to think that you have to rinse things twice – e.g. hands, fruit, objects?  I  rinse everything twice and tonight when I went to rinse my dirty hands, I had a feeling that my watch was also in need of rinsing. However I only rinsed my watch once and ever since I've felt dirty and cant sleep. I haven't gone back to try and "undo" it ie identify what my watch has touched and make those things clean again, but i  still think everything is dirty. 

I'm telling myself that I should have rinsed my watch again. At the time however something stopped me from doing it again 'cause I had already done the action twice and was trying to stop myself from doing any more. Now I'm confused. I'm tempted to think it's skewed thinking again but i rinse things twice so why do I do it twice if I dont do all of it twice?  Sorry but I have had a very difficult day after having a good day yesterday but taking a chance which proved a step too far last night, causing a lot of stress last night and today again. Still trying to get rid of almost constant headaches and aching eyes even when I had a good day (most of yesterday) and I felt really rough today.

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1 hour ago, bendylouise said:

Is it skewed thinking to think that you have to rinse things twice – e.g. hands, fruit, objects?

Yes, it's skewed thinking.

You only ever have to rinse anything once - and your watch not at all.

Doing it twice for everything is magical thinking - as if the number 2 is somehow 'better' than 1 or zero. It's become a ritual that you've given skewed thinking meaning to... 'I need to rinse it twice so I won't feel dirty.' Not true.

You feel dirty because you tell yourself there's something wrong with doing it only once.

That's very skewy! :) There's absolutely no reason to feel dirty after rinsing just once. It's just a feeling you've come to expect because of the way you've thought about it in the past. 

1 hour ago, bendylouise said:

I'm tempted to think it's skewed thinking again

I suspect it was more than temptation. :devil:  You know this is skewed thinking, it's having the courage to face up to that. Because there are consequences of accepting it is irrational. The consequence to accepting you've been irrational in the past is you have to stop doing things you've done for a long time, change how you think about the world, your life, everything.

It's hard. :( Some of it's habit, some of it's skewed thinking, some of it's fear of doing it differently and what that might mean. All it does mean is you're changing the way you live - for the better! Freeing yourself from meaningless, pointless rituals. :)

1 hour ago, bendylouise said:

I have had a very difficult day after having a good day yesterday

 

There'll be lots of swinging back and forth between good and bad days. Mediocre days, mixed days. It's expected.

Be kind to yourself on the bad days. Let it go without punishing yourself or thinking of it as a failure. Just rest up as long as you need, wipe the slate clean at the end of the day and start again tomorrow.

As time goes on you won't need the rest of the day to recover. You'll be able to have a bad start, shrug it off in minutes and keep going. :)

 

 

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8 hours ago, snowbear said:

You feel dirty because you tell yourself there's something wrong with doing it only once.

 

Hi Snowbear, thanks for your reply, i hope you got some sleep too. I started doing things twice years ago because it seemed a safe way of keeping clean  i.e. if the first rinse didn't clean everything, then the second rinse would complete the job ok. Recently with some more innocuous things I can do it only once, but I the rest still has to be done twice and then I'm satisfied. And with the watch thing come, my hands needed to be rinse twice and because my watch probably went against the same thing, also needed to be washed rinsed twice. I am really struggling with it but will try and leave it.

There's a cabinet in my bathroom that is a real problem for me. It's divided into two and on one side any time I touch anything in there, I have to rinse my hands – twice.  I've had the desire recently to generally cut down on rinsing but it feels absolutely huge and in this case (watch) although I didn't plan to not do it twice, I had the choice to do it again and  I think I was scared it wouldn't stop there.  The first time I wash my hands I should have included the watch, but I only did my hands. Then the second time I included my watch and then realise my watch had only been done once it I don't want to go back over it all.  I am already avoiding things because of something I did on Sunday night which proved it to be wrong move? I don't know. When I rinse twice, i don't do it meticulously each time, I do it less meticulously and this justifies to me why I do it twice. I'm sorry I'm really struggling to see that i can safely leave it.

I gave somebody a lift in my car because I felt able to and then started worrying that she would expect me to always pick her up from the bus stop when I was passing cause we both go to the same swimming centre, sometimes at the same time and i cant cope with this and feel under pressure, so I would love to be more helpful, it's to do with my back, getting from A-B very quickly and needing to be on my own as well. I know I don't sound very nice person but I am really, I just have so many difficulties. In the shower later at the swimming pool - because I felt really nervous and annoyed that I'd given myself another problem, i  had to redo washing certain parts of my skin like I haven't done for ages and because I thought I might've damaged my skin I started avoiding things again. It took me a whole 24 hours, but I started to settle down thinking that maybe after a day or two I could see that my skin was okay and carry on but then I didn't rinse my watch twice and I'm now worrying about that still and avoiding too.

No wonder my headache persists 😧. Why the hell couldn't I just not given the person a lift and rinsed the (Waterproof) watch again at the time? I promise I can be very generous and encouraging to people as well, I'm not a horrible person. I can't stand this. It seems that when I make some progress and do good things and allow things i make a decision that I can't cope with leading to panic, wrong thinking and more mistakes that I can't cope with. I'm trying to sort out this quagmire and what action if any i need to take. I do apologise for another long post but I feel that understanding all the parts may help my future decisions.

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8 hours ago, bendylouise said:

Why the hell couldn't I just not given the person a lift and rinsed the (Waterproof) watch again at the time?

Well, you could have done that. :unsure:

But if you did then you'd be in exactly the same place you've always been. :(  Locked into the (false) belief that rinsing twice is necessary and that acting spontaneously (offering a lift) is more than you can handle. Both are untrue.

So it comes down to recognising that ALL your actions have consequences.

Doing things the same old way has consequences - makes you feel better at the time but keeps you trapped in your OCD world. More of the same for how long, until you die?

Not acting has consequences - nothing improves and often things build up so they are harder to tackle in the end.

Changing your behaviour has consequences - stopping the compulsions makes you feel uneasy in the short term, but in the longer term you'll be free of OCD's skewed thinking, rituals and rules. Life will be unrecognisably better!

It's a choice.

Hopefully most of the time you'll choose to fight the compulsions and work towards getting your thinking back to normal. But if you can't manage that every single time at first, that's ok. The times you do manage it are progress. :) They're getting you there. 'Rome wasn't built in a day' and all that.

So be kind to yourself when you're struggling. That doesn't mean you have to give up as soon as resisting the compulsions gets hard. Just that you recognise it's a struggle and be kind to yourself about it; no recriminations, no self-reproach, no self-punishment, no adding in extra rules to compensate for the things you didn't do the old way.

Get into the (good) habit of just letting things go.

Very little in day to day life is important. Most of it we can muddle through without getting it 'right' and everything turns out fine in the end. But it takes a change in mindset from 'everything has to be right'  :mad: to 'it's ok to just do my best' :)

Anyone who's willing to change their mindset and give things a go is a winner in my eyes. Keep going! :cheer:

 

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I keep taking chances, and then find I can't handle it and I do the compulsions anyway because i'm trapped because if I don't do the compulsions I can't do other things. The best I can do is not punish myself once I've done the compulsions and that is hard enough. 

I can leave certain compulsions till the next day or the day after to see if I can let them go but in the meantime I can't do your things. And I absolutely hate doing that checking/cleaning compulsion because I have to get it just right and it usually is such a nightmare. Last night I did one quite succinctly Iand left it. With another one today I'm hoping to do the same thing but I can't cope with it tonight so I'll have to leave it till tomorrow and it's slightly different this time because I think I only rinsed my hands once and I've got a retrace my steps. I hate this hell.

Edited by bendylouise
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15 hours ago, bendylouise said:

The best I can do is not punish myself once I've done the compulsions and that is hard enough. 

Fine. If that's the stage you're at then pause there. Don't try to push to far too fast. It's ok to pause and consolidate what you are doing until you get so good at it that moving on to the next step is easy.

So use this time to teach your brain

- punishment is not necessary

- even thinking about it in terms of failure/ punishment/ bad for a doing a compulsion is a habit you need to break.

Instead make it a habit to instantly and easily let things go when you've given in to the OCD. Simply say to yourself, 'Ok, it's done now. Move on. Next time is another opportunity for change and I can try again then.'

Remember, this isn't a competition to see who can get it right first time. It's a process of teaching your brain to think differently until the new way of thinking has become your autopilot default.

It takes time and repetition, repetition, repetition to get your brain to stop using the established neural pathways and quite literally rewire itself in a different way.

Did I mention repetition? :D There's no short cut. If you've done compulsive thinking a million times then you need to do uncompulsive thinking 2 million times to first disrupt the old wiring and then establish the new wiring. 

Be gentle with yourself. Be patient. Be determined. Be committed to making the change however long it takes. Be confident that change will happen as long as you keep trying. (Just 5 things to remember - so easy you can count them on your fingers of one hand!)

Nobody can ask more of you than that. :)

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33 minutes ago, bendylouise said:

Im trying to carry on but my life isnt worth living. I hope you are doing well

I'm not great physically at the moment, and can relate to 'my life is not worth living'. But at times like these we have to be resilient. 'My life doesn't feel like it's worth living right now, but I know from experience this feeling will pass. Just have to hang on in there and better days will come again.' :)

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2 hours ago, snowbear said:

I'm not great physically at the moment, and can relate to 'my life is not worth living'.

I'm sorry Snowbear, but i'm glad that u know you will feel better. I'm wishing you strength through this. 🙂

However, i am very serious. I am barred from everything, everything that i need and i look on my life and it is horrific in a way nobody understands.

People always get the wrong impression of me and also find it very difficult to understand me and I can't really do much to make them understand and quite frankly why would they want to when they're just getting on with their lives? All this said, it doesn't matter because I don't want this life.

 

Edited by bendylouise
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1 hour ago, bendylouise said:

I am barred from everything, everything that i need and i look on my life and it is horrific in a way nobody understands.

I get it. Maybe not every nuance of what your life is like or how it feels to you to live it, but we're not that disimilar in many ways. And I agree that outsiders look on people like us and haven't a clue.

I get that your current thinking means you feel barred from doing many of the things that would make your life better.

And that separate to that there are many things you can't physically do which makes life hard.

I understand how utterly draining of joy and soul-destroying it can be to exist day to day and year after year when life is both physically and mentally hard.

I've wanted to give up sooo many times. Genuinely believed my life wasn't worth it sooo many times. And yet, by learning how to changing my thinking I've been able to move past that. You will too.  :)

Hang on in there and stay hopeful. Things can change. :hug:

 

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I would like to explain more but dont think i can. Thank you for your thoughtful and caring reply :hug:

As well as being unable to use my arms to do anything much due to repetitive strain injury making my upper back hurt, anything sitting, standing or walking for me is a nightmare, due to feet problems and lower back disc and soft tissue problems though I look normal and walk seemingly normally. I am ridiculous.  I don't fit into either the normal or the disabled category. I can avoid pain most of the time, but only because I can't do anything normal like sit in a car for 15 minutes or stand still without a lot of pain which lasts for a long time and this has been going on for 40 years with devastating consequences on my whole existance.

I'm trying to avoid my body getting weaker and weaker but it's so hard. I'm sorry if you and others suffer a lot of pain that cant be avoided Snowbear, i know that's hellish. I don't have pain that just comes in from nowhere when i am lying down but when I am in pain because i've been from doing something normal  and unstrenuous it's tortuous and then I have a reason to lie down and do nothing which is psychologically sometimes easier than when I'm not in pain and can do nothing which is the norm. I hope you see what I mean. I know you suggest I should work through the pain but I if I were to carry on doing things the pain would just get worse and i cant recover.

I desperately want to work hard physically and play hard physically like i did when i was a child.  There is no one around who knew me then (when I was a child) and who knows me now. Nobody knows who i am or what i am, including me. I tried to get help privately for  my back again last year, but was let down. I feel absolutely useless, floppy and powerless and i've nothing to fall back on. I needed to get some of this out and i thank you again for your trouble in reading and replying to my posts, I appreciate and do take to heart the last one knowing that you have a lot of insight from your own very difficult and challenging experiences. I want to permanently change my thinking too.:hug:

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by bendylouise
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31 minutes ago, bendylouise said:

I know you suggest I should work through the pain but I if I were to carry on doing things the pain would just get worse and i cant recover.

Sometimes it's not possible to 'push through the pain'. I wish it was! But that's not what I've been suggesting, so my sincere apologies for the misunderstanding. :(

I'm talking only about mental resilience here. How does a person stay hopeful when life is intolerable? How do you make life purposeful and meaningful so you can face another day/night of torture? How does changing your thinking change the practicalities of living a life fraught with the kind of difficulties and challenges most people can't begin to imagine?

Those are the things I've found answers to over the years and hope to share with you so you too can build your resilience. :)

I'll write more tomorrow... my back muscles keep going into spasm tonight and I know you of all people will understand what that's like!

 

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11 hours ago, snowbear said:

Sometimes it's not possible to 'push through the pain'. I wish it was! But that's not what I've been suggesting, so my sincere apologies for the misunderstanding. :(

It's me who should be apologising – not you , because when I got up this morning, even before I'd read your post I realised that I'd made a mistake, and that it wasn't you who had suggested I should push through pain, but someone else on the forum in another thread 😧. I got completely mixed up for a second  :poster_oops:and for that I do  apologise. I didn't actually think while I was reading your post that you were talking about anything but mental resilience but when i was talking about pain in my next post, i suddenly had a thought (mistakenly) that it that it was you that had suggested I push through physical pain. Hope i've explained sufficiently 😁 - a simple mistake. 

 

11 hours ago, snowbear said:

I'll write more tomorrow... my back muscles keep going into spasm tonight and I know you of all people will understand what that's like!

 

Completely! I know what it's like to be compromised by physical matters. i wish my thoughts could massage/warm/cool or do whatever was necessary to calm your back muscles 🙏

11 hours ago, snowbear said:

I'm talking only about mental resilience here. How does a person stay hopeful when life is intolerable? How do you make life purposeful and meaningful so you can face another day/night of torture? How does changing your thinking change the practicalities of living a life fraught with the kind of difficulties and challenges most people can't begin to imagine?

Those are the things I've found answers to over the years and hope to share with you so you too can build your resilience. :)

 

Thank you, thats brilliant. At the moment regarding OCD, I seem to mess up nearly every day and I can't keep busy and distracted for long enough to feel stable and to be able to consistently allow things, but i don't think these thoughts (whether things are allowed) should even be on my radar. This morning I once again took a chance when I didn't think my hands were rinsed enough and am now regretting it and thinking of how to solve things. It feels like i'm testing myself and if I can stay normal long enough I can allow things again but im sick of that pattern. I took a chance because I was sick of the carefulness needed.

I guess i need more strength, structure, positivity and help and to keep trying to see and act on skewed thinking.  I feel less depressed than yesterday because I'm going out later and I'm sort of managing to not focus on some of the difficulties with that, but am thinking of the positives.  But i now have the feeling unclean thing again due to taking a chance and cant deal with it right. So thats threatening today. Yesterday the depression was awful, but I didn't have any bad overt compulsions to deal with, i suppose - due to the depression, so its either one thing or another all the time.

Snowbear said "Be gentle with yourself. Be patient. Be determined. Be committed to making the change however long it takes. Be confident that change will happen as long as you keep trying. (Just 5 things to remember - so easy you can count them on your fingers of one hand!)".     

 I am going to try the above now! but i get very frustrated with myself when i feel i've taken an unnecessary chance and then cant handle it.

 

 

Edited by bendylouise
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Hey, feel free to absolutely tell me to **** off because I realise that questions of this nature are pretty personal but I as wondering because of your user name if you're hypermobile or something similar?  (I am ask because I am and your user name and some of the stuff you're describing sounds pretty familiar to me).

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Hi OCDJonesey

Yes i have got hypermobility in my arms and legs. My legs have caused me the most problems, but i have had at least one arm injury too from over-extending when i used to do a stretch/yoga class. I feel that had i been  born now with the same physical anatomical problems, that my life could've been transformed.  What are your hypermobility problems?

 BTW i think i chose my username more as a joke regarding the inflexible nature of OCD!

 

Edited by bendylouise
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Ahaha what a coincidence.  My username is also a joke about OCD - specifically an alien (the movie) joke about my cat.  If you've seen it they have the cat called jonesy who was played by three separate cats depending on what they needed the cat to do in any scene.  So one for scampering, one for hissing and one for holding.  Which we thought was hilarious in my house and ever since we've called our cat OCD Jonesy because she's a major theme in my OCD 🤣

And lord I am hypermobile e v e r y w h e r e but probably mostly in my hips and knees which puts my pelvis under a lot of strain and I've ended up with pelvic floor and hip flexor issues on top of a ******** right foot, **** left shoulder and god awful tmj issues.  Which is why a lot of what you were saying rang a bell for me because I too get headaches, dizzyness, back ache, find it painful to sit at all and up until maybe the last year or so couldn't actually lie flat with my legs outstretched because it hurt me in my unmentionables.  It's a really nasty pace to find yourself in and takes so much work to try to fix so I really feel your pain.

One thing I've found useful is going to see a podiatrist (off my own back because the nhs are to be honest more than useless if you're hypermobile) and getting custom insoles made feet for support.  It hasn't fixed everything but it's gone a long way to getting me able to approach walking again and is something I more than likely should have have had since childhood since obviously all my soft tissues are super bendy and my feet flatten out a ton when I put weight on them.  The podiatrist was also able to refer me on to a very good physio who I've been working with for the last year and a half and while I'm still nowhere near where I would like to be I'm a lot better off than I was previously.  

Of course I understand that you've probably had a ton of things recommended to you and if that's something you've already tried please feel free to ignore (my quite rude) suggestion.  Other people chiming in with suggestions can be absolutely ******* maddening sometimes so I will not be offended at all if you tell me to do one 🤣

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On 02/07/2022 at 14:32, bendylouise said:

i don't think these thoughts (whether things are allowed) should even be on my radar

Exactly! This shows good insight. :yes:  Keep working on applying that insight. It will feel difficult at first because you're used to letting OCD have its way and standing up to it is unfamiliar. No substitute for practise, I'm afraid. And you're doing that by challenging yourself and sitting with the discomfort (unfortunate turn of phrase maybe, but you know what I mean! :laugh: )

On 02/07/2022 at 14:32, bendylouise said:

i get very frustrated with myself when i feel i've taken an unnecessary chance and then cant handle it.

Remind yourself these 'chances' you're taking are a necessary part of getting your life back on track. Remind yourself too that you're not actually 'taking a chance' because there was no risk there to be taken in the first place, only the habit of believing that breaking the rules is bad.

And when you feel you can't handle it, remind yourself you're stronger than you think, and that trying and 'not handling it' is still a million times better than not trying. :)

 

On 02/07/2022 at 14:32, bendylouise said:

I guess i need more strength, structure, positivity and help and to keep trying to see and act on skewed thinking.

Structure and positivity, yes. Though I prefer to use the term 'hopeful' rather than positivity as resilence is about not giving in rather than playing the Pollyanna game of finding something positive in everything.

But strength? You don't need more stregth girl. You already have it in bucket loads! You just need to build confidence in your ability. :) 

I'll pop back again this later week to talk more about resilence. Thanks for the massage thoughts. They definitely helped the painkillers do their job. :;

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13 hours ago, snowbear said:

I'll pop back again this later week to talk more about resilence. Thanks for the massage thoughts. They definitely helped the painkillers do their job. :;

Whenever you are able. Re: massage thoughts - so glad they did 😊 and I'm still sending them 😉

13 hours ago, snowbear said:

Exactly! This shows good insight. :yes:  Keep working on applying that insight.

yes, the main thing i do is try to be busy and get some structure to my day which has varying degrees of success. I am now trying to work on ( practice) not saying "I have to" or "mustn't do" something as this is a terrible habit which sometimes i use to propel me forwards and feels harmless in certain situations (whilst playing a game) but is very destructive in the rest of my life because I automatically take it to the extreme.

13 hours ago, snowbear said:
On 02/07/2022 at 14:32, bendylouise said:

i don't think these thoughts (whether things are allowed) should even be on my radar

Exactly! This shows good insight. :yes:  Keep working on applying that insight. It will feel difficult at first because you're used to letting OCD have its way and standing up to it is unfamiliar. No substitute for practise, I'm afraid. And you're doing that by challenging yourself and sitting with the discomfort (unfortunate turn of phrase maybe, but you know what I mean! :laugh: )

On 02/07/2022 at 14:32, bendylouise said:

I do know what u mean but love u for recognising why the phrase is unfortunate :thankyousign:.  Applying that insight (in above quotes) is going to be a key i feel, to getting past it but very tricky to keep up and once the thoughts have got in and i feel i believe them, it is going to be up to me to somehow dismiss them as faulty thinking, and not follow the stupid, harmful rules i have made up for myself, which occur to me.

 

Edited by bendylouise
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Hi ocdjonsey, i still haven't seen Alien but thanks for the explanation! 

Your hypermobility sounds very difficult to deal with on a daily basis and I wish you lots of luck with that. Mine isn't nearly so obvious or extensive and has barely been mentioned by medics. i too have got insoles which definitely helped to correct my walking and balance (my left foot and leg are the worst) but I got these myself years ago and they dont really help with pain which started when I was in my late teens. 

I wonder if the mods could move all your (ocdjoneses) posts on this thread and my responses to you onto a new thread please, called "Hypermobility etc" so that it could be separate from this thread? Just a thought, because I would quite like to keep this separate. Thank you for your responses ocdjonesy, i am NOT telling u 2 do one 😀 and i'll respond more to your post later!

Edited by bendylouise
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