Anxiety Tips

The only way out is in…. Everything is counterintuitive in OCD, so celebrate the rumination with glee, run toward the fear and embrace all of the discomfort. You will feel weirdly HORRIBLE and full of dread, that’s when you know you’re doing it right. The only way out is in….

Find the thing that pushes you the most. Something you could do if you were suddenly cured. Then make small goals and one day you will reach the impossible. I went from fearing earthquakes last year, to watching earthquake videos, laughing and living through earthquakes. A small goal in my case was seeing how I would react to a trigger and how I coped with it.

Rumination is a pesky compulsion, for sure — I’m right there with you. Have you shared this with your therapist? I’d be curious what their recommendation is. I find mindfulness / meditation has been really helpful for observing my thoughts and feelings as they rise and fall. I really like the Calm App for mediations, but there are lots of resources out there. The main goal is to observe what’s happening without trying to resist it or change it — for me, this often means noticing anxiety/fear and then not doing compulsions to get rid of it. I also really lie RAIN (Recognize Allow Investigate Nurture - https://www.tarabrach.com/rain-practice-radical-compassion/) as a way to respond when I’m experiencing an anxiety spike. But the goal isn’t to get rid of the feelings (then it’s a compulsion), the goal is to observe and allow the feelings/thoughts. Hope that makes sense. Cheering you on! 🙂

I’m doing ERP for basically the same thing, mental compulsions with rumination being a big one. I’m not sure what kind of work you’re doing on it but for me it’s been really helpful to write out the narrative that my mind is spinning on and then read it out loud until it gets boring- a few weeks of doing that every day and I become pretty ok with letting the anxiety go when those memories or thoughts come back because it’s become played out.

Have you spoken with your therapist about feeling like you haven’t improved significantly? They may have some strategies to help.

This is so real. ERP only really works if we do the work though. If we’re caving to our compulsions, there’s nothing our therapist can really do to force us to use ERP in those moments. We have to be the ones to decide to apply it and that means in the moments where we really might not want to. Sometimes those are the times that will help us the most.

A few ways that I recognize an OCD thought are: 1. Do I feel a sense of shame or guilt about this thought? 2. If I do the thing that it wants me to do, am I going to relieve an unwanted feeling? 3. Does the thing that it wants me to do feel important? Like i need to do it right now? And if the answer to any of those is “yes”, then it’s highly likely a compulsion and I remind myself that it’s just my OCD and doing the compulsion would reinforce the OCD and make the negative feeling stronger. I’d also say be patient and give yourself grace you’re not always gonna be perfect. All you can do is recognize it and intentionally do the opposite of what it wants you to do the next time it arises. Every step forward is a step forward.