Door Locking Dilemma

[northpaul]

I have just heard a news report on local radio that 2 men are today appearing in court charged with attempted burglary.  They were reported to the Police for trying multiple door handles in a certain area over the weekend.

Checking doors are locked has been for a long time a major issue for me in my OCD journey.  Since I had my therapy last year I have seen significant reduction in my compulsion to keep checking my doors.  On many occasions now I can lock, check once and walk away.  The CBT therapy taught me that repeated checking was due to my thoughts of what might happen if the door was not locked (catastrophisation).

On hearing the above news of what is happening - this has now given me a dilemma.  The anxiety level went up on hearing that news.  I have been doing well but I am a bit worried that real events may cause a stumble for me.

[howard]

Yes I always try to be security conscious. I use the two locks on the door and I also have fitted something called a New York latch.

But sometimes I come down in the morning and one of the locks is open. Which starts my mind wondering, surely I locked it.

At least those two are in court and they were caught 'attempting'.

I think like with a lot of news stories, they talk about the few attempted burgularies, and it probably makes most people a bit more security conscious for a while.

But of course they don't mention for balance, the 25 million homes where nothing happened.

[determination987]

1 hour ago, northpaul said:

I have just heard a news report on local radio that 2 men are today appearing in court charged with attempted burglary.  They were reported to the Police for trying multiple door handles in a certain area over the weekend.

Checking doors are locked has been for a long time a major issue for me in my OCD journey.  Since I had my therapy last year I have seen significant reduction in my compulsion to keep checking my doors.  On many occasions now I can lock, check once and walk away.  The CBT therapy taught me that repeated checking was due to my thoughts of what might happen if the door was not locked (catastrophisation).

On hearing the above news of what is happening - this has now given me a dilemma.  The anxiety level went up on hearing that news.  I have been doing well but I am a bit worried that real events may cause a stumble for me.

I think that you’ve been doing really well with your check once and continue with your day. Seeing that news article, hasn’t actually changed anything other than raising your anxiety about potential what ifs/catastrophes.
 

It’s about accepting that locking it and checking it once is good enough and that no amount of repeated checking (including in your mind) is going to change anything. You can live with that uncertainty as you’ve been doing before. 
 

See it as facing a trigger and continue despite the anxiety. If the urge to check again comes, push through it and continue your day anyway. OCD checking won’t change any outcome, as you know. 

[northpaul]

5 hours ago, determination987 said:

Seeing that news article, hasn’t actually changed anything other than raising your anxiety about potential what ifs/catastrophes.

That is a good point - 'what might happen' and 'what is happening' can both be tackled with the same CBT therapy.  One situation may cause higher anxiety but the principle of resisting the compulsion is the same.  Thanks for your final sentence - it reminded me to revise my therapy notes!

[Handy]

I was looking at smart locks. These can lock my door in 30 seconds if I forgot. Some let me lock my door with my phone.  Welcome to new technology for OCD or not.  

[Angst]

22 hours ago, northpaul said:

That is a good point - 'what might happen' and 'what is happening' can both be tackled with the same CBT therapy.  One situation may cause higher anxiety but the principle of resisting the compulsion is the same.  Thanks for your final sentence - it reminded me to revise my therapy notes!

Precisely

[PolarBear]

20 hours ago, Handy said:

I was looking at smart locks. These can lock my door in 30 seconds if I forgot. Some let me lock my door with my phone.  Welcome to new technology for OCD or not.  

That won't fix the problem. A sufferer could end up checking their phone repeatedly to ensure the door is locked.

[Handy]

On 09/08/2022 at 14:56, PolarBear said:

That won't fix the problem. A sufferer could end up checking their phone repeatedly to ensure the door is locked.

That doesn't happen.  

[Ashley]

8 hours ago, Handy said:

That doesn't happen.  

In your case, but a compulsion is a compulsion and checking a lock or a smart lock just once is a compulsion and OCD. As Polarbear says, some people will be inclined to check their smart lock on their phone.   

So getting a smart lock because you're a tech geek (like me) is fine. Getting it because of OCD is a compulsion and more likely to make the problem worse, not better.

[Ashley]

On 08/08/2022 at 13:57, northpaul said:

The CBT therapy taught me that repeated checking was due to my thoughts of what might happen if the door was not locked (catastrophisation).

On hearing the above news of what is happening - this has now given me a dilemma.  The anxiety level went up on hearing that news.  I have been doing well but I am a bit worried that real events may cause a stumble for me.

Well done on this progress Paul, that's amazing and sorry the news as stalled you.  If you can, ignore the news and focus on your amazing progress and see if you can go even further with it if you feel you want to.  What I mean...

I don't know if this helps you or not, but I have had an issue this year in the charity office where I realised I was checking the door lock multiple times, walking away then going back to check.  I then found if I tried to check once, I would check multiple times. But actually, locking the door and walking away weirdly gave me less anxiety than just checking the door once. So now I turn the key and walk away 9/10 times. Get the odd blip, but mainly all good.

Anyway, checking once is still great and I hope this news doesn't get in the way of your continued success

 

[PolarBear]

19 hours ago, Handy said:

That doesn't happen.  

Oh it most certainly can happen. Replacing one compulsion with another does not help a sufferer, except in extreme cases where the previous compulsion was causing physical harm (such as washing hands so hard they bleed.)