Tag Archives: OCD

What You Need to Know about Children with OCD

April 16, 2015Uncategorisedchildren with ocd, Gregory Sansone, OCD, ocd help, OCD help STLGregory Sansone

All children have different fears, worries, and doubts, but children with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) are unable to stop these thoughts or worries. This then compels them to carry out certain behaviors over and over again. For children with OCD, it may be more difficult for them to explain why they feel worry or doubt and why they carry out ritualistic behaviors.

It is important to know and always keep in mind that OCD is never a child’s fault. One way to help the child is to make sure that they receive treatment. Treatment is not only important for the child suffering from OCD but also for the parents to understand how they need to interact with their child to help and empower their child and not enable his or her behaviors.

Each child is different and will improve at different rates, so please don’t compare your child’s progress with another’s child or even to how your child was doing the day before. There will always be days that seem better or worse than others. Just stay positive and recognize any improvement that they display with praise and positive reinforcement.

It is also important to help keep routines for your child and also for your family. Inform other family members and people close to the child so they can be aware of routines and different strategies or techniques that should be used to help your child progress with his or her treatment. Don’t let OCD control the family or household! Giving in to OCD worries or rituals will not help them go away; in fact, in most cases, it only makes the OCD worse.

Having a child who is suffering from OCD is never easy, but you CAN help your child recover! Stay strong and never give up!

MOVEMENT

April 7, 2015Depressiondepression recovery, Fear, OCD, powerful livingGregory Sansone

Do thoughts have to stop our forward momentum? Thoughts are thoughts. Actions are actions. Why do intrusive, negative thoughts or worries have to directly affect what we do? Do we all of the sudden become physically paralyzed when our brain is having a negative thought? Experiment and see if you can move and go forward regardless of what is going on in your head. See if you can separate the 2. How cool would it be to be able to move, do, and live regardless of what is going on upstairs even if the thought is or seems relevant. You talk about being free!!

Encouragement

July 29, 2014CourageCourage, ERP, Fear, fighting anxiety, help for ocd, help with ocd, how to fight OCD, Obsessive–compulsive disorder, OCD, OCD and Anxiety, ocd anxiety, ocd help, ocd therapy, ocd tools, surviving anxiety, tools for coping with anxiety, tools for ocdGregory Sansone

My outlook must be bigger and stronger than my fear.

Live free of mental fear and emotional fear that holds us back.

Go unready.

You must believe in the treatment.

Refuse to feed OCD anymore – starve it!

“If I imagine something inappropriate then that means I’m a bad person and I can’t handle that!”….versus “If I imagine something inappropriate then I’ll feel uncertain and anxious. And I CAN handle that.”

Anxious? Here is Help

July 21, 2014AnxietyAnxiety, Courage, Fear, fighting anxiety, fighting ocd, help for ocd, help with ocd, how to fight OCD, Obsessive–compulsive disorder, OCD, OCD and Anxiety, ocd anxiety, ocd fears, ocd help, ocd therapy, ocd tools, surviving anxiety, tools for anxiety, tools for coping with anxiety, tools for ocdGregory Sansone

Be brave, courageous. Let go of being in control and worrying about losing that edge. And go on anyway. That’s courage.

Try to sit with your anxiety. It’s the trying that’s important. The invasive thoughts will occur. Just keep trying to refocus on what you are reading, watching on TV, etc.

You will find out that you can go on in the face of the anxiety, that you will not “Lose your mind.”

Call fear and OCD’s bluff and discover if what you fear is true. Don’t believe anything. Don’t believe your thoughts. Find out if it is true through actions. No thoughts. Fear hates discovery and choice because it unveils the empty threat.

Anything you can do to interrupt the loop will start to create new neural pathways. This is when the hard-wiring that has been going on, because of the anxiety, will begin to stop.

This Week’s Insights

July 2, 2014Courage, Living Strong, OCD, Uncertaintybravery, facing ocd, fighting ocd, help for anxiety, help for ocd, how to fight OCD, OCD, ocd help, treatment for ocdGregory Sansone

The content of your obsession is irrelevant.

Go hard towards uncertainty with courage and wanting it. Don’t protect. Attack OCD’s territory.

Refuse to be comfortable or certain.

Accept and be willing to be influenced by the moment, environment, discomfort/pain.

Be awkward, clumsy, and uncertain. Our brains have to deal with variability: in environment, in movement, in life.

Insights into Fighting OCD

June 25, 2014Anxiety, Courage, Living Strong, OCDAnxiety, doubt, ERP, Exposure Response Prevention, Fear, fighting anxiety, fighting fear, fighting ocd, how to fight OCD, OCD, tolerating anxiety, tolerating fearGregory Sansone

“When you’re going through hell, keep moving.”

Before doing ERP – alter your mindset by ‘wanting anxiety’ and then act on that frame of reference as you engage in that feared situation.

Say to yourself “I can tolerate this happening. I want this to happen, I choose it – I really want it to keep happening – I win if it keeps happening!”

My job is to provoke more doubt, anxiety, and uncertainty than I think I can tolerate.

Medication As A Crutch?

June 22, 2014MedicationCourage, Depression, fighting depression, help for ocd, help with ocd, medication for depression, medication for ocd, Obsessive–compulsive disorder, OCD, OCD and Anxiety, ocd anxiety, surviving anxiety, tools for coping with anxiety, tools for depression, tools for ocd, treatmentGregory Sansone

I used to think if I took medicine for my obsessions, compulsions, and depression that I was weak or cheating. “I should be enough of a man to handle my problems and not need medicine,” I would think.

How long would it take me to realize that willpower pales in comparison to intelligence? If you’re trying to dig yourself out of a problem and have a lot of willpower, that is good. It is not good when your efforts to dig yourself out only make you worse. In this example it is obvious that you won’t succeed by willpower alone. Rather, it takes intelligence to step back and look at your situation. If you realize you aren’t getting any better by your present course of action, then you need a new course. It is even more admirable and noble to ask other’s opinions, that you respect, as to what their opinion is regarding the course of action you have chosen for your recovery. At least consider what those who truly love you have to say. You don’t have to do it, but at least seriously consider what they have to say. What do you value more, intelligence or willpower?

I value both, but not one without the other. Mules have willpower. Wise people have intelligence which they can use to figure out the best course of action (based on objective data not ego or shame or embarrassment) and they then use that awesome willpower to implement that plan to success.

The real crutch for those of us who have OCD and/or depression is the easy, comfortable, powerless choices we make in response to our condition. Some of those choices can be avoiding, sleeping,isolating, compulsing, controlling, drinking, and many more. Medicine, when used responsibly and intelligently, is no more of a crutch than willpower. We know willpower is not a crutch.

Be an intelligent person. If you are spinning your wheels (based on an honest, objective view point) try another course of action. That is hardly a crutch, rather, that is a refusal to live the one and only life you have based on stupidity.

If medicine seems to be the next reasonable course of action, take it and discover what happens. You can always choose a new course. One of the components of OCD and depression is that we aren’t seeing things clearly. Listen to people that, in your heart of hearts, you truly believe love you and want you happy.

Be the smartest, informed person you can be.

Never quit.

OCD & Certainty

June 13, 2014OCD, Uncertaintyadapting to change, Anxiety, certainty, dealing with change, dealing with uncertainty, fighting anxiety, fighting ocd, help for ocd, help with ocd, living a healthy life, needing certainty, needing order, needing safety, Obsessive–compulsive disorder, OCD, ocd therapy, ocd tools, OCD treatment, positive living, surviving anxiety, tools for anxietyGregory Sansone

OCD demands certainty in order for us to be safe and happy. In reality, listening to OCD guarantees us danger and misery.

In living a healthy life we don’t pursue perfect safety, rather, we commit our lives to growth and adapt to change.

UNCERTAINTY and COMMITMENT

July 7, 2013Courage, UncertaintyAnguish, Anxiety, Cognitive therapy, Courage, Depression, ERP, Exposures, Fear, Obsessive–compulsive disorder, OCD, OCD and Anxiety, Rumination, SufferingGregory Sansone

Okay here’s the deal, I’m 50 and have had OCD since I was 18. It pretty much came out of nowhere, although looking back it’s obvious I had the predisposition for it. I know I should go in order and introduce myself and tell my story and all that, but today I’m just diving into something that will help me because I am feeling obsessive and anxious today about uncertainty as it relates to life and my well being. Here’s the content of this particular obsession for me: I had a very difficult stomach issue about 3 years ago where I had inflammation of the stomach lining. I was nauseous and had no appetite and felt tired and weak due to it. I also was very depressed because It had just been 4 months since I came off the medicine I was on for OCD that I had been taking for 14 years. I came off way too fast and the PSYCHOLOGIST that was advising me to come off it had no idea what he was doing in this area. He acted like it and because he had helped me so much in our therapy sessions with exposure and cognitive therapy, I believed him and went for it…big mistake.

Once the medicine was 100 percent out of my system, it caused me to feel depressed and I hadn’t done well with depression in the past. Then I started feeling obsessive soon after and now I didn’t have the help of the medicine to help me fight it. In addition to this was my stomach issue, no desire for food or the opposite sex, the inability to enjoy a glass of wine, and the fact that a 4 year relationship I had with a woman had just come to an end. I was really worked over and did not feel good. So I got back on medicine and back in therapy and aggressively started doing exposures. I met the woman of my total dreams, whom I am now married to, and I gradually got better. Furthermore, I started a support group which helped me immensely. I also started a new business. All of this helped in time and I am now doing well. Today, however, I had a visit from the common obsession that goes something like this: “How do you know you won’t go back to feeling bad like you did before?What would you do if the worst happened and you got depressed and nauseous again and had terrible pains in your stomach, and NOTHING could help me, what would you do then? ” I respond in my mind and say , well I could work out and do exposures………and what if that didn’t work? Well I could check myself into the hospital and certainly they could take the pain and anguish away……..but what if they couldn’t and I just remained in pain and anguish and suffering with deep depression and OCD and NOTHING helped, what then? So I tell myself, well there is an end in sight because ultimately I would die and I wouldn’t be in anguish anymore. But what if after I died it carried on forever and ever and anguish and suffering never ended……..what then? Maybe that’s what hell is and maybe I will go there and maybe….and maybe…..and maybe, maybe, maybe….. . Beautiful thought process and concept indeed isn’t it? Just lovely and uplifting and positive!! Right? Wrong.

So here is how I deal with the above. First of all, It sucks. Secondly, I stopped searching for certainty because that is what is feeding this evil villain. “But how can I live with uncertainty?” Honestly, I never knew before and sometimes I get back in that place like I feel the pull is today. So here’s the deal, I don’t have certainty and we don’t on anything. First reaction is that sucks and that I can’t live like that because I’ll go crazy with that kind of fear OR get deeply depressed to where I can’t move and I just sit there and suffer in anguish. So there’s no certainty…ultimately, and anything could happen……ultimately. Okay, that’s reality, that’s it. No that’s not it! You forgot about one thing here….ME. You see last time I checked, I have a choice here, as long as there is breath in my body. So you see, life and reality and afterlife and hell can do whatever it wants to me but I still get to decide what I’m going to do right now…… BIG piece of this, not to be overlooked. So now this is where I take over and I say “AS LONG AS THERE IS BREATH IN MY BODY, I WILL FIGHT THIS AND I WILL SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE HELPING THOSE WHO ARE SUFFERING WITH THIS.” That’s what I go with. So it’s like, if you’re (OCD) threatening me all of my life that you’re going to destroy me, I don’t know if you will or won’t. What I do know is that I have a CHOICE as to wether I am going to live my life to the best of my ability or whether I am going to spend my precious days on earth worried about whether or not you are going to destroy me. I could spend my days ruminating about what I would do or how I would handle it if that happened. That’s a loser’s game and I get to decide whether I am going to play it or not and SO DO YOU. That whole notion can kiss my ass! As long as I am alive I have a CHOICE and I will CHOOSE the courageous, powerful, sensible, life fulfilling one every time. As long as I have a CHOICE as to whether you take me or not, I WILL exercise it……..EVERY time! CHOOSE TO FIGHT.