OCD Hope

I lost my sister in February. She was taken from us all way too early! She was a kind and gentle person that loved life and was not afraid to speak up for what's right or for people that don't feel they have a voice.  I have no predetermine paragraph to write or story to share, rather a reminder to myself to try not to take things for granted. To not always listen to the loudest voice in the room or in my head. That I cannot control thoughts and I cannot control feelings and that's okay - the sooner I'm able to accept this, the sooner I will find some peace. I must now, and always for that matter, give myself extra grace and love for OCD is so hard on the person that it inhabits. Over the years, when things have gotten really tough, I continue to go back to a meditation that allows me to sit with what I'm feeling, unattached from the thoughts, and share intense kindness and love with me.  Here's a link to the meditation from Kristin Neff: Soften. Sooth. Allow.  

I think it's the fear or worry that you'll never know if you married/are dating the right person - if you could be happier with someone else, if life would be "better" with someone else (OCD takes advantage of the word "better" because it can mean just about anything; prettier, kinder, etc.) If you are completely honest with yourself, you'll come to the conclusion that you'll never know if another relationship would be "better" or make you happier. It must be this fear of not ever knowing that can make this obsession so scary. You'll never know this because everyone has different and strengths and weaknesses and no one is perfect or will ever be. Moving to another relationship also means that you would lose all the happiness you have in your current relationship. What you deem the most worthy quality in a mate may not be the same tomorrow or next month when your needs change. REMEMBER, when ROCD has more of your attention, it has you...

 For those of us that have ocd, our go-to-method for trying to get rid of a thought or feeling is to think our way out of it. We review the thought, again and again, as if it were a tangible being sitting in front of us and we are attempting to have a rational discussion with it. This gives the thought WAY too much power. The thought then grows in size and intensity. What usually happens next, that gives the thought even more power, is the feelings that arise in association with the thought. The thought's journey continues as we unconsciously attach feelings and emotions to it. These feelings and emotions manifest themselves in our body and add gas to the thought fire that's rapidly burning away. To put out this dumpster fire we continue our usual methods -  trying to think our way out of it.  Here's the problem - thinking doesn't work that way. The brain doesn't work that way. The more attention we give to a thought the more active it is and the more feelings it wi...

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 ...

To help others you first need to take care of yourself first. The quote that says this best is "you can't pour from an empty cup".  I strongly believe in helping others so for me this way of thinking didn't come naturally. I guess it seemed selfish and perhaps egotistical. Doing what's suggested has made helping those around me much more achievable. One thing that can easily get overlooked is that helping others feels good, it's what we as humans are programmed to do and when it's done with sincerity it feels wonderful and in turn helps us. For many, many years I had consciously and subconsciously come to the conclusion that I didn't deserve self kindness. That the thoughts that went through my head were 'bad' and that because of that I was a 'bad person' often not worthy of self love and self kindness. This is possibly one of the most dangerous lies that OCD tells us. We get trapped into feeling bad about ourselves and can...

There are a lot of books on OCD; often times it feels like too many. Over the years I've read many self-help books. A few are pretty good, many are okay, and some suck.  I think the authors mean well, however they don't have OCD and aren't able to authentically step into our shoes. They know OCD at an intellectual level but not an experiential level. Many books also do not integrate mindfulness into the treatment of OCD.  There is one author that really gets it. His name is Jon Hershfield and everything that he's written is brilliant. He's an OCD therapist that's ahead of his time and has OCD himself. He's now co-written three books. The most recent book to come out is: 'Everyday Mindfulness for OCD '. It's available on Amazon and it is the best book that I've yet come across on how to incorporate Mindfulness into your treatment plan for OCD. If you want to learn how to incorporate mindfulness into how you treat your OCD then this is ...