Which comes first? Factually speaking the obsession comes first and is followed by compulsions. It's easy to know this to be true when not caught in an ocd loop, but when in the loop it can be hard to remember. What's in our control is not the obsession but the action, mental or physical, to act on a compulsion. We can't stop thoughts, and that's exactly what an obsession is. The compulsion may appear to be a thought, but it's a thought masquerading as a mental behavior. You may likely know all of this already - I'm writing this more to remind myself than anything else.
So if the obsession comes first, is beyond our control, and is followed by compulsions what's a person to do? The answer is to stop doing the compulsion - often much easier said than done, but still very much possible. The perfectionist in those of us with ocd may attempt or try to stop all compulsions but I think this ends up putting more pressure on us than anything else. Do your best not to engage in compulsions, but when you do - and you will - remind yourself that you've done so, forgive yourself, and go back to doing your best not to perform compulsions.
For those of us with mental compulsions it can sometimes be really tricky to spot a mental compulsion because we can't physically see it. The compulsion is a form of thinking and thinking is what we as humans are programmed to do - ocd or no ocd. My mental compulsions often manifest themselves as: checking to see if the obsession still causes me distress, attempting to think my way out of the obsession, trying solve the obsession (this is a complete waste of time and not logical - it's no different than trying to reason with a two-year old), worrying about the obsession.
The trick to get out of this loop is much simpler than one thinks, but simple doesn't necessarily mean easy. Next time instead of trying to use your brain to get out of the obsession try something different - something that works. Drop into your body and feel how the emotions feel within the body - put all of your attention on this so that your attention can't be consumed by thinking. It will likely feel so strange to do because you're giving yourself permission not to think and thinking is what you've always done. Thinking doesn't work for this, but we are so used to thinking that it's all that we know to do.
Hello! This is really interesting. It seems like I struggle with similar issues as you. I started meditation a few weeks ago, and hopefully this will bring results. When you are in the loop, you focus an your bodily emotions? For how long do you do this? Does this approach make the disorder easier to manage after some time?
ReplyDeleteI try to drop into how the emotions feel for 5 to 10 minutes. It's not easy to do but it really helps and allows the emotions to pass through your body. Thinking dress one thing, feed an emotion.
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