I truly wish I could go through my days normally, without anxiety or fear of what might happen. I remember how easy and simple life used to feel. Anyway, I feel like my mind is constantly racing, overwhelmed by OCD and excessive overthinking. Life in general becomes even more challenging, especially when you have so many things to deal with throughout the day. Everything starts to feel more complicated.
I completely understand. Prayers for you. đ
I completely understand and can relate. I wish that for you too.
Same exact thoughts & feeling. I just want to be able to have a clear mind. đ„ș
Same. But it sounds like youâve already experienced what it feels like to live with your anxiety and ocd managed, so that tells you something. You can get there again. You know you can. And you will, because life is truly just such a weird cycle that repeats itself and rides in waves. But everything always comes back and nature always makes things the way they should be. I donât know how your ocd affects YOU, but Iâll tell you what I do. I struggle with doing hundreds or even thousands of compulsions a day when itâs bad. I know I once was living on autopilot too. Now I feel like Iâm held hostage by⊠my own self. But I know Iâve been home before, so I know I can find my way back. So I think about the future and how I want to live my life on autopilot again. I want to be able to just do things 1 time again and not redo them 28382993738 times. I donât want to continue to live as a hostage of my own mind and actions. So as hard as it is, the only thing to do is resist compulsions and to practice doing what I want my life to be like again: only doing things 1 time even if I have the strongest urge to do it again for whatever reason Iâm obsessing over. Your mind isnât dumb. Neuroplasticity is a real thing. But it goes both ways. The more you practice and teach it something, the more it learns that to become the baseline or the default. Keep doing compulsions and youâre just gonna be doing even more tomorrow and even more next week. Stop doing them and practice living normally and youâll teach your brain that that should be the default weâre working toward instead. Itâs hard at first but your brain is very plasticy and malleable. Youâll have your off days and even off moments but generally speaking it learns and it gets easier and easier.
Wow, I really needed this advice. Thank you so much. I actually know everything you mentioned about Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), but my problem is that I know what Iâm supposed to do without actually putting it into practice because Iâm afraid. I had made progress before, but unfortunately, I relapsed.
@Anonymousđ Prior progress is the biggest evidence you have the ability to not relapse. Ocd will lie to you and say âthis compulsion is different. Just do it 1 time so the fear goes awayâ but itâs a lie and you know itâs a lie because you know all the other times you beat compulsions. The truth is this time is not different. You can still beat it the same as every other one. If it really does feel more intense, donât wait for it to not. Iâll tell you what Iâve learned. Iâll ruminate over doing a certain compulsion, and the rumination seems to never go away. But Iâve learned itâs a trap. When you do even just one compulsion, you give your ocd what it wants and it can start shifting the goalposts and make you do it again and again. And the more you do it, you donât make the rumination go away.. you actually make it stronger because now youâve given it attention and made it easier for your brain to latch on to and ruminate over for hours. Also this might sound super âno shitâ or be way easier explained than done, but ironically the more you think about whether you should do a compulsion makes you way more likely to relapse and do it. Even if youâre not doing but youâre just thinking about how you want to but youâre resisting. The more you try to make the thought go away, the harder it sticks. I do something super consuming like play video games and if I ever get an urge to compulse, sometimes I may even have to pause and squeeze my fists super tight and say âgahhh that doesnât feel rightâ but Iâm gonna move on not compulse. Itâs about accepting it, not trying to ignore it. After that, within a few minutes I usually FORGET what it even was that I wanted to compulse :) your brain can only latch onto something for so long. The sooner you cut the fuel the sooner it goes away. best wishes to you
@Anonymous Thank you so much! I really liked this. Iâve learned some of these things from my therapist, but dealing with mental compulsions can be particularly difficult. Also, my therapist isnât always available. Sometimes, OCD isnât even the only problem, and thatâs the worst part. There may be other sources of stress that make OCD even worse. I wish you all the best, too. I really admire that mindset. I used to have a similar mindset myself, but lately, Iâve been under a lot of pressure from different things, making it difficult for me to think clearly, especially because of the toxic people I have to deal with every day.
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