Tag Archives: ocd tools

OCD Recovery Is Achieved By Pursuing and Doing the Opposite

If you suffer from OCD – that is, obsessive compulsive disorder – you know how your anxious thoughts and worries make you feel powerless and hold you captive. You’ve probably searched for a way to get permanent relief. You know (or think you know) that obeying your compulsions will help you make the anxiety “go away,” but you find that you will just suffer through the whole ordeal once that unwanted thought comes back into your head.

Put this way, OCD sounds like a terrifying disorder that absolutely binds its “victims” and coaxes them into believing that those intrusive, repetitive thoughts will only go away IF you obey your compulsions, that you will never rid yourself of the disorder itself. I am telling you here and now, that is a bold-faced lie, and the sooner you move onto facing your OCD head-on, the faster you will get your life back.

Can you recover from OCD? Absolutely, you can. The trick to doing so is counter-intuitive, though. Instead of searching for the relief you desperately seek, you must search out resilience. Believe me, by seeking out resilience, relief will find you.

How is this done, though? By Exposure Response Prevent (ERP or simply put, exposure), you will come face-to-face with your fears until what scares you the most no longer has a hold on you. Yes, it sounds like exhausting work, but it is so worth it because once you accomplish it, you’re free. Start by taking the fear that bothers you and purposely bringing it to your awareness. Your goal is to make yourself anxious so that you can prove to your brain that the obsession is irrelevant and that you’re done running away. You’ll feel so much empowerment and joy after it’s all over!

You might be thinking, “Really? I have to MAKE myself afraid in order to interrupt the OCD cycle?” The answer is yes, you really do need to. In fact, the safest place is moving toward the fear. When you try to chase it out of your head, you’re doing nothing but guaranteeing its return. On the other hand, when you move toward it, feel it, and embrace it on purpose, you have diminished the power that the obsession holds over you, and it will leave on its own. It’s all about scaring yourself fearless!

As soon as the exposure is over, go on with your life – no matter how weird or lousy you feel. It will give you strength. Sometimes, too, things will happen to you in the middle of your day that make you anxious. When and if this happens, just remember that you’re okay and that it’s another opportunity to embrace the anxiety you feel. Hold onto those feelings. You’ll find that you strip them of their power the more you show your brave face and become a master of your destiny instead of a “victim” of a disorder.

Remember, when you feel like quitting, when you feel like the exposure is way too much for you to handle, don’t stop. You are SO CLOSE to freeing yourself from the anxiety and making a breakthrough. Stay strong. Hold on. Remember always, you are the closest to your freedom when you are the most afraid. Just hang on!

Through your journey with OCD, don’t go it all alone. Do your exposures, go to support groups, and keep trying! You can also find me on my website at www.gregorysansone.com. Get on my mailing list, get in touch with me, and keep making those exposures your top priority in your life. Then will you discover the road to overcoming OCD and regaining the freedom that is yours and yours alone!

Encouragement

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

calm-ocean-and-blue-sky_00436339

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.

3 Ways to Deal with Anxiety

1) Negative: being intolerant, looking to escape, avoiding, relief seeking

2) Neutral: Ignore, going on with things without responding to the anxiety, just shifting focus

3) Positive: Choose to make space for it to be there. Acknowledge its presence and allow it to remind you as often as need be that it is still there and then do a healthy behavior anyway.

 

OCD & Certainty

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.

Tools for Extreme Anxiety

This will be the first of several blogs where I will share tools that have worked for me when dealing with extreme anxiety. Sometimes a simple statement can make the difference in a day rife with anxiety. Tell yourself any one of these tools and sit with the thoughts it creates….then see what happens. Allow yourself to feel the discomfort. It will eventually dissipate in time and make you stronger for the next go-around with anxiety.

1)  Acceptance that “I am where I am and I’m just gonna be where I’m at and I’m gonna proceed anyway and see what happens.”

2) UNRESOLVED…..leave it.

3) Profoundly allow yourself to feel anxious and  just see what happens.

4) Be and feel weak and just go on with the day….accept and get used to it.

5) The only way is not to play.

Stay strong. I’ll be back to share more another day.