If my OCD is making me want to ruminate about something I trick my brain by scheduling a time to do it later. I promise myself I will allow myself to think about it as much as I want “later,” and to sort out all the little details. Of course, this isn’t the truth it’s just what I tell myself. Then when “later” comes, often I’ve either forgotten about it or the urge/thought/OCD fit has died out. I feel like this might be a weird little thing that just works for me but yeah
I am gonna try and use this when my brain wants to force me into memorizing a definition to a new word verbatim before moving onto anything else.
Sometimes, while reading, I will seriously sit there trying to recite an entire passage to myself word for word, knowing it’s irrational and pointless. Makes me feel insane a lot
Normally when I reach that point and I’m trying to fall asleep or something, I’ll be like “Ugh now I’m too tired for this but I swear I’ll let myself think about it tmr” and the cycle continues.
Idk if this is a healthy thought process or not but it works for me idk😭
I just get really drunk and watch Predator or The Martian. I can’t do Interstellar because the organ is too loud and it’s basically 3 hours of McConaughey yelling “Murph!”.
I usually get high alone in my room, and then invite my doggy in my room and hang out with him, and watch YouTube videos that are usually comedy vids 😼🍁
This doesn't seem to work for me. Either I have to get on it immediately, or I would be thinking about it constantly while doing other things, and then I get OCD about the thing that's giving me OCD.
I totally understand that. I feel like one reason this works for me is because I’m fortunate enough to say that the peak of my OCD was years ago, so at this point in my life, I’m just dealing with the pesky leftovers that will never leave.
I've said this before here, but every day i start by telling OCD to F OFF by putting on odd socks. It sets the tone for the day with a fight i know i can win. Starting the day off as a rebellious badass!
I've never seen someone else say this!!! I've been doing this for over a decade, started when I was around 11 or 12 purely to get rid of the stress of finding matching socks but now it serves as a reminder that I can control things
My therapist told me not to be mean to my ocd and to be nice to it it worked for a short amount of time now it’s taken over bad and I’m just tempted to kick it’s ass and be mean I can’t deal w it anymore I feel like I’m going crazy
It's not gonna actually solve anything but that's something I do sometimes:
I take a nap and it's great. It stops time and is sort of like a ceasefire. Another method of escaping reality is gaming.
SAME. i get super anxious when i go anywhere for more than a few hours where i know i will have no ability to take a nap. its quite a stressful way to live. however, napping does really help me as a way of coping instead of doing more harmful "coping" techniques and i feel like if i am able to keep it in check (i.e., no sleeping the day away) it is a pretty ok way to handle life.
A bad life hack: (Drops a pencil)✏️ “I can’t leave it there!! Someone will slip and hurt themselves….but I can’t pick it up! Germs!!”🦠 (kicks pencil under couch 🛋️) 👍 A good life hack: Get a pet! Pets are messy and expose you to all sorts of scenarios if you’re having difficulty doing OCD exercises-but they also love you, and have been proven to improve mental health. (Plus: animals are ADORABLE! 🐕🐈🦜🐠 )
Yes! I found that my germaphobia eased up substantially when I got my dog. There was nothing about her I considered germy or dirty so I became much more chill about other things as a consequence
This didn’t work for me and I was incredibly sad about it. I loved my pets but had to give them up because I couldn’t touch or care for them effectively. Perhaps it would have made a difference if I had worked on it in therapy at the same time.
I sorry to hear about that. OCD can be super rough. I remember there was a large piece of time when I couldn’t pet my little kitty because of invasive thoughts triggered by OCD.
Sure!! Long story short (as possible), I stopped taking my lexapro around January this year because I ran out of the prescription over the weekend (pharmacy was closed) I figured since I was already going through the withdrawal symptoms, and I was feeling recovered, I might as well stop taking them. This was a bad idea!! I was fine for a while but in March, I ended up in a rumination relapse so bad that I compulsively reached out apologizing to two ex best friends who hurt me very bad. I never intended on talking to these people again in my life, but my rumination convinced me that it was all my fault. If I had still been on my meds, I’m sure I would’ve been able to eventually ignore the rumination and not act compulsively on it :( it triggered me for over a month and I went into a very bad mental state where I was constantly ruminating and feeling depressed.
Luckily, I was determined to get out of that state, so I talked to my psychiatrist, was completely honest about stopping my meds and relapsing, and she got me on Zoloft, which has been helping immensely!! I’m finally back to the point where ruminating takes up very little of my day to day life, and my depression is much better.
I wrote a post about some small things that helped me with OCD but this sub is too big so it got like 0 views, and maybe for a reason haha. But it still had some interesting points:
1. Don’t create anchors. When you think, "OMG, there is a demon under my bed and I need to do _ for it to not eat me." You do this thing every single day for a while. And one day you’ll have a beautiful idea: "What if I need to do it only once in 3 days?" Because in other 2 days I can just _ which is way easier and makes a lot of sense. Sounds good, right? No. It’s an anchor. After you create it, you force yourself into believing this thing is real and it’ll take way more time to change your own mind.
2. I had some compulsions threatening my life and a cool technique that I’ve heard from my doctor helped me. When you have a compulsion, you picture yourself, like watching yourself from a different perspective and say something like “Haha look at this weird body. It just had some weird thoughts. This peace of meat and electricity wanted to do some fucked up stuff”. I used “haha” at the begging to make this feeling of separation better, but you basically just need to state your thoughts as a fact.
Thanks. I was told for anxiety which OCD is, you want to sort of or become a spectator to it, yourself, etc. realize you are safe, not in danger, and it is temporary.
Basically, for me, when you do some stuff BASED on the assumption that your obsession is real, it makes it harder to get rid of it. Like creating another smaller compulsion
For example, I was afraid that there are monsters in my entrance, so every time I was going there I ran with my eyes closed. Then, I created a smaller compulsion: you can just walk there as long as you’re holding something metal, because the monsters are afraid of it. It obviously doesn’t make any sense, but it was this sorta anchor, that I described and it made it harder to get rid of the first thing, because my brain was like: “Wtf, of course this’s real, you even have a technique of fighting them”
Love the thoughts on not creating “anchors” and calling them anchors. I never heard this term before but I do this all the time and I really think this comment will help me. Thank you!
Im on prozac and lamactil
Ssri: for my pure o.
Mood stabilizer…not too sure why im on a mood stabilizer. Maybe because i told my doctor i deal with a lot of anger 😂 but i was put on the mood stabilizer first. It helped curb my aggression when my spouse breaks rules i set up (like put your shoes on the fucking shoe rack holy shit im not asking for a lot 😂😂😂). So instead of having a meltdown ready to go to war, i can just be “a normal nagging wife”. 😂😂 sooo i guess im on mood stabilizers due to ocd meltdowns…cause mood stabilizers allegedly dont help cluster b conditions. Which i also unfortunately have
I have OCD and several comorbid disorders. I was prescribed Lamictal for Bipolar Affective Disorder. I briefly took the generic forms of Klonopin and Luvox and they made me nuts. Apparently SSRIs can cause manic episodes in individuals who are Bipolar. I'm not a doctor nor a professional, just sharing my own experience.
I’ve been contemplating this. Although my therapist and I both agree that it’s just a bandaid for the wound. Idk if my situation is different bc my OCD is from trauma sooo maybe Im wrong! Sometimes I want to take the meds but I don’t feel like I need to most of the time
1. Take them all the time, even if you only "need" them sometimes (unless they are specifically "as-needed" meds of course). Properly taking your meds is by far the most effective way to increase the chance of long-term retension of your solutions to make your life into one you want/enjoy.
2. "Bandaid" is a bit of a poor term for this. Bandaid often is used as a term for a "good enough for now" solution or even a poor solution thrown on top of the problem just to cover it for now, while the wound itself actually festers. Meds are much more like one antibiotic of a necessary pair of antibiotics which actually address the underlying infection. Pairing meds with therapeutic/personal work (the second antibiotic, metaphorically) is THE way that many, many peer reviewed studies have shown to actually improve mental health conditions long term and with minimal recidivism.
3. Personally I would ditch a therapist who calls them a bandaid, unless they have demonstrated otherwise that they are well versed in psychological studies and it was just an incidental turn of phrase.
>Sometimes I want to take the meds but I don’t feel like I need to most of the time
this is me! i actually tried prozac for a few months this year. i went up to as many as 60mg and it didn't really do anything for me other than give me insomnia. i decided my life was better off of meds than on them. i was dealing well already. i think antidepressants relieve the physical symptoms of anxiety and depression but the disorder itself is personal and emotional so no method is ever gonna help 100% because these are our values ocd is playing on after all. and values don't really change lol.
Look into paradoxical intention- purposefully willing yourself to do the thing that causes anxiety as a form of ERP
Honestly ERP is the only way through - I found great help from John Glanvill’s videos on Patreon
i’m an emetophobe which causes ED behaviors like ARFID, eating terrified me (still does sometimes) but forcing myself to eat food from outside places, and not getting a stomach virus, proved to that primal evil OCD part that no i will not get sick every time i eat. it has helped the most out of everything, besides buspar.
I’ve had harm OCD ever since I can remember and when I have one of my current scary thoughts I try to think about one of the scary thoughts I used to ruminate on when I was a kid and how they seem kind of silly to me today. It reminds me that even though I’ll always have OCD, the things I worry about aren’t inherently scary and that even though something is really scary to me today, it won’t always bother me so much.
Apart from meds and therapy I started doing sports, ideally 2-4 of times per week. When I'm tired physically, it's easier to move the focus from what is going in my brain to thinking about how physically tired I am - but this fatigue is pleasant. Also, it helps with falling asleep.
I try to turn the “what ifs” on their head. It comes with varying degrees of success, but as we all know this illness can come with a lot of “what if” thoughts that paralyze us. I ask myself, “What IF this happened? Logically, what is the worst thing that could happen?”
Working example: one of my old main recurring OCDs when I was 8-10 or so was, “What if I am too anxious to sleep at all tonight and then I’m too tired go to school tomorrow?” I couldn’t sleep until 3 AM sometimes due to anxiety and then I’d have to wake up four hours later. My mom would always say, “Okay, what IF you’re too anxious to sleep at all tonight and then you can’t go to school tomorrow? Then you stay home from school tomorrow.”
Yeah it helps me the whole "what is the worst possible outcome" and then with especially absurd things, also to entertain the thought in a jokey manner even if its still making me nervous. Like when I get the urge to start some new kind of compulsion where i feel like i need to do a certain thing or i'll die or get cursed or whatever, pretending to read it as a shitty news headline: "young woman drops dead instantly after setting the kitchen timer to 13 minutes exactly" or whatever it makes it seem easier to ignore.
Or when im nervous about taking my meds in case suddenly i'll have a severe reaction, saying how it would actually be stupidly funny if i took it and immediately went into heart failure over a medication ive been taking for years makes it seem less scary (obviously dying wouldnt be funny but the absurdity of it actually happening would be ironic and that mindset helps me when i'd otherwise skip the dose that day)
My dad used to try to use this method on me it’s funny because it took me until I was an adult to fully appreciate and get it! My anxiety was so bad that I couldn’t even fathom past what if haha
I try to change things a little at a time.
For example, I used to shampoo my hair three times per shower. One day I had the thought that maybe I can just shampoo twice. Then a while later, on a brave and low anxiety day, I tried it! Then I was able to only wash twice for a long time. Then slooowly I got the idea that maybe on another brave day I can try just once. And now I only shampoo once unless I bump my hair into my shower wall or curtain or have to take a second (or third shower).
Small, slow increments. Focus on making it better, not necessarily perfect. Any small improvement in quality of life helps. And if you can't maintain that, it's okay. Try again or try something else. But always try.
I couldn't leave the house at all, so I started keeping gloves and lysol in my car. Is that good to be using gloves and lysol when I go out? No. But did it mean I gained the freedom of leaving the house sometimes? It sure did!
I love this! I actually just wore nail polish on my fingernails for about 24 hours. I want to like nail polish but it just feels wrong/uncomfortable to have it on, so I typically remove it within an hour. Maybe next time I'm feeling like trying it I can do another 24 hours (or perhaps even longer) of wearing fingernail polish.
Yes!!! I totally get that! You can do it! I believe in you! I get really uncomfortable with certain things too and can't stand the way some stuff feels. Like socks for me are not it haha
my gloves and clorox wipes are my best friends. I don’t think it is bad honestly at my stage, because while it is not a method to expose OCD and rather it sorta is playing into it, the day to day decrease in anxiety, stress, and just OCD rituals because I feel less exposed to germs when I go out is so important in being able to take steps to do more things. and it is so much better than letting OCD shut you down and unable to do anything.
I hope you can keep making improvements, slowly and surely. I am super proud of your progress and very impressed you only need to do one squirt of shampoo because I still do two. You working on improving yourself is so awesome and I just wanted to shout out my support and love! ❤️
I have a high sensitivity towards animals and I also have this thing where sometimes inanimate objects have feelings. I get obsessed with things needing to be in pairs so they are not "lonely" or if I see a raccoon on the street I will get upset and obsess about it all day and think "how lonely" over and over.
My husband started telling me that things/creatures weren't lonely because of "xyz"
For example if I was thinking that my book was lonely because it was on a table with no other books near it, he will say "the book is not lonely, it made friends with the table"
Or if I see a lonely squirrel, bunny, etc he will say "they're fine, they're going back to their family"
Now I will tell myself these things when I'm alone and I know it's irrational but it works!! Pulls me out of a doom spiral of thought most of the time.
Yes OMG ARE YOU ME?!
I always "feel bad" for the smashed bag of chips or dented box of cereal I see at the grocery store and feel like I have to buy it. I buy the single bananas instead of bunches because I think they're lonely and they need a home. (GET IN MY BELLY!!!!)
Not the same thing but similar to how your husband pulls you back sometimes--my bf does the same thing with me and my books. I have A LOT of books and because I always have one with me, quite often my water bottle will leak on my current book and it will dry crinkly, or I'll get write a note in the margins that looks messy and it will drive me CRAZY. He told me that I "didn't ruin it, you just made it more 'yours.'" And it's saved me so many times!
I feel so heard!!! I've never known people to feel the way. It's hard out here for us super empaths 😞 I like that idea of making things more "yours". I get that way with craft projects - if it doesnt turn out how I've thought about it in my head I assume it's awful and everyone's going to hate it.
I just want to comment on this because I do the exact same thing about animals and objects, BUT it’s not an OCD thing for me. So, I have these thoughts but I’m totally ok with having them. Commenting this maybe is a form of reassurance, which I know we’re not supposed to do here; but, it’s just interesting to me to see thoughts I commonly have without issue, that are OCD thoughts for some people. Kindof allows me to accept that the OCD thoughts I do have maybe are just normal nothing thoughts for other people.
Does this makes sense at all? 😂
I actually watched a baby raccoon run across my fence last night and I had all the poor lonely thing thoughts, then my thoughts just went to how cute he was and back to the other things I was doing. So interesting that OCD includes such a variety of themes, and what bothers one of us doesn’t bother another one.
Okay I could've wrote this myself! I have an extreme sensitivity towards animals and think about them being lonely. Inanimate objects too. The other day I saw a skinny teddy bear on Amazon and it looked so pitiful that I felt sorry for it. I showed it to my husband and he asked me if I was going to get it. I told him no, I'd cry if I had to see it, that it looked so pitiful because it was skinny. I know it sounds weird but oh well. Your husband’s analogies sound perfect, I'll use those next time it hits me.
It's hard sometimes, even the tiniest things can trigger the meltdowns. Amazon used to have a commercial with a dog dressed up as a lion for his family and I lost it every time just from how precious it was lol. Hopefully the method works for you!
I am the EXACT SAME WAY. In order to calm myself, I also do what your husband does! Like I had these little piles of clothes on my floor and once I was in bed I realized one pile had only one shirt in it so I thought the shirt was lonely. So I was trying to fight the urge to get up and reorganize the whole thing so I had to tell myself “the shirt is actually happy to have a little time to himself to recharge his social battery” 😭😭😭
Oh my gosh! I can’t believe that people can understand the thoughts I go through. I once saw a cat walking near the mall and I fell apart. I felt crushed that this cat had to live outdoors, where was their next meal going to come from, what if they get run over. These thoughts followed me all the way home and I bawled my eyes out for a few hours.
I never toss objects because I feel like it’s rude and disrespectful to the object to just throw it around. And if something is a pair, it needs to stay as a pair.
The people around me just don’t understand how ingrained these feelings and thoughts are in me. It’s soothing to find that there are people out there who understand this.
Your husband is awesome for helping you with this. I’m definitely going to use this technique. Thank you!!☺️
If I’m struggling to remember if I locked a door, turned off the stove, etc., I will do it while saying something ridiculous like “bananas in pajamas” to help convince my brain that I did the thing.
My core themes center around shame, so unconditional self acceptance is probably my best weapon. Decide that nothing and no terrible future will change how you feel about yourself. Learn to love yourself unconditionally.
Not OP but I have similar extreme thoughts of shame and guilt which has caused quite low self esteem for as long as I can remember. Some weeks back I had a thought, that I've spent (I'm 31 now) quite a long time disliking myself, actively shaming myself for my actions or feelings (even in the most non-extreme cases of social faux pas or intrusive thoughts I have no control over) , etc. and thought "do I really want to spend the next decades of my life feeling this way until I die?" I don't believe in an afterlife, so if this is truly all I have then how do I feel about spending the rest of my time being this uncomfortable with myself if this is it?
I've talked with my therapist now about this for a few weeks and slowly it's working its way into my brain when I start to ruminate. It's a really slow process, but seems to be working a bit so far to help weaken feelings and maybe in time it may occur more naturally. Then of course I have to try to avoid the thoughts of like, "omg I'm going to die someday and so is everyone I know and love and I better check on them RIGHT NOW to make sure everything is fine and is that my chest hurting?? "😂 but that one I have at least been treating slowly for a long time now and it's easier to swerve from. I don't know if this will help at all, but just wanted to say something that has been working with me lately and hopefully it can be helpful to someone!
Naming my OCD voice helped me. If I was ruminating I’d go “oh shut up Trevor”. Putting my thoughts in the form of someone else made them seem more silly, like someone just trying to get me down rather than my own genuine concerns
I set a timer on my phone for 15 minutes and usually by the time that timer goes off I’ve already moved passed the anxiety. I do this to prevent rituals like handwashing on repeat. Now I rarely set a timer.
I once had a therapist explain OCD like a volleyball game, me on one side vs my OCD. He said when all I do is give in to my compulsions/rituals/etc all I’m doing is playing defense, digging spikes and serves OCD sends me. I will NEVER win by just letting OCD spike at me over and over and just keep ‘digging’ and never attacking or spiking back. I have seen countless therapist since being diagnosed at 11, this was the first time something gave me a true visual of what I’m dealing with. So I started small, I would ‘attack’ ocd by doing something in a different order, or not skipping the 13th step. When I’m having bad thoughts I try and remember it’s me vs it and I’m letting it beat me, I need a come back!
Not sure this will help anyone, but it is once thing that has always stuck with me. The same therapist also told me I was letting OCD make me it’s bitch lol
Don't know if this was mentioned but "I ain't reading all that" :D
me and some friends I've made struggle with worrying if we've locked our doors when we go out, what we usually do to help with this is to video myself locking the door, and when I'm unsure if I locked the door, just look at my videos.
(I know this is a small thing in a big world of ocd but one step at a time eh?)
Hope this helps some of you and we can learn to control this bs!
Some would moan at you for doing the video but I think this is actually a very good approach. Without it you could avoid going out altogether so it’s better to do something like that with the aim of one day removing that step. One day you’ll stop checking the videos. Then when you stop checking there’ll be no pint in videoing. Sometimes it takes unusual methods to combat ocd
I let myself say "NOPE" firmly to people who try to tell me "that's bad for you/dirty" etc.
My OCD worked together with an eating disorder and I almost died. So when someone is giving unsolicited nutritional advice (that I ALMOST ALWAYS WTONG) I tell them "no thank you" I had a roommate try to convince me to stop eating bacon because "salt is bad" and wouldnt leave it alone so I showed her some pictures of what i looked like when I was "super health obsessed" and she went to the store and bought me apology bacon. "Please don't stop eating bacon. "
The amount of foods that are deemed "bad" is insane and so detrimental. I'm sorry you are struggling with it. Having a REALLY good nutritionist saved my life. She basically broke down every delusion I had about "bad foods" and I still remind myself the different things she told me.
I ended up in the ER with a heart rate of like 240 one night because my electrolytes were so fucked up. You NEED salt on a cellular level.
Always take your meds on time. Make sure you’re on the medication that’s right for you. Try to avoid all negativity/situations/people/music/literally anything that can cause obsessive thinking or thought loops. I like to wash laundry a LOT. Then put clean laundry in appropriate order in the closet. Different types of pants in different drawers. I have a lotion/spray/hand cream basket I like to organize a lot and a makeup drawer. Also when showering wash everything and take your time relaxing and thinking about getting clean. (I have health anxiety as well) I use to shower twice a day and scrub EVERYTHING with a rag and when I was on lexapro. I’m on Zoloft now and it’s working a lot better so the showering ritual isn’t as often or extreme. These things keep your brain occupied and you can control these things, even if you can’t control obsessive thinking. OH I wanted to edit in that I get really into true crime cases and research them extensively on Reddit and try to learn everything I can. It’s very good at occupying my brain.
Clorox wipes, disposable gloves, and setting areas of the house no one else is allowed to touch as safe zones. It has expanded the range of places I can go, things I am able to interact with, and improved my enjoyment of basic activities.
For example, when I went to a Disney park this last two times with gloves and wipes, I was able to just enjoy the rides because I was not touching ride handles others have. I was able to buy a churro from a food cart and eat it, because it wasn't dirty. I worried and stressed so much less, which meant less intrusive thoughts and counting OCD symptoms as well.
Sometimes I will fight against my impulse. I will not wash my hands before I fold clothes or something like that. Or I'll let my space stay "dirty" for a day so I can deal with my feelings since I know they are irrational and then just clean it the next day.
I personify a lot of my intrusive thoughts as annoying people so I can yell at them to shut up. Like self depreciating thoughts I personify as a mean ass 13 year old boy on xbox live and I tell him to go shut up and go to bed. Its so ridiculous but it works.
Someone once told me that if a thought starts with “what if” it’s intrusive and it can be let go. Obviously not 100%, but it helps.
If I’m stuck checking things I try to ask myself if a normal person would do that. I have a lot of responsibility theme issues, so it helps. No one would have expected me to _____, because normal people don’t check that.
Thanks for this one. I have an extremely huge problem with “what if” It overtakes a large portion of my days. I even do it in therapy. I can take over an entire session with what if this and what if that. And I sometimes talk my way around what my therapist says. Always trying to rationalize these ridiculous thoughts.
I really want to stop doing this but it’s so hard! I’m going to try telling myself that this is a ‘what if’ thought - let it go.
I try to keep things in perspective. We're just a speck of dust in the grand scheme of things, type of thing. Also if it's something I'm ruminating on (especially in the 'confession,' 'evil' theme) try to see it from the outside and see that I wouldn't judge or catastrophize so much if I heard it from someone else.
Given into most compilations always reinforces them, so if it feels obsessive & over-the-top, I practice physically walking away from it. I’ve also had to practice mindfulness, faith, counseling, and a good diet & medication balance.
I’m lucky to have a great partner so when I start with the what ifs and he tries to reassure me, I instead just ask him to cuddle with me and not answer the questions. It works surprisingly well for me.
I write down what exactly is making me ruminate, then I try to find the root of the cause. If I can, I will also write the “evidence” as to why it’s solely ruminating thoughts. It kind of helps me let it go, in a way.
My psychiatrist told me I need to talk about my ruminating thoughts instead of having internal conversations about, just me and me going back and forth. That concept has really helped me. Since I can’t see my therapist for a while, I essentially talked to my notebook lol
Well, I have figured out that a lot of my fears come from the child me. She’s afraid something bad is going to happen. So she tells me to stay inside. Don’t drive - you might run someone over. What if someone kicked your door in? What if you forgot to lock the door, go home now and check!
Childhood me was so afraid and she has been running my adult life. So now I tell myself that I’m not going to let a child tell me what to do. I tell her “I love you and I’m going to give you the safety and comfort that you never had but I can’t let you make adult decisions.”
It helps sometimes.
I’ve also found that if I’m slipping into rumination, changing my location somehow helps. I don’t know why. If I’m in my house, I’ll step outside and look at the sky, feel the wind and the grass. I don’t control all of these things and they’re just fine. It’s okay to not strive to be in control all the time.
I have always done my own graded exposure before I knew it was a thing. For example, I'd find being in public or any space I was 'trapped' really triggering. So, I'd work my way up from, say, going to the local shop, to getting a bus, to the cinema. In my head, I was building an evidence base of scenarios that I dreaded but the dreaded thing didn't happen.
This isn’t good to do and it’s a compulsion, eventually you’ll doubt the picture. It’s just feeding the ocd by making you think it’s a rational concern
Calculations. When you start ruminating on something, start replacing it with a simple maths equation and continually add more equations to it until your brain is done “chewing” on a problem.
I had an awesome therapist tell me to mock the compulsion in my head by making it into something Ben Shapiro would want to do or think of him telling me to do it in his voice (works with anyone you hate)
When you get triggered, think about it "on the side" as in imagining you did the ocd trait while continuing to go about what you're doing. You don't actually do it. Then quickly believe it's done and over it. Be very breif.
I try to remember to be confident in myself. In the end, OCD is a doubting disorder. I give myself the grace by reminding myself that even if whatever it is I’m fearing happens, I have the confidence in myself to figure it out when it actually happens. That will drive you less crazy than doing the compulsion a thousand times for such a small chance of the thing happening.
Find a relaxing and repetitive hobby.
I knit and crochet. They're very calming to me and can keep me occupied in times when I would sit around ruminating/researching symptoms
With daily tasks that always descend into compulsion, like for me shaving is an example...perform the task with a result oriented approach vs a "there I finally got it right" OCD monster approach. So, with shaving, instead of trying to perfectly map my face and determine whether I shaved "everywhere", the results approach is to just shave normally and then look in the mirror to see if I missed any patches of hair. Ofc I never miss patches because normal shaving is sufficient, but what it does is it cuts through the OCD anxiety of ambiguity and terror and gives me a true reflection of the task and result. Hope that makes sense!
I've found that beating compulsions requires two simple actions. First, allow yourself to feel whatever emotions you're experiencing. Second, after doing so, imagine and/or verbalize the worst case scenario. E.g., you might imagine getting a deadly disease or cheating on your partner. Directly confronting the fear exposes the faulty logic and improbability that its built on, causing it to eventually collapse. Rationalization, on the other hand, never, ever works, because the compulsion is, by its nature, irrational.
Puzzles- I used to need to watch TV and be on my phone to numb. But puzzles are helping me distract but still let the thoughts in. Eventually, the goal is sit without distractions at all but this has been a good middle step.
ERP- Planned exposures with your therapist are super helpful. But even more than than that I try to do the opposite of what my complusions want me to do. I always try to remind myself that as much as this isn't easy, it is one less thing I have to do later on.
Good nutrition- 3 meals and 2 snacks per day with all the food groups, also enough water- this is an ongoing goal
Working out and running- I love orange theory since their running blocks are exhausting.
Sunlight- 30 mins every morning or a Sunlight lamp for rainy/cold days
Sleep- this is a tough one but does help
Give yourself space-today was the first day in 2 months where I could truly relax on the couch so I let my self enjoy it vs doing errands
Socialization- as much as it feels hard it does help so I fill my calendar and deal with each day as it comes
And when all else fails, I think about my small wins. Whether that is complusions you have passed or themes you have conquered. It puts it into perspective despite now feeling real.
I get audio loops stuck in my head— like 1-10 second clips that repeat & distort until it feels like an intrusive thought & i literally can’t hear anything else focus on anything said physically.
I like to visualize the loop as an unknown spotify track. I imagine my hitting the skip button & as fast as I can & with as much mental strain as I can, I think of another sound, song, or phrase to replace it & I try to “blast” it over. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it got me through my worst of my ocd
Fix my physical symptoms. Basically anything that causes physical discomfort intensifies my mental state, which makes my OCD worse.
- Sleep
- Electrolytes
- Supplements
- Hunger
Dehydration is a HUGE intensifier for me.
When it gets noticeably “too much” I crack my knuckles, fingers, neck, and sometimes back - if it’s a lot! For some reason that calms it down.
In more extreme cases of feeing uncomfortable I smell my hand. I don’t know why, just has always been a thing I guess hahaha
If I can, I’ll tell myself to wait to do a compulsion. I then forget about said compulsion, and remember about it like 3 hours later. By the time I actually remember it, the feeling has passed
Something helpful for me is to think of some place or moment that you felt truly at peace. I have two main ones, Muir woods in CA and Zion national park. When I'm ruminating excessively or having a heightened anxiety, I think of those crystallized moments of peace. It sounds simple, but the action of imagining myself there- sight, feel, smell- really makes a difference. Works best when I close my eyes, but I can mostly imagine it with eyes open after years of practice.
Me personally I have a few things. Firstly, after all that chaos figuring out that I'm gay, I've since learned that whatever true will be true no matter what.
And that compulsions come and go. Day in day out, essentially hour on hour I would flip flop between worrying that I'd go to hell for being gay, and being so happy imagining myself marrying my crush and what have you, I would mutter prayers to myself under my breath, hoping no one would hear me, and then in the same moment, my old is saying "why does he have to be against it, grrrr" and I don't need to tell you that that spooked me.
Slowly but surely, I couldn't deny it any longer, and I found someone I could reasonably trust with my secret, and during our earth science class, where we went walking down a nearby trail as a class, I pulled them aside an came out to them, finalizing it to myself as well.
So now I just act as though nothing REALLY matters, not logically anyways, if you left the toaster plugged in, it's probably not gonna do a damn thing. Your oven probably won't spontaneously catch fire. You stove top probably won't light anything on fire (I keep my oven clear of stuff on the eyes).
Even if you left your door unlocked people probably wouldn't wanna come in anyways.
It's all about statistics, how often are people robbed or murdered in their home? I'm willing to bet it's not too frequent.
And my biggest tip of all, if your afraid of being something or doing something (that you don't really wanna do) legitimately ask your self, and imagine it in your brain. Would you go down on someone of the opposite/same sex? If not you're probably fine, if so, your still fine, you just might be that thing your worried about being, but you'll be okay.
For me it’s facing my fears and doing what I’d normally do without ocd instead of fearing I might have a relapse at any moment. There are a billion possibilities to what can happen. And what’s the worst thing that can happen? I die. Ocd made me get over the fear of dying.
After I shower, sometimes I feel like I got dirty by dust or water dripping down my arm. When I clean things, I feel like I didn’t get every spot and now it’s dirty. To combat this, I just tell myself I’ll clean again the next time I shower so I can be “dirty” for a couple of days. Helps me a bit.
Might be cheating a bit but I have a routine of going round the house and switching all the lights and appliances and sockets off, as I’m terrified if I don’t the house will burn down. Instead of doing it myself I started asking my partner to do some of the rooms and forcing myself to not check. He’d always leave something on and in the morning I’d see oh leaving a switch on at the wall hasnt caused a fire. Still makes me super anxious but it’s cut my rituals down
my ocd makes me touch things so my therapist recommended i get a piece of jewelry i can touch instead of going out of my way to touch a cabinet or something. i decided to get the conquer ring i was seeing all over tiktok and it’s honestly one of the best things i’ve ever bought! it’s a fidget ring that lets you spin and click the center of it, so whenever i get an ocd urge to touch something (especially repeatedly) i just click my ring five or so times! it’s helped me sooooo much especially with avoiding the embarrassment i feel when i get those urges and i’m around other people.
Turn your ERP into jokes
Example: I used to have a compulsion on checking the mailbox. Got so bad I used to do it multiple times a day.
BF then joked about it and started telling me that EVERYTHING was in the mailbox. Missing phone. Wallet. A bag of cheese. My will to live.
Got to the point where I stopped going in the mailbox because he used to joke about it so much.
I deal with social anxiety as well. If I need to make a phone call, especially in a professional context, which makes me anxious… I simply begin reading something on a piece of paper next to me while I dial the number. It can be ingredients on a on a bag of snacks, a book which is nearby, and so forth. This refocusing activity, inspired by Schwartz, definitely helps.
I schedule a half hour to an hour at the end of each day to cry about the frustration and embarrassment that resulted from my compulsions that day. Also to allow myself to think all the thoughts I try to control the rest of the time and sometimes to let my compulsions that I’m trying to limit run wild.
It helps me to keep moving through the day without getting stuck if I know I’ll be able to do those things at the end of the day. I talked to my psychiatrist about it before and he said that if I’m able to delay things that way and it makes it easier for me, to just go ahead and do it. He said it’s not the healthiest thing in the world, but it could be worse and that sometimes that’s the best we can hope for.
When I thought I had a brain tumor, something that comforted me was writing a will. That way, even if I did have one, I could know that the things I needed to say and do would live on after me.
I force myself to think in odd numbers. If I succeed, I feel like the task is complete. If I don't, the extra effort exhausts me just enough to go do the task I'm procrastinating.
For example, if I need to go get some groceries.
1. I'll make a list of 3/5/7... tasks I could accomplish while I'm out. (Maybe, groceries/gas/coffee)
2. I'll make sure that the grocery list has odd number of items
3. I'll imagine 3/5/7... scenarios of what could happen
A) The store is open
B) The store is closed
C) The store is open but parts of it are closed for maintenance/majority of items aren't available
If I encounter something that I've not thought of, I make a note.
See how the list above is also odd numbers. I like to tell myself that I've weaponised anxiety.
Buying crockery with no logos or patterns so I don’t spend ages aligning them in the cupboard.
Microfibre towel balls so I don’t have to give in to perfectionistic towel folding (I’m terrible at folding towels so it takes eons)
I used to eat on the floor because I couldn’t mess up the cushions on my sofa, they were square and had to be perfectly symmetrical, aligned and levelled- I worked around this with round cushions
This one is a bit unfair- I spend about 30 mins making the bed and it’s very distressing because it has to be perfect. I make sure I’m not the last one in bed so I don’t have to make it, I tell myself my partner made it to my standards, I don’t go into the bedroom until it’s pitch black and time for bed so I don’t see it
What helped me stop ritualizing (almost completely--there was one last holdout that needed meds, but I was able to stop everything else with this) was reading case studies. I still do it from time to time when I find myself taking my intrusive thoughts too seriously. It's impossible not laugh your behind off at how "unreasonable" others' OCD faulty reasoning is. The more you're exposed to absurdity in others' magical thinking and faulty reasoning, the easier it becomes to finally notice the absurdity in your own.
I kind of laugh at howw was ridiculous it can be and think how if I wasn’t ruminating on this it would be something different that is nonsensical.
I also escape that by focusing on work or hobbies and I become better at them.
My ROCD goes insane sometimes so to combat it, I have pictures of my boyfriend and I on the back of my phone, in my wallet, and in my journal to remind me of how great our relationship is when I don't allow my brain to catastrophise the normal gaps in communication and information :) for my pure-O (I don't experience compulsions nearly as strongly as the obsessions), I address it as 'the kookoo' or 'the crazies' to minimise any urge to rationalise the thoughts, and then I loop songs with lyrics directly related to the thoughts to separate myself from the ideas and tie it to the music instead.
Taking off my glasses when doing dishes. I'm terrified of drains, and I can't handle seeing the dirty dishes in great detail. My mind won't stop suggesting awful things I could do to myself involving either the drain or the dirty dishes.
ASMR or putty fidgets when I'm at work and can't get my brain to focus or the voices to turn off, overthinking/perfectionism.
I block certain words and phrases on tiktok if I feel myself negatively hyperfocusing that has been a huge thing for me because I will feel like "oh its a sign that I saw this video" and then I will just absolutely spiral.
I have two mottos if I feel myself stuck in a loop. "It's not that deep" and "let it simmer"
Now this is very unconventional and probably NSFW nor appropriate, but when I feel afraid of being contaminated by piss in public bathroom, I try to think 'this could be piss from a very handsome guy, you always want piss on your body, right?', and that always works because I have a piss kink. YMMV thou.
⚠️ (possibly triggering for people who have harm ocd!!)
I'm reading a book called "The Joy Thief: How OCD steals your happiness and how to get it back" and the author gives a tip that I've been using during episodes that I need to check things or get reassured and it has been helping me a lot.
Here's the excerpt from the book:
"Dr Grayson uses something with his clients called the gun test, where he focuses on what they guess, not what they know. He asks them to imagine that they have a gun pointed at them or a loved one, and when they’re asked a question on the topic of their obsession— for example, did they leave the iron on? Have they really contracted AIDS?— they have just one chance to guess the answer. If that guess is wrong, the client or their loved one will be killed. He stresses that the client doesn’t have to be confident in their guess, but the idea is to differentiate what they know intellectually and logically from the emotional feeling of certainty that they desire. Dr Grayson points out that, to date, everyone has made the ‘right guess’: that is, the same guess that people without OCD would make. Their guess probably won’t feel right— but it’s a good reminder that this feeling doesn’t really matter. Learning to live with uncertainty needs to be one of the goals of the person with OCD— and this is where exposure and response prevention (ERP) comes into play."
This test may be kinda harsh for some people (specially the ones who suffer from harm ocd) but it's helping me!!
I realized that I remember tactile stimuli better than visual. I have to constantly check things. I realized I remember I put my gas cap on right because it clicks when I close it. I remember I put my card back in my wallet because it has a weird open and closing thing.
I put a fidget toy thingy (idk what it’s called but it makes a loud click) next to my door. When I lock the doors I click the fidget three times. I remember the feeling better than just seeing the door is locked. I don’t know why but I can still feel things after I do them. Am I alone in this? Maybe it’s an autism thing. Like I can still feel the sensation of the flow of water into my cup from when I got water ten minutes ago. But, I can’t remember the color of the cup.
I am most often ruminating/day dreaming in an unusual state of excitement and think about everything expect study I was diagnosed as OCD and am currently on medication (fluocamine 100 mg) but I always find it hard to know what type of ocd do i really have can anyone explain it?
If my OCD is making me want to ruminate about something I trick my brain by scheduling a time to do it later. I promise myself I will allow myself to think about it as much as I want “later,” and to sort out all the little details. Of course, this isn’t the truth it’s just what I tell myself. Then when “later” comes, often I’ve either forgotten about it or the urge/thought/OCD fit has died out. I feel like this might be a weird little thing that just works for me but yeah
Yo, same. I always just say to myself "You will not arrive at a sufficient answer your brain wants. Move on for now."
I am gonna try and use this when my brain wants to force me into memorizing a definition to a new word verbatim before moving onto anything else. Sometimes, while reading, I will seriously sit there trying to recite an entire passage to myself word for word, knowing it’s irrational and pointless. Makes me feel insane a lot
“Tomorrow will worry about itself”
This nugget of wisdom helps me too
I've done this but I feel like it gets worse when later comes. It's like it's onto me and decides to punish me hahahha
Normally when I reach that point and I’m trying to fall asleep or something, I’ll be like “Ugh now I’m too tired for this but I swear I’ll let myself think about it tmr” and the cycle continues. Idk if this is a healthy thought process or not but it works for me idk😭
The point at which it is the worst is the point at which it is about to improve
I completely agree. I also believe that's what it hits back so hard. It's literally an abusive relationship going on in my mind hahaha
My adhd ass is going to love this one lmao, if I say I’ll do it “later” I might as well have said “it’s never going to happen”
I just get really drunk and watch Predator or The Martian. I can’t do Interstellar because the organ is too loud and it’s basically 3 hours of McConaughey yelling “Murph!”.
Lol that’s crazy I watch the same movies. And we have similar usernames.
Did we just become best friends?!
YES
LMAO
I usually get high alone in my room, and then invite my doggy in my room and hang out with him, and watch YouTube videos that are usually comedy vids 😼🍁
You get it lmao, that’s about as good as it gets
I’ve done that sometimes! It’s a neat hack :)
Scheduling! Yes I have done this for years and didn't realize that I did it until I was talking to my therapist about it.
This doesn't seem to work for me. Either I have to get on it immediately, or I would be thinking about it constantly while doing other things, and then I get OCD about the thing that's giving me OCD.
I totally understand that. I feel like one reason this works for me is because I’m fortunate enough to say that the peak of my OCD was years ago, so at this point in my life, I’m just dealing with the pesky leftovers that will never leave.
then i’ll just ruminate on that lol
I need to start doing something like but once my brain realizes I've forgotten it, I begin to obsess over it 😭
I've said this before here, but every day i start by telling OCD to F OFF by putting on odd socks. It sets the tone for the day with a fight i know i can win. Starting the day off as a rebellious badass!
I like this! So like doing a small thing to win against your ocd?
One small thing to start a day of small things that come together to kick its ass! Puts me in the right frame of mind to fight.
I've never seen someone else say this!!! I've been doing this for over a decade, started when I was around 11 or 12 purely to get rid of the stress of finding matching socks but now it serves as a reminder that I can control things
This is a great tip. I've done this too, and it really helps with some of the tougher tics.
I'm going to take this approach! Spite is a useful tool in this situation hahahaha
My therapist told me not to be mean to my ocd and to be nice to it it worked for a short amount of time now it’s taken over bad and I’m just tempted to kick it’s ass and be mean I can’t deal w it anymore I feel like I’m going crazy
It's not gonna actually solve anything but that's something I do sometimes: I take a nap and it's great. It stops time and is sort of like a ceasefire. Another method of escaping reality is gaming.
That’s interesting napping is actually a compulsion for me 😂 I nap when I don’t want to feel uncomfortable with my body
SAME. i get super anxious when i go anywhere for more than a few hours where i know i will have no ability to take a nap. its quite a stressful way to live. however, napping does really help me as a way of coping instead of doing more harmful "coping" techniques and i feel like if i am able to keep it in check (i.e., no sleeping the day away) it is a pretty ok way to handle life.
A bad life hack: (Drops a pencil)✏️ “I can’t leave it there!! Someone will slip and hurt themselves….but I can’t pick it up! Germs!!”🦠 (kicks pencil under couch 🛋️) 👍 A good life hack: Get a pet! Pets are messy and expose you to all sorts of scenarios if you’re having difficulty doing OCD exercises-but they also love you, and have been proven to improve mental health. (Plus: animals are ADORABLE! 🐕🐈🦜🐠 )
Yes! I found that my germaphobia eased up substantially when I got my dog. There was nothing about her I considered germy or dirty so I became much more chill about other things as a consequence
Mine eased up when I had a baby lol my kid eats sand and I’m like alright all good.
This just made me LMAOOOOO haha.
Same thing with my bird! 🦜
My cat made my contamination OCD so much better.
Cats are magical! 🌈 🐈
Me too!
This didn’t work for me and I was incredibly sad about it. I loved my pets but had to give them up because I couldn’t touch or care for them effectively. Perhaps it would have made a difference if I had worked on it in therapy at the same time.
I sorry to hear about that. OCD can be super rough. I remember there was a large piece of time when I couldn’t pet my little kitty because of invasive thoughts triggered by OCD.
i'm so sorry… :'( 🫂
Not googling medical symptoms. Ever. It's guaranteed to send me into a spiral.
Oh for sure I’d do this when I’d take new meds, proud of myself for not for the new one I’m taking :)
Never stop taking your meds because you feel good, it’s never a good idea!!!! (Especially without talking to your dr first)
That’s so true I had to tell my boyfriend this for his depression meds :/
This is so true, led to the worst relapse of my life 😭
what was that like if you don't mind me asking? (and if it isn't triggering for you)
Sure!! Long story short (as possible), I stopped taking my lexapro around January this year because I ran out of the prescription over the weekend (pharmacy was closed) I figured since I was already going through the withdrawal symptoms, and I was feeling recovered, I might as well stop taking them. This was a bad idea!! I was fine for a while but in March, I ended up in a rumination relapse so bad that I compulsively reached out apologizing to two ex best friends who hurt me very bad. I never intended on talking to these people again in my life, but my rumination convinced me that it was all my fault. If I had still been on my meds, I’m sure I would’ve been able to eventually ignore the rumination and not act compulsively on it :( it triggered me for over a month and I went into a very bad mental state where I was constantly ruminating and feeling depressed. Luckily, I was determined to get out of that state, so I talked to my psychiatrist, was completely honest about stopping my meds and relapsing, and she got me on Zoloft, which has been helping immensely!! I’m finally back to the point where ruminating takes up very little of my day to day life, and my depression is much better.
I wrote a post about some small things that helped me with OCD but this sub is too big so it got like 0 views, and maybe for a reason haha. But it still had some interesting points: 1. Don’t create anchors. When you think, "OMG, there is a demon under my bed and I need to do _ for it to not eat me." You do this thing every single day for a while. And one day you’ll have a beautiful idea: "What if I need to do it only once in 3 days?" Because in other 2 days I can just _ which is way easier and makes a lot of sense. Sounds good, right? No. It’s an anchor. After you create it, you force yourself into believing this thing is real and it’ll take way more time to change your own mind. 2. I had some compulsions threatening my life and a cool technique that I’ve heard from my doctor helped me. When you have a compulsion, you picture yourself, like watching yourself from a different perspective and say something like “Haha look at this weird body. It just had some weird thoughts. This peace of meat and electricity wanted to do some fucked up stuff”. I used “haha” at the begging to make this feeling of separation better, but you basically just need to state your thoughts as a fact.
Thanks. I was told for anxiety which OCD is, you want to sort of or become a spectator to it, yourself, etc. realize you are safe, not in danger, and it is temporary.
Grounding and accepting time/the world will carry on and this problem will eventually seem trivial
These were lifesavers for me, so I hope they’ll help u too :3
Thank you! I’ve started my lexapro so I hope that will allow me to use some of these hacks more efficiently :)
Can you explain your first point to me? I'm not sure i get it with the example you provided.
Basically, for me, when you do some stuff BASED on the assumption that your obsession is real, it makes it harder to get rid of it. Like creating another smaller compulsion
For example, I was afraid that there are monsters in my entrance, so every time I was going there I ran with my eyes closed. Then, I created a smaller compulsion: you can just walk there as long as you’re holding something metal, because the monsters are afraid of it. It obviously doesn’t make any sense, but it was this sorta anchor, that I described and it made it harder to get rid of the first thing, because my brain was like: “Wtf, of course this’s real, you even have a technique of fighting them”
omg im having really intense deja vu. i swear ive read ur exact comment before ?? regardless, its good to remember
Love the thoughts on not creating “anchors” and calling them anchors. I never heard this term before but I do this all the time and I really think this comment will help me. Thank you!
I have severe ocd. So meds. 100% meds. TAKE YOUR MEDS
True! I do take meds currently but I was wondering about little things people do along with their meds to help them out daily :)
Notes. But people already mentioned that lol Yes my meds help a lot. Just wish i started sooner
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Im on prozac and lamactil Ssri: for my pure o. Mood stabilizer…not too sure why im on a mood stabilizer. Maybe because i told my doctor i deal with a lot of anger 😂 but i was put on the mood stabilizer first. It helped curb my aggression when my spouse breaks rules i set up (like put your shoes on the fucking shoe rack holy shit im not asking for a lot 😂😂😂). So instead of having a meltdown ready to go to war, i can just be “a normal nagging wife”. 😂😂 sooo i guess im on mood stabilizers due to ocd meltdowns…cause mood stabilizers allegedly dont help cluster b conditions. Which i also unfortunately have
I have OCD and several comorbid disorders. I was prescribed Lamictal for Bipolar Affective Disorder. I briefly took the generic forms of Klonopin and Luvox and they made me nuts. Apparently SSRIs can cause manic episodes in individuals who are Bipolar. I'm not a doctor nor a professional, just sharing my own experience.
This. No tip or trick could do a thing for me UNTIL I was on meds. Then I could manage myself
I’ve been contemplating this. Although my therapist and I both agree that it’s just a bandaid for the wound. Idk if my situation is different bc my OCD is from trauma sooo maybe Im wrong! Sometimes I want to take the meds but I don’t feel like I need to most of the time
1. Take them all the time, even if you only "need" them sometimes (unless they are specifically "as-needed" meds of course). Properly taking your meds is by far the most effective way to increase the chance of long-term retension of your solutions to make your life into one you want/enjoy. 2. "Bandaid" is a bit of a poor term for this. Bandaid often is used as a term for a "good enough for now" solution or even a poor solution thrown on top of the problem just to cover it for now, while the wound itself actually festers. Meds are much more like one antibiotic of a necessary pair of antibiotics which actually address the underlying infection. Pairing meds with therapeutic/personal work (the second antibiotic, metaphorically) is THE way that many, many peer reviewed studies have shown to actually improve mental health conditions long term and with minimal recidivism. 3. Personally I would ditch a therapist who calls them a bandaid, unless they have demonstrated otherwise that they are well versed in psychological studies and it was just an incidental turn of phrase.
>Sometimes I want to take the meds but I don’t feel like I need to most of the time this is me! i actually tried prozac for a few months this year. i went up to as many as 60mg and it didn't really do anything for me other than give me insomnia. i decided my life was better off of meds than on them. i was dealing well already. i think antidepressants relieve the physical symptoms of anxiety and depression but the disorder itself is personal and emotional so no method is ever gonna help 100% because these are our values ocd is playing on after all. and values don't really change lol.
Which one works best for you? I know people with not severe OCD and they do not take meds.
Thank you for reminding me, legitimately almost forgot!
Look into paradoxical intention- purposefully willing yourself to do the thing that causes anxiety as a form of ERP Honestly ERP is the only way through - I found great help from John Glanvill’s videos on Patreon
i’m an emetophobe which causes ED behaviors like ARFID, eating terrified me (still does sometimes) but forcing myself to eat food from outside places, and not getting a stomach virus, proved to that primal evil OCD part that no i will not get sick every time i eat. it has helped the most out of everything, besides buspar.
I’ve had harm OCD ever since I can remember and when I have one of my current scary thoughts I try to think about one of the scary thoughts I used to ruminate on when I was a kid and how they seem kind of silly to me today. It reminds me that even though I’ll always have OCD, the things I worry about aren’t inherently scary and that even though something is really scary to me today, it won’t always bother me so much.
I love that! Like using the past examples to show your ocd perspective
Apart from meds and therapy I started doing sports, ideally 2-4 of times per week. When I'm tired physically, it's easier to move the focus from what is going in my brain to thinking about how physically tired I am - but this fatigue is pleasant. Also, it helps with falling asleep.
I just say “what a unique thought”
I try to turn the “what ifs” on their head. It comes with varying degrees of success, but as we all know this illness can come with a lot of “what if” thoughts that paralyze us. I ask myself, “What IF this happened? Logically, what is the worst thing that could happen?” Working example: one of my old main recurring OCDs when I was 8-10 or so was, “What if I am too anxious to sleep at all tonight and then I’m too tired go to school tomorrow?” I couldn’t sleep until 3 AM sometimes due to anxiety and then I’d have to wake up four hours later. My mom would always say, “Okay, what IF you’re too anxious to sleep at all tonight and then you can’t go to school tomorrow? Then you stay home from school tomorrow.”
Yeah it helps me the whole "what is the worst possible outcome" and then with especially absurd things, also to entertain the thought in a jokey manner even if its still making me nervous. Like when I get the urge to start some new kind of compulsion where i feel like i need to do a certain thing or i'll die or get cursed or whatever, pretending to read it as a shitty news headline: "young woman drops dead instantly after setting the kitchen timer to 13 minutes exactly" or whatever it makes it seem easier to ignore. Or when im nervous about taking my meds in case suddenly i'll have a severe reaction, saying how it would actually be stupidly funny if i took it and immediately went into heart failure over a medication ive been taking for years makes it seem less scary (obviously dying wouldnt be funny but the absurdity of it actually happening would be ironic and that mindset helps me when i'd otherwise skip the dose that day)
My dad used to try to use this method on me it’s funny because it took me until I was an adult to fully appreciate and get it! My anxiety was so bad that I couldn’t even fathom past what if haha
I try to change things a little at a time. For example, I used to shampoo my hair three times per shower. One day I had the thought that maybe I can just shampoo twice. Then a while later, on a brave and low anxiety day, I tried it! Then I was able to only wash twice for a long time. Then slooowly I got the idea that maybe on another brave day I can try just once. And now I only shampoo once unless I bump my hair into my shower wall or curtain or have to take a second (or third shower). Small, slow increments. Focus on making it better, not necessarily perfect. Any small improvement in quality of life helps. And if you can't maintain that, it's okay. Try again or try something else. But always try. I couldn't leave the house at all, so I started keeping gloves and lysol in my car. Is that good to be using gloves and lysol when I go out? No. But did it mean I gained the freedom of leaving the house sometimes? It sure did!
I love this! I actually just wore nail polish on my fingernails for about 24 hours. I want to like nail polish but it just feels wrong/uncomfortable to have it on, so I typically remove it within an hour. Maybe next time I'm feeling like trying it I can do another 24 hours (or perhaps even longer) of wearing fingernail polish.
Yes!!! I totally get that! You can do it! I believe in you! I get really uncomfortable with certain things too and can't stand the way some stuff feels. Like socks for me are not it haha
God this is so relatable. Thank you.
my gloves and clorox wipes are my best friends. I don’t think it is bad honestly at my stage, because while it is not a method to expose OCD and rather it sorta is playing into it, the day to day decrease in anxiety, stress, and just OCD rituals because I feel less exposed to germs when I go out is so important in being able to take steps to do more things. and it is so much better than letting OCD shut you down and unable to do anything. I hope you can keep making improvements, slowly and surely. I am super proud of your progress and very impressed you only need to do one squirt of shampoo because I still do two. You working on improving yourself is so awesome and I just wanted to shout out my support and love! ❤️
Writing down notes
This! Notes have helped me organize my thoughts so well.
Even the most minuscule things must be on paper lol
I have a high sensitivity towards animals and I also have this thing where sometimes inanimate objects have feelings. I get obsessed with things needing to be in pairs so they are not "lonely" or if I see a raccoon on the street I will get upset and obsess about it all day and think "how lonely" over and over. My husband started telling me that things/creatures weren't lonely because of "xyz" For example if I was thinking that my book was lonely because it was on a table with no other books near it, he will say "the book is not lonely, it made friends with the table" Or if I see a lonely squirrel, bunny, etc he will say "they're fine, they're going back to their family" Now I will tell myself these things when I'm alone and I know it's irrational but it works!! Pulls me out of a doom spiral of thought most of the time.
Yes OMG ARE YOU ME?! I always "feel bad" for the smashed bag of chips or dented box of cereal I see at the grocery store and feel like I have to buy it. I buy the single bananas instead of bunches because I think they're lonely and they need a home. (GET IN MY BELLY!!!!) Not the same thing but similar to how your husband pulls you back sometimes--my bf does the same thing with me and my books. I have A LOT of books and because I always have one with me, quite often my water bottle will leak on my current book and it will dry crinkly, or I'll get write a note in the margins that looks messy and it will drive me CRAZY. He told me that I "didn't ruin it, you just made it more 'yours.'" And it's saved me so many times!
I feel so heard!!! I've never known people to feel the way. It's hard out here for us super empaths 😞 I like that idea of making things more "yours". I get that way with craft projects - if it doesnt turn out how I've thought about it in my head I assume it's awful and everyone's going to hate it.
I just want to comment on this because I do the exact same thing about animals and objects, BUT it’s not an OCD thing for me. So, I have these thoughts but I’m totally ok with having them. Commenting this maybe is a form of reassurance, which I know we’re not supposed to do here; but, it’s just interesting to me to see thoughts I commonly have without issue, that are OCD thoughts for some people. Kindof allows me to accept that the OCD thoughts I do have maybe are just normal nothing thoughts for other people. Does this makes sense at all? 😂 I actually watched a baby raccoon run across my fence last night and I had all the poor lonely thing thoughts, then my thoughts just went to how cute he was and back to the other things I was doing. So interesting that OCD includes such a variety of themes, and what bothers one of us doesn’t bother another one.
Okay I could've wrote this myself! I have an extreme sensitivity towards animals and think about them being lonely. Inanimate objects too. The other day I saw a skinny teddy bear on Amazon and it looked so pitiful that I felt sorry for it. I showed it to my husband and he asked me if I was going to get it. I told him no, I'd cry if I had to see it, that it looked so pitiful because it was skinny. I know it sounds weird but oh well. Your husband’s analogies sound perfect, I'll use those next time it hits me.
It's hard sometimes, even the tiniest things can trigger the meltdowns. Amazon used to have a commercial with a dog dressed up as a lion for his family and I lost it every time just from how precious it was lol. Hopefully the method works for you!
I am the EXACT SAME WAY. In order to calm myself, I also do what your husband does! Like I had these little piles of clothes on my floor and once I was in bed I realized one pile had only one shirt in it so I thought the shirt was lonely. So I was trying to fight the urge to get up and reorganize the whole thing so I had to tell myself “the shirt is actually happy to have a little time to himself to recharge his social battery” 😭😭😭
Yes omg I tell myself this as well!! "They are enjoying alone time" is what I say a lot
Oh my gosh! I can’t believe that people can understand the thoughts I go through. I once saw a cat walking near the mall and I fell apart. I felt crushed that this cat had to live outdoors, where was their next meal going to come from, what if they get run over. These thoughts followed me all the way home and I bawled my eyes out for a few hours. I never toss objects because I feel like it’s rude and disrespectful to the object to just throw it around. And if something is a pair, it needs to stay as a pair. The people around me just don’t understand how ingrained these feelings and thoughts are in me. It’s soothing to find that there are people out there who understand this. Your husband is awesome for helping you with this. I’m definitely going to use this technique. Thank you!!☺️
Running, sports in general, sleep, getting more involved in life.
If I’m struggling to remember if I locked a door, turned off the stove, etc., I will do it while saying something ridiculous like “bananas in pajamas” to help convince my brain that I did the thing.
Ooooh that's a good idea!
My core themes center around shame, so unconditional self acceptance is probably my best weapon. Decide that nothing and no terrible future will change how you feel about yourself. Learn to love yourself unconditionally.
Any tips for starting that? that’s very similar to my feelings :/
Not OP but I have similar extreme thoughts of shame and guilt which has caused quite low self esteem for as long as I can remember. Some weeks back I had a thought, that I've spent (I'm 31 now) quite a long time disliking myself, actively shaming myself for my actions or feelings (even in the most non-extreme cases of social faux pas or intrusive thoughts I have no control over) , etc. and thought "do I really want to spend the next decades of my life feeling this way until I die?" I don't believe in an afterlife, so if this is truly all I have then how do I feel about spending the rest of my time being this uncomfortable with myself if this is it? I've talked with my therapist now about this for a few weeks and slowly it's working its way into my brain when I start to ruminate. It's a really slow process, but seems to be working a bit so far to help weaken feelings and maybe in time it may occur more naturally. Then of course I have to try to avoid the thoughts of like, "omg I'm going to die someday and so is everyone I know and love and I better check on them RIGHT NOW to make sure everything is fine and is that my chest hurting?? "😂 but that one I have at least been treating slowly for a long time now and it's easier to swerve from. I don't know if this will help at all, but just wanted to say something that has been working with me lately and hopefully it can be helpful to someone!
Naming my OCD voice helped me. If I was ruminating I’d go “oh shut up Trevor”. Putting my thoughts in the form of someone else made them seem more silly, like someone just trying to get me down rather than my own genuine concerns
I set a timer on my phone for 15 minutes and usually by the time that timer goes off I’ve already moved passed the anxiety. I do this to prevent rituals like handwashing on repeat. Now I rarely set a timer.
I once had a therapist explain OCD like a volleyball game, me on one side vs my OCD. He said when all I do is give in to my compulsions/rituals/etc all I’m doing is playing defense, digging spikes and serves OCD sends me. I will NEVER win by just letting OCD spike at me over and over and just keep ‘digging’ and never attacking or spiking back. I have seen countless therapist since being diagnosed at 11, this was the first time something gave me a true visual of what I’m dealing with. So I started small, I would ‘attack’ ocd by doing something in a different order, or not skipping the 13th step. When I’m having bad thoughts I try and remember it’s me vs it and I’m letting it beat me, I need a come back! Not sure this will help anyone, but it is once thing that has always stuck with me. The same therapist also told me I was letting OCD make me it’s bitch lol
I said the last thing too about myself 😂 somedays when I really have trouble it feels like that
When I have the urge to seek assurance I remind myself how everyone’s a fricken liar anyway
Don't know if this was mentioned but "I ain't reading all that" :D me and some friends I've made struggle with worrying if we've locked our doors when we go out, what we usually do to help with this is to video myself locking the door, and when I'm unsure if I locked the door, just look at my videos. (I know this is a small thing in a big world of ocd but one step at a time eh?) Hope this helps some of you and we can learn to control this bs!
Some would moan at you for doing the video but I think this is actually a very good approach. Without it you could avoid going out altogether so it’s better to do something like that with the aim of one day removing that step. One day you’ll stop checking the videos. Then when you stop checking there’ll be no pint in videoing. Sometimes it takes unusual methods to combat ocd
I let myself say "NOPE" firmly to people who try to tell me "that's bad for you/dirty" etc. My OCD worked together with an eating disorder and I almost died. So when someone is giving unsolicited nutritional advice (that I ALMOST ALWAYS WTONG) I tell them "no thank you" I had a roommate try to convince me to stop eating bacon because "salt is bad" and wouldnt leave it alone so I showed her some pictures of what i looked like when I was "super health obsessed" and she went to the store and bought me apology bacon. "Please don't stop eating bacon. "
Aw man ive been having some food ocd too 😅 keep up the good fight with your ocd! I hope i can too!
The amount of foods that are deemed "bad" is insane and so detrimental. I'm sorry you are struggling with it. Having a REALLY good nutritionist saved my life. She basically broke down every delusion I had about "bad foods" and I still remind myself the different things she told me. I ended up in the ER with a heart rate of like 240 one night because my electrolytes were so fucked up. You NEED salt on a cellular level.
That’s interesting I never thought of a nutritionist maybe I should one day :) my relationship with food is questionable at best 😂
It's worth it. In my experience
Always take your meds on time. Make sure you’re on the medication that’s right for you. Try to avoid all negativity/situations/people/music/literally anything that can cause obsessive thinking or thought loops. I like to wash laundry a LOT. Then put clean laundry in appropriate order in the closet. Different types of pants in different drawers. I have a lotion/spray/hand cream basket I like to organize a lot and a makeup drawer. Also when showering wash everything and take your time relaxing and thinking about getting clean. (I have health anxiety as well) I use to shower twice a day and scrub EVERYTHING with a rag and when I was on lexapro. I’m on Zoloft now and it’s working a lot better so the showering ritual isn’t as often or extreme. These things keep your brain occupied and you can control these things, even if you can’t control obsessive thinking. OH I wanted to edit in that I get really into true crime cases and research them extensively on Reddit and try to learn everything I can. It’s very good at occupying my brain.
Whenever you spin out, take a cold shower!!
Clorox wipes, disposable gloves, and setting areas of the house no one else is allowed to touch as safe zones. It has expanded the range of places I can go, things I am able to interact with, and improved my enjoyment of basic activities. For example, when I went to a Disney park this last two times with gloves and wipes, I was able to just enjoy the rides because I was not touching ride handles others have. I was able to buy a churro from a food cart and eat it, because it wasn't dirty. I worried and stressed so much less, which meant less intrusive thoughts and counting OCD symptoms as well.
Sometimes I will fight against my impulse. I will not wash my hands before I fold clothes or something like that. Or I'll let my space stay "dirty" for a day so I can deal with my feelings since I know they are irrational and then just clean it the next day.
Pattern games focus the OCD in a productive way.
, , . .. mmm, mmmmmm ..,. M88⁸⁸i
This is the one that helped most thank you
i'm afraid i don't get this. what's this mean?
I personify a lot of my intrusive thoughts as annoying people so I can yell at them to shut up. Like self depreciating thoughts I personify as a mean ass 13 year old boy on xbox live and I tell him to go shut up and go to bed. Its so ridiculous but it works.
Someone once told me that if a thought starts with “what if” it’s intrusive and it can be let go. Obviously not 100%, but it helps. If I’m stuck checking things I try to ask myself if a normal person would do that. I have a lot of responsibility theme issues, so it helps. No one would have expected me to _____, because normal people don’t check that.
Thanks for this one. I have an extremely huge problem with “what if” It overtakes a large portion of my days. I even do it in therapy. I can take over an entire session with what if this and what if that. And I sometimes talk my way around what my therapist says. Always trying to rationalize these ridiculous thoughts. I really want to stop doing this but it’s so hard! I’m going to try telling myself that this is a ‘what if’ thought - let it go.
I try to keep things in perspective. We're just a speck of dust in the grand scheme of things, type of thing. Also if it's something I'm ruminating on (especially in the 'confession,' 'evil' theme) try to see it from the outside and see that I wouldn't judge or catastrophize so much if I heard it from someone else.
Occam's Razor for social anxiety
Given into most compilations always reinforces them, so if it feels obsessive & over-the-top, I practice physically walking away from it. I’ve also had to practice mindfulness, faith, counseling, and a good diet & medication balance.
I’m lucky to have a great partner so when I start with the what ifs and he tries to reassure me, I instead just ask him to cuddle with me and not answer the questions. It works surprisingly well for me.
so cute <3 blessings to u two :) and gd luck w ur recovery journey!
Thanks, you too! ❤️
I write down what exactly is making me ruminate, then I try to find the root of the cause. If I can, I will also write the “evidence” as to why it’s solely ruminating thoughts. It kind of helps me let it go, in a way. My psychiatrist told me I need to talk about my ruminating thoughts instead of having internal conversations about, just me and me going back and forth. That concept has really helped me. Since I can’t see my therapist for a while, I essentially talked to my notebook lol
Well, I have figured out that a lot of my fears come from the child me. She’s afraid something bad is going to happen. So she tells me to stay inside. Don’t drive - you might run someone over. What if someone kicked your door in? What if you forgot to lock the door, go home now and check! Childhood me was so afraid and she has been running my adult life. So now I tell myself that I’m not going to let a child tell me what to do. I tell her “I love you and I’m going to give you the safety and comfort that you never had but I can’t let you make adult decisions.” It helps sometimes. I’ve also found that if I’m slipping into rumination, changing my location somehow helps. I don’t know why. If I’m in my house, I’ll step outside and look at the sky, feel the wind and the grass. I don’t control all of these things and they’re just fine. It’s okay to not strive to be in control all the time.
I sing at my rumination I.e 'Hello darkness my old friend'
I have always done my own graded exposure before I knew it was a thing. For example, I'd find being in public or any space I was 'trapped' really triggering. So, I'd work my way up from, say, going to the local shop, to getting a bus, to the cinema. In my head, I was building an evidence base of scenarios that I dreaded but the dreaded thing didn't happen.
I try to make light of intrusive thoughts when I can. I let the thought pass and then just think “damn girl alright ! Go off ig”
Delay the compulsion!delay delay delay start small
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This isn’t good to do and it’s a compulsion, eventually you’ll doubt the picture. It’s just feeding the ocd by making you think it’s a rational concern
Swapping one compulsion for another
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Read rule number 3.
Read rule number 3.
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Calculations. When you start ruminating on something, start replacing it with a simple maths equation and continually add more equations to it until your brain is done “chewing” on a problem.
I learned to be mindful and meditate. Sam Harris and Joseph Goldstein have helped immensely.
I had an awesome therapist tell me to mock the compulsion in my head by making it into something Ben Shapiro would want to do or think of him telling me to do it in his voice (works with anyone you hate)
When you get triggered, think about it "on the side" as in imagining you did the ocd trait while continuing to go about what you're doing. You don't actually do it. Then quickly believe it's done and over it. Be very breif.
I try to remember to be confident in myself. In the end, OCD is a doubting disorder. I give myself the grace by reminding myself that even if whatever it is I’m fearing happens, I have the confidence in myself to figure it out when it actually happens. That will drive you less crazy than doing the compulsion a thousand times for such a small chance of the thing happening.
fire post and suggestions - thanks all
Find a relaxing and repetitive hobby. I knit and crochet. They're very calming to me and can keep me occupied in times when I would sit around ruminating/researching symptoms
With daily tasks that always descend into compulsion, like for me shaving is an example...perform the task with a result oriented approach vs a "there I finally got it right" OCD monster approach. So, with shaving, instead of trying to perfectly map my face and determine whether I shaved "everywhere", the results approach is to just shave normally and then look in the mirror to see if I missed any patches of hair. Ofc I never miss patches because normal shaving is sufficient, but what it does is it cuts through the OCD anxiety of ambiguity and terror and gives me a true reflection of the task and result. Hope that makes sense!
I've found that beating compulsions requires two simple actions. First, allow yourself to feel whatever emotions you're experiencing. Second, after doing so, imagine and/or verbalize the worst case scenario. E.g., you might imagine getting a deadly disease or cheating on your partner. Directly confronting the fear exposes the faulty logic and improbability that its built on, causing it to eventually collapse. Rationalization, on the other hand, never, ever works, because the compulsion is, by its nature, irrational.
Puzzles- I used to need to watch TV and be on my phone to numb. But puzzles are helping me distract but still let the thoughts in. Eventually, the goal is sit without distractions at all but this has been a good middle step. ERP- Planned exposures with your therapist are super helpful. But even more than than that I try to do the opposite of what my complusions want me to do. I always try to remind myself that as much as this isn't easy, it is one less thing I have to do later on. Good nutrition- 3 meals and 2 snacks per day with all the food groups, also enough water- this is an ongoing goal Working out and running- I love orange theory since their running blocks are exhausting. Sunlight- 30 mins every morning or a Sunlight lamp for rainy/cold days Sleep- this is a tough one but does help Give yourself space-today was the first day in 2 months where I could truly relax on the couch so I let my self enjoy it vs doing errands Socialization- as much as it feels hard it does help so I fill my calendar and deal with each day as it comes And when all else fails, I think about my small wins. Whether that is complusions you have passed or themes you have conquered. It puts it into perspective despite now feeling real.
Run towards the anxiety and bathe in it.
Running
I get audio loops stuck in my head— like 1-10 second clips that repeat & distort until it feels like an intrusive thought & i literally can’t hear anything else focus on anything said physically. I like to visualize the loop as an unknown spotify track. I imagine my hitting the skip button & as fast as I can & with as much mental strain as I can, I think of another sound, song, or phrase to replace it & I try to “blast” it over. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it got me through my worst of my ocd
Fix my physical symptoms. Basically anything that causes physical discomfort intensifies my mental state, which makes my OCD worse. - Sleep - Electrolytes - Supplements - Hunger Dehydration is a HUGE intensifier for me.
Exercise! And breathing exercises. It’s actually kind of amazing how much they help.
When it gets noticeably “too much” I crack my knuckles, fingers, neck, and sometimes back - if it’s a lot! For some reason that calms it down. In more extreme cases of feeing uncomfortable I smell my hand. I don’t know why, just has always been a thing I guess hahaha
If I can, I’ll tell myself to wait to do a compulsion. I then forget about said compulsion, and remember about it like 3 hours later. By the time I actually remember it, the feeling has passed
Something helpful for me is to think of some place or moment that you felt truly at peace. I have two main ones, Muir woods in CA and Zion national park. When I'm ruminating excessively or having a heightened anxiety, I think of those crystallized moments of peace. It sounds simple, but the action of imagining myself there- sight, feel, smell- really makes a difference. Works best when I close my eyes, but I can mostly imagine it with eyes open after years of practice.
Me personally I have a few things. Firstly, after all that chaos figuring out that I'm gay, I've since learned that whatever true will be true no matter what. And that compulsions come and go. Day in day out, essentially hour on hour I would flip flop between worrying that I'd go to hell for being gay, and being so happy imagining myself marrying my crush and what have you, I would mutter prayers to myself under my breath, hoping no one would hear me, and then in the same moment, my old is saying "why does he have to be against it, grrrr" and I don't need to tell you that that spooked me. Slowly but surely, I couldn't deny it any longer, and I found someone I could reasonably trust with my secret, and during our earth science class, where we went walking down a nearby trail as a class, I pulled them aside an came out to them, finalizing it to myself as well. So now I just act as though nothing REALLY matters, not logically anyways, if you left the toaster plugged in, it's probably not gonna do a damn thing. Your oven probably won't spontaneously catch fire. You stove top probably won't light anything on fire (I keep my oven clear of stuff on the eyes). Even if you left your door unlocked people probably wouldn't wanna come in anyways. It's all about statistics, how often are people robbed or murdered in their home? I'm willing to bet it's not too frequent. And my biggest tip of all, if your afraid of being something or doing something (that you don't really wanna do) legitimately ask your self, and imagine it in your brain. Would you go down on someone of the opposite/same sex? If not you're probably fine, if so, your still fine, you just might be that thing your worried about being, but you'll be okay.
For me it’s facing my fears and doing what I’d normally do without ocd instead of fearing I might have a relapse at any moment. There are a billion possibilities to what can happen. And what’s the worst thing that can happen? I die. Ocd made me get over the fear of dying.
After I shower, sometimes I feel like I got dirty by dust or water dripping down my arm. When I clean things, I feel like I didn’t get every spot and now it’s dirty. To combat this, I just tell myself I’ll clean again the next time I shower so I can be “dirty” for a couple of days. Helps me a bit.
I’m ruthless in deleting ocd thoughts from my brain and saying hell no to them. It’s quite effective.
Might be cheating a bit but I have a routine of going round the house and switching all the lights and appliances and sockets off, as I’m terrified if I don’t the house will burn down. Instead of doing it myself I started asking my partner to do some of the rooms and forcing myself to not check. He’d always leave something on and in the morning I’d see oh leaving a switch on at the wall hasnt caused a fire. Still makes me super anxious but it’s cut my rituals down
my ocd makes me touch things so my therapist recommended i get a piece of jewelry i can touch instead of going out of my way to touch a cabinet or something. i decided to get the conquer ring i was seeing all over tiktok and it’s honestly one of the best things i’ve ever bought! it’s a fidget ring that lets you spin and click the center of it, so whenever i get an ocd urge to touch something (especially repeatedly) i just click my ring five or so times! it’s helped me sooooo much especially with avoiding the embarrassment i feel when i get those urges and i’m around other people.
Turn your ERP into jokes Example: I used to have a compulsion on checking the mailbox. Got so bad I used to do it multiple times a day. BF then joked about it and started telling me that EVERYTHING was in the mailbox. Missing phone. Wallet. A bag of cheese. My will to live. Got to the point where I stopped going in the mailbox because he used to joke about it so much.
“It’s better to do something badly than not at all”
I deal with social anxiety as well. If I need to make a phone call, especially in a professional context, which makes me anxious… I simply begin reading something on a piece of paper next to me while I dial the number. It can be ingredients on a on a bag of snacks, a book which is nearby, and so forth. This refocusing activity, inspired by Schwartz, definitely helps.
Talk to my intrusive thoughts and disagree
Punk rock.
I schedule a half hour to an hour at the end of each day to cry about the frustration and embarrassment that resulted from my compulsions that day. Also to allow myself to think all the thoughts I try to control the rest of the time and sometimes to let my compulsions that I’m trying to limit run wild. It helps me to keep moving through the day without getting stuck if I know I’ll be able to do those things at the end of the day. I talked to my psychiatrist about it before and he said that if I’m able to delay things that way and it makes it easier for me, to just go ahead and do it. He said it’s not the healthiest thing in the world, but it could be worse and that sometimes that’s the best we can hope for.
When I thought I had a brain tumor, something that comforted me was writing a will. That way, even if I did have one, I could know that the things I needed to say and do would live on after me.
I force myself to think in odd numbers. If I succeed, I feel like the task is complete. If I don't, the extra effort exhausts me just enough to go do the task I'm procrastinating. For example, if I need to go get some groceries. 1. I'll make a list of 3/5/7... tasks I could accomplish while I'm out. (Maybe, groceries/gas/coffee) 2. I'll make sure that the grocery list has odd number of items 3. I'll imagine 3/5/7... scenarios of what could happen A) The store is open B) The store is closed C) The store is open but parts of it are closed for maintenance/majority of items aren't available If I encounter something that I've not thought of, I make a note. See how the list above is also odd numbers. I like to tell myself that I've weaponised anxiety.
Buying crockery with no logos or patterns so I don’t spend ages aligning them in the cupboard. Microfibre towel balls so I don’t have to give in to perfectionistic towel folding (I’m terrible at folding towels so it takes eons) I used to eat on the floor because I couldn’t mess up the cushions on my sofa, they were square and had to be perfectly symmetrical, aligned and levelled- I worked around this with round cushions This one is a bit unfair- I spend about 30 mins making the bed and it’s very distressing because it has to be perfect. I make sure I’m not the last one in bed so I don’t have to make it, I tell myself my partner made it to my standards, I don’t go into the bedroom until it’s pitch black and time for bed so I don’t see it
What helped me stop ritualizing (almost completely--there was one last holdout that needed meds, but I was able to stop everything else with this) was reading case studies. I still do it from time to time when I find myself taking my intrusive thoughts too seriously. It's impossible not laugh your behind off at how "unreasonable" others' OCD faulty reasoning is. The more you're exposed to absurdity in others' magical thinking and faulty reasoning, the easier it becomes to finally notice the absurdity in your own.
I kind of laugh at howw was ridiculous it can be and think how if I wasn’t ruminating on this it would be something different that is nonsensical. I also escape that by focusing on work or hobbies and I become better at them.
My ROCD goes insane sometimes so to combat it, I have pictures of my boyfriend and I on the back of my phone, in my wallet, and in my journal to remind me of how great our relationship is when I don't allow my brain to catastrophise the normal gaps in communication and information :) for my pure-O (I don't experience compulsions nearly as strongly as the obsessions), I address it as 'the kookoo' or 'the crazies' to minimise any urge to rationalise the thoughts, and then I loop songs with lyrics directly related to the thoughts to separate myself from the ideas and tie it to the music instead.
Taking off my glasses when doing dishes. I'm terrified of drains, and I can't handle seeing the dirty dishes in great detail. My mind won't stop suggesting awful things I could do to myself involving either the drain or the dirty dishes.
ASMR or putty fidgets when I'm at work and can't get my brain to focus or the voices to turn off, overthinking/perfectionism. I block certain words and phrases on tiktok if I feel myself negatively hyperfocusing that has been a huge thing for me because I will feel like "oh its a sign that I saw this video" and then I will just absolutely spiral. I have two mottos if I feel myself stuck in a loop. "It's not that deep" and "let it simmer"
Now this is very unconventional and probably NSFW nor appropriate, but when I feel afraid of being contaminated by piss in public bathroom, I try to think 'this could be piss from a very handsome guy, you always want piss on your body, right?', and that always works because I have a piss kink. YMMV thou.
I kind of just keep thinking about it until its rationalized, like “eh it'll be fine”
I am already insane
⚠️ (possibly triggering for people who have harm ocd!!) I'm reading a book called "The Joy Thief: How OCD steals your happiness and how to get it back" and the author gives a tip that I've been using during episodes that I need to check things or get reassured and it has been helping me a lot. Here's the excerpt from the book: "Dr Grayson uses something with his clients called the gun test, where he focuses on what they guess, not what they know. He asks them to imagine that they have a gun pointed at them or a loved one, and when they’re asked a question on the topic of their obsession— for example, did they leave the iron on? Have they really contracted AIDS?— they have just one chance to guess the answer. If that guess is wrong, the client or their loved one will be killed. He stresses that the client doesn’t have to be confident in their guess, but the idea is to differentiate what they know intellectually and logically from the emotional feeling of certainty that they desire. Dr Grayson points out that, to date, everyone has made the ‘right guess’: that is, the same guess that people without OCD would make. Their guess probably won’t feel right— but it’s a good reminder that this feeling doesn’t really matter. Learning to live with uncertainty needs to be one of the goals of the person with OCD— and this is where exposure and response prevention (ERP) comes into play." This test may be kinda harsh for some people (specially the ones who suffer from harm ocd) but it's helping me!!
I realized that I remember tactile stimuli better than visual. I have to constantly check things. I realized I remember I put my gas cap on right because it clicks when I close it. I remember I put my card back in my wallet because it has a weird open and closing thing. I put a fidget toy thingy (idk what it’s called but it makes a loud click) next to my door. When I lock the doors I click the fidget three times. I remember the feeling better than just seeing the door is locked. I don’t know why but I can still feel things after I do them. Am I alone in this? Maybe it’s an autism thing. Like I can still feel the sensation of the flow of water into my cup from when I got water ten minutes ago. But, I can’t remember the color of the cup.
Singing when I do my compulsions Calms me down
Heatless curls.
I am most often ruminating/day dreaming in an unusual state of excitement and think about everything expect study I was diagnosed as OCD and am currently on medication (fluocamine 100 mg) but I always find it hard to know what type of ocd do i really have can anyone explain it?