Intrusive thought, with exposure, pls help

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bytheway

Member
I'm trying to imagine the intrusive thought with exposure to it, seems helps, but the thought of it to becoming true, may happen really turn up my anxiety level.

It all started with a minor faulty finding with my spouse, dislike a minor behavour of hers, but it is very minor, and only happens sometime, but OCD makes me enlarge the matter, the more i want to ignore, the more i becoming focus on it, i keep telling my self, it is minor but no use, the minor fault becomes a major fault to me, but i know it is a minor fault of hers. i cannot change her behaviour, of course. Then the intrusive thought comes in: i need to divorce her. What a terrible thinking. but i cannot disclose my OCD condition to her, she may not understand and think that it is for real.

And this thought is getting bigger day by day, and today my anxiety level is high, but since i came upon exposure theraby and start to practice exposure to it, by imagining it, that divorce happening in my mind, but knowing it is not true, it is not happening in real life, i started to calm down.

But i still having a problem: that what happen if the divorce really comes true? There's another intrusive thought keeps saying ::
"i have to really do the divorce to relieve my high anxiety, else the high anxiety will stay forever!"
So i start imagine it become true a few times in my mind, but there's still some anxiety felt, will this anxiety go away as i imagine it more often? Really suffering!!!
 
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guessed

1
bytheway,

i'm sorry you're suffering so much.. have you been treated for OCD? Maybe you can get the relief you need.
 
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bytheway

Member
No, have not gone to see any doctor, manage to control ocd under self control for past 20 years, the repeat actions able to minimize it, but recently the intrusive thought has been terrible, thought of quietly going to a dotor, but wanting to try some self help first, anyway, seems not easy to find a doctor with good cbt background...
 
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bytheway

Member
I find that compulsion actions are easier to overcome than thoughts. I read somewhere that another strategy to deal with thought is to be happy to stay with it, don't oppose it, don't suppress it, but just let it be inside me, ok, this helps in someway.

But i find that the real stress comes from: not doing the thought. Because the thought keeps asking me to do it! Although i'm getting some relief from accepting the thought in my mind, but still not doing it.

For OCD in repeating actions, all these years, I'm able to control the anxiety by giving in to the repeating actions, like washing, tightening, but all these without anyone knowing, so when doing these actions, I'm getting rid of my anxiety feelings, living normal acceptable life.

Then recently, this thought start to root itself in me, i try to reason out this thought, that my spouse is fantastic, excellent, this will rid of my anxiety for a while, but my imagination will bring the thought back and say something nasty about my spouse, fighting back my reasoning!

So the more i oppose this thought, the more anxiety i feel, that i start to feel cold, lost some appetite, loss of concentration, loss of interest to other hobby. Previously those ocd actions, i'm able to get rid of anxiety feeling is by doing the actions. But this time around, my anxiety feeling is still there because i'm not doing what the thought ask me to. I'm standing against the thought, though allowing it to stay in my head (not that i can get rid of it)

So currently what i'm doing to myself: continue with accepting the thought in me without fighting back, suppressing the thought. Will not do what the thought ask me to, hopefully the anxiety level can subside.

Will telling my spouse helps in anyway?
 
Joan6466

Joan6466

Active member
You express yourself so clearly- I really admire that.
There are been great advances in medicine in OCD; it wouldn't hurt at all to discuss this with your physician. He/she is your partner in good health.
I have another thought about the situation; how about simply saying to your spouse what they're doing that bothers you. "Dear, I love you- but when you do....., I'd rather you'd ........ . Don't all of us feel grateful when someone let's us know what we're doing that bugs them? I think we assume they will equate our feedback as rejection- but that is us extrapolating our equating critical feedback with rejection. It goes with social anxiety- David Burns calls it perfectionism- we assume we only have value if we are perfect- the conditional value thing. I've seen more anxious thoughts and negative behaviors when people are unassertive. It has an accumulative effect. It's not easy to do, but after the adrenaline subsides that accompanies you giving the feedback, the awkwardness will decrease and the desire to affiliate with our loved one increases. Hard to do- but worth it.
 
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bytheway

Member
Thanks Joan, for your reply, i see where you are coming, as it begins from me find minor faults with my spouse. So i should discuss these minor faults with my spouse and "indirectly killing the minor faults thoughts", so that my "divorce thought" can be killed...

But if i do that, my mind will find new faults no matter how minor and start to drill down again (trying to be perfectionist), but i know discuss the faults with her can bring some relief, but it is her behavior, it is hard to change, even my own beheviour i find it extreme hard to change...
 
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