does anyone has any tips how to stop the "what if cycle"?? i have very disturbing what if thoughts on daily basis and they're rlly scary always. i know they're not real but sometimes they feel so real and possible to happen and i hate this
Yes, those “what if” thoughts are classic OCD bait. They feel urgent and real, but they’re just mental noise trying to hook you. The goal isn’t to stop the thoughts (because we can’t), but to stop chasing them. When one pops up, try saying, “that’s wild OCD! I guess we’ll see!,” and move on. It’ll feel wrong at first, but resisting the urge to figure it out is how you break the cycle. You’ve got this!
I'm not too sure if this will help but the methods that I know that seem to help when I'm having it bad with my OCD is telling yourself "it's just the OCD talking" and I can feel it calming down my brain and the thoughts only temporarily but just enough to calm down and the more you practice using it, the better you'll calm down down the line Another method that seems to work is breathing through your nose for 4 seconds. Hold your breath for 7 seconds and breathe out through your mouth for 8 seconds and you have to breathe in and out slowly and you have to repeat this at least 4 to seven times or it four to eight times and it helps calm the mind, body and the thoughts as well. But this method too takes time to get used to where youll come down more and more better down the line. Another important detail of using this method is you have to breathe in by using your stomach instead of your lungs and breathe out using your stomach instead of your lungs. Otherwise it's not really going to work too well and may cause opposite effects as I kind of seem to have noticed by myself A hard method is to use the 15-minute rule where you try to not use compulsive behavior to try and neutralize the thoughts or whatever you may be going through and I guess it's just to delay your response and not use compulsive behavior and based off of personal experience it's not really easy to do that where it took me months to years trying trying to use this method on and off when it was too much for me to handle and when I felt like I could try using it Another one that kind of helped me regain my self a little better is using that purple button at the bottom right screen of this app to help you calm down with whatever it is you're going through though that too wasn't really easy to deal with at first, but it has helped me calm down and overcome my OCD triggers and themes the more I use it, but took me at least like 2 weeks or something to become more manageable These are methods that I found that help with OCD when googling and kind of testing them out myself to see how well they worked and through trial and error. It started working and I hope these will be enough to help you out. And sorry for any typos. I'm using voice to text on my cell phone. I hope you the best
thank you so much!! I'll for sure try out these methods
So crazy I just posted something almost exactly like this about what ifs. They are driving me insane. But from what I understand it is just ocd talking trying to give us doubt.
Sometimes agreeing or trying to accept the uncertainty can help slow the cycle, like responding “yeah, that could happen” or “maybe it will, maybe it won’t”. My therapist says to try to “drop the rope” of the tug of war that it can become between you and the ocd
I struggle so bad with intrusive thoughts. They can be so bad that I'll cry because I KNOW that's not how I feel or want to do. (Too embarrassed to say what they're about) I'll constantly try to figure out why I have them, and constantly figure out what they mean, causing me to constantly circle around and around. I had to get on anxeity meds, which helped a little but the thoughts still happen. How do you help yourself with this? How do you know that you're just not some physcopath? 😅
Two things are happening: I get thoughts that just keep looping. They almost feel like song stuck in my head. Also, I’ll imagine something and I feel my stomach drop. Then as the seconds go by I keep getting fragments of the this thought but with different details. For example, it’s kinda like how a “vision” is portrayed. I’ll get a glimpse of the thought and then it’ll rapidly expand into something worse every few seconds. I don’t know if I’m causing this or if it’s just an automatic thing like any other intrusive thought. It feels unavoidable, idk if this is a compulsion or if it’s just another manifestation of an intrusive thought. Apart from that remembering an intrusive thought triggers the full thought again and then it just keeps looping or expanding. I don’t know how to stop any of this. Help?
Ii spoke w my bf this weekend and he mentioned that he has thoughts just like me, but his don't bother him like me. I then felt a lot better and he tried dissecting one of his thoughts like I usually do and realized it felt more real for him after. That made me realize that none of my thoughts were ever true and I blew them up. However, yesterday I had a thought ab “wait wut if you liked that one guy? How dare you bc youre supposed to love your bf and not secretly like someone else” and treated it as I usually did bc I accidentally wanted to see if it was true but didn't rlly but I would check to see if it was there and now that thought feels so so so real now and I feel really bad how do Ik it's not real? I feel so bad and guilty bc lividly this makes 0 sense but it feels so prominent. It felt pretty real when it happened yesterday too. And now I feel awful bc how is it possible after my clarity the other day? Why does it feel so prominent 😞😞😞
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