My thoughts are here but I have no anxiety. No matter what if I agree with the thoughts it doesn’t give me anxiety. If I think about how not having anxiety means that the thoughts are my truth since I’m not having anxiety. Nothing is giving me anxiety and I don’t know why but I don’t like that it’s not giving me anxiety. Is this normal?
I actually read an article about this last night! Sometime because we think these thoughts so much we can become almost immune to the anxiety of them in certain situations! The anxiety itself can actually act as a form of reassurance because we are so used to feeling the anxiety with the thoughts. However it’s important to remember that it’s not about the level of anxiety or the frequency of thoughts it’s simply about the thoughts, and how we learn to live with the uncertainty of if they are true or not! You got this pal ❤️
@Anonymous That’s really interesting and makes a lot of sense. Like at this point my nervous systems like “mmhm I get it” and the anxiety is like a security blanket of okay good I have anxiety thoughts aren’t real.
@Secretidentity Exactly! The anxiety acts as its own form of reassurance! Even without the anxiety know that you are strong and you will get through whatever comes of it regardless of if it’s true or not! Living with the uncertainty is key❤️
I’m experiencing this and it’s almost worse than not spiraling. I don’t want the thoughts still, that is still clear, but they mostly cause distress, confusion, and helplessness. I think that because I don’t have that anxiety spike that that means I want my thoughts to be true or that they are. Anxiety as reassurance is real!
@anonymous00981 I definitely agree. OCD is so complex and annoying.
And to add onto this your not alone, I often experience the thoughts with no anxiety and that scares me too because it can feel like intuition but it’s regardless of how the thought makes you feel in the moment know that the thought is not danger, the lack of anxiety doesn’t increase probability! This is normal and you can get through it!
Omg how enlightened of you. Allowing the thoughts to pass like meditators do. That’s very sweet and strong
congratulations, thats what i would considere recovery!. The end goal of OCD is not to get rid of the intrusive thoughts, its to stop the compulsions we perform in response to them. The by-product of this is the anxiety normally associated with those thoughts goes away. The thoughts may come and go, they were never actually the problem, the compulsions and the anxiety was. I still have the same "intrusive" thoughts that used to cripple me with anxiety... now they don't bother me at all BECAUSE i stopped doing compulsions and i used ERP and did that long enough that the anxiety eventually went away... That feeling about feeling uncomfortable that the anxiety is gone is normal. We can become so accustomed to being in a anxious state.. that it becomes our normal, so when that state goes away... it feels unnatural. that can be scary at first. Like a llion that has been forced to live in a circus its whole life... the circus was awful but its all it knew, so that first step into the sun, the grass, the fresh air... its scary.. not because its bad... but because its unknown. Give yourself time to adjust to being in a none anxious state and soon you will love it and realize you are in a great place. WAY TO GOOO!!
@TexasOCD41 Thank you!!! I really wasn’t sure if this was healing or if this was like I don’t even know. I’m so glad to know that I’m finally really healing. Thank you so much for sharing and I’m so happy that you are in the same place!!! How long did it take for the weirdness of no anxiety take to feel normal?
@Secretidentity Pretty fast because I was so miserable being anxious. Maybe like a week? It would just come and go until I sorta just “ forgot to worry about it” lol
@TexasOCD41 I’ve alr kinda gotten used to it I think. But I’ve been busy today
@Secretidentity Good. Keeping busy and active are very healthy ☺️
I have a combo of Just right, memory hoarding and harm avoidance and I don't get any anxiety, just the kind of mild distress one might feel when they forgot to lock the door, or didn't do something they needed to do. Its a mild low level stress and most of it is really frustration when I fail to complete a routine after doing it multiple times. It sounds like you are recovering and your OCD is trying to call you back. Dont let it. Maybe this is what they refer to when they say the extinction burst.
My mind keeps telling me “something is wrong with you. the weird feeling you are feeling or the weird tingling you are feeling or there is a weird mark on your body. Those are actually a severe symptom and by ignoring it you could die!” Or especially the constant, “go to the emergency room because this impending doom you are feeling, yeah that’s because your gonna die shortly” It doesn’t help whenever people say “well if something was wrong your body would tell you” because my mind keeps telling me that what I’m feeling is proof something is wrong and I need to get it checked out. That I actually am severely sick and that I need to get it checked out as soon as possible, that if I get one more test than I’ll be okay because it will prove nothing is wrong. How do I tell my mind that it’s just anxiety whenever my mind keeps telling me “well if you keep saying that you could be ignoring something more serious.” Or “the doctors are just brushing you off..something is wrong with you” It’s hard to live with my thoughts whenever they are constantly coming up with ways to challenge me and challenge logic. New reasons on why I need to get this checked out because “I’m just being ignored” or “no one is listening to me so I’ll just end up dying” My symptoms range from weak and shaking legs and body to dizzy and unbalanced and dissociated. Recently I’ve been getting this tingling feeling inside my head and on the back of my neck. And my temples have pressure on them. My body keeps coming up with new symptoms I need to worry about, whenever most of them are probably caused by severe and constant anxiety. So severe I can’t even leave the house because I constantly worry about whether this is severe and something will happen if I leave the house. I need immediate ways to start fixing this because it’s especially horrible whenever my period comes around and my anxiety/depression is already higher than usual. I’ve even started considering taking medication (Zoloft, 25mg) which is another trigger for me, I worry about the symptoms I might get from taking it. That’s how you know it’s gotten pretty bad whenever I’ve come to taking something that I’ve been actively avoiding. What are your thoughts? Do I take the medication? What are ways I can deal with my symptoms that seem so severe in the moment but pass by once I’m not anxious? What are ways my thoughts can ease and I stop taking every symptom as something serious, because at the end of the day my anxiety is most likely the reason I have these horrible symptoms. I’ve always been extremely healthy and everytime I go to the doctors they express how healthy I am with all the tests I’ve had.
These past few days I was fine. Minimal intrusive thoughts ,no anxiety etc(to add I'm on medication so maybe it's starting to work although it barely is 2 weeks) and today I got a sudden wave of anxiety and it started latching on some thoughts like" what if I'm in denial and I wanna break up with my bf? And what if erp doesn't work for me because I actually wanna break up with my bf?" But they didn't really stay long usually those thoughts would make me spiral for days or so, now they lasted for some hours. And now I'm trying to trigger myself into being anxious again because if I don't it means I don't have ocd and if I don't have ocd it means I don't love my bf and if I don't love my bf it means I have to break up. Idk if it makes sense but the lack of anxiety makes me wonder if I actually have ocd or not.
I always wake up full of dread and fear. My anxiety is through the roof two seconds after I open my eyes. Someone on this app gave me a similar insight once I believe. But I think anxiety is just the urge to ruminate. About what? It probably doesn’t matter, as long as I can torture myself, as OCD loves. Does anyone else relate to this or agree maybe?
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