Before you decide to skim through this post, make a point to read the whole thing. I will give you sound advice, even if there is a lot of text. What you should know to start off with is that I am successfully eliminating OCD from MY life and I would like YOU to do the same in yours.
Welcome to this thread! I say welcome to all people who have been affected by Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Keep reading this and I think you will find that this is worth your time. This is worth your time no matter what type of OCD symptoms you succumb to. Why, I'm sure right now some of you are stopping after each sentence to count the number of words in each sentence or the number of letters in each word. Anyway, moving on!
The OCD that I am successfully in the process of abandoning had plagued my life with fear for years. This sickness of the mind all has to do with your thought process; the patterns of thought that you have repeated ever since you went down this anxiety-burdened path. Whether you are willing to believe it or not, your OCD did have a beginning. Now, we need not go over the symptoms of OCD, as I'm sure the very thought of your symptoms might lead you to more ritualistic acts. Let's move right on so that we can ease our way to the solution.
The OCD that you have allowed to take over your mind started in your mind. This might seem obvious, but you have to understand that YOUR OCD is a product of YOUR mind. I beg you to relax and take a few seconds... Relax and take a few committed deep breaths. Really, take a few deep breaths. When you are finished I would like you to think about these facts. Your OCD is a product of your mind and has become a part of your mind. Your OCD works within your thought patterns. You have repeated these thought patterns for years, but with resilience, you can eliminate these thought patterns. Once you do this you will be able to FOCUS on the things that are important to you and you will be able to think more logically.
I think what is scariest about OCD is that it takes away from your intellectual abilities. For example, rather than fully applying yourself to gaining information from a book, you might find that you obsess over the sentence numbers, the number of words, flipping back and forth between pages, excessively looking at the cover, thinking about unrelated thoughts, etc... I know that when I would go on YouTube I could not concentrate on the video because I would have to constantly look at the video time. I'm sure you can think of many examples like these. Anyway, I just want to let you know that this can all be overcome.
The solution to this problem requires action. It requires resilience. It requires logic. In some cases it requires you to face your darkest fears.
1. Realize that you are only capable of controlling the things around you
You cannot have an effect on anyone by doing your rituals. You might say to yourself "yeah, deep down I know this but I can't stop anyway". Wrong! If you were truly convinced of this then you would not do these rituals. Face the fact that you do believe that you have some supernatural impact on those you love. These rituals also include the rituals that take place solely in your mind. This leads me to my next step.
2. Understand that you can stop certain thought patterns.
Let's say that you start to think about a negative thought, and then this thought leads you along a train of negative thoughts. Once you recognize a negative thought, STOP THINKING. Just STOP THINKING. I know you will feel the urge to try and rationalize your negative thoughts, but do not even try to rationalize them because YOUR MIND IS NOT RATIONAL. Your thought process has been controlled by irrational thoughts, and so, your whole thought process is irrational. You have to come to terms with the fact that you are not in your healthiest state. OCD is an addiction. You have an addiction to these terrible thoughts. Now, I'm not sure if you've ever met someone who was addicted to drugs, but if you have, I'm sure you've noticed that THEY WILL RATIONALIZE THEIR ADDICTION NO MATTER WHAT!
So do not trust your mind because you are in the same situation as those drug addicts. Give away your negative thoughts for nothingness. No matter what negative thoughts you have, just momentarily throw them away and move on to something else. Keep moving on until you are not thinking negatively.
3. Onto the ritualistic acts. Again, the key is to remember that you don't control anything but yourself. If you have rituals like I do, I suggest to try to stop them immediately.
Understanding fear
You have to realize that OCD brings your life to fear. Everything is fear, all day, every single day. Perhaps the fear has become so routine in your life that you do not even notice it anymore. And so, this fear gradually seeps into every other aspect of your life. I suggest that the next time you have one of your urges, take a second to stop and think about the FEAR that goes through your mind. Think about this gigantic weakness in your life. You are controlled by it. You are controlled by this pathetic fear. Feel the fear, scale the fear, and then convince yourself that it is NOT WORTH IT to live by this fear. Once this is accomplished, decide to disregard the ritual. It might be difficult at first, but the first time you truly overcome this fear you will feel great and you will be curious. You will want to see how good it feels to keep doing this. This is the great thing about OCD... IT CAN BE STOPPED AT ANY TIME!!! It is all up to your willingness to face your fear.
My first step in overcoming this fear was realizing that I really do not have any supernatural effects. This is extremely important. I had to realize that I am not magical. (Please realize that there are other people like you who think that they are magical. You have no supernatural abilities.) I then decided in that moment that I would not succumb to OCD. I cannot remember the exact ritual that I first decided not to do, but I think it had something to do with either moving my lip in a certain way or looking at the time on a YouTube video... Either way, I decided that I could not live my life in fear anymore and so I scaled the fear of the situation. I did not think about how moving my lip in a strange way would affect my loved ones, I just thought about the fear. I thought about how small it made me feel. I thought about how great my life would be without it. I abandoned it. I abandoned it and I have been continuing to abandon my rituals. I am here to tell you that you can do the same. If you need encouragement, advice or information, just contact me.
It feels fantastic not to be under the control of this. Please join me.
Welcome to this thread! I say welcome to all people who have been affected by Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Keep reading this and I think you will find that this is worth your time. This is worth your time no matter what type of OCD symptoms you succumb to. Why, I'm sure right now some of you are stopping after each sentence to count the number of words in each sentence or the number of letters in each word. Anyway, moving on!
The OCD that I am successfully in the process of abandoning had plagued my life with fear for years. This sickness of the mind all has to do with your thought process; the patterns of thought that you have repeated ever since you went down this anxiety-burdened path. Whether you are willing to believe it or not, your OCD did have a beginning. Now, we need not go over the symptoms of OCD, as I'm sure the very thought of your symptoms might lead you to more ritualistic acts. Let's move right on so that we can ease our way to the solution.
The OCD that you have allowed to take over your mind started in your mind. This might seem obvious, but you have to understand that YOUR OCD is a product of YOUR mind. I beg you to relax and take a few seconds... Relax and take a few committed deep breaths. Really, take a few deep breaths. When you are finished I would like you to think about these facts. Your OCD is a product of your mind and has become a part of your mind. Your OCD works within your thought patterns. You have repeated these thought patterns for years, but with resilience, you can eliminate these thought patterns. Once you do this you will be able to FOCUS on the things that are important to you and you will be able to think more logically.
I think what is scariest about OCD is that it takes away from your intellectual abilities. For example, rather than fully applying yourself to gaining information from a book, you might find that you obsess over the sentence numbers, the number of words, flipping back and forth between pages, excessively looking at the cover, thinking about unrelated thoughts, etc... I know that when I would go on YouTube I could not concentrate on the video because I would have to constantly look at the video time. I'm sure you can think of many examples like these. Anyway, I just want to let you know that this can all be overcome.
The solution to this problem requires action. It requires resilience. It requires logic. In some cases it requires you to face your darkest fears.
1. Realize that you are only capable of controlling the things around you
You cannot have an effect on anyone by doing your rituals. You might say to yourself "yeah, deep down I know this but I can't stop anyway". Wrong! If you were truly convinced of this then you would not do these rituals. Face the fact that you do believe that you have some supernatural impact on those you love. These rituals also include the rituals that take place solely in your mind. This leads me to my next step.
2. Understand that you can stop certain thought patterns.
Let's say that you start to think about a negative thought, and then this thought leads you along a train of negative thoughts. Once you recognize a negative thought, STOP THINKING. Just STOP THINKING. I know you will feel the urge to try and rationalize your negative thoughts, but do not even try to rationalize them because YOUR MIND IS NOT RATIONAL. Your thought process has been controlled by irrational thoughts, and so, your whole thought process is irrational. You have to come to terms with the fact that you are not in your healthiest state. OCD is an addiction. You have an addiction to these terrible thoughts. Now, I'm not sure if you've ever met someone who was addicted to drugs, but if you have, I'm sure you've noticed that THEY WILL RATIONALIZE THEIR ADDICTION NO MATTER WHAT!
So do not trust your mind because you are in the same situation as those drug addicts. Give away your negative thoughts for nothingness. No matter what negative thoughts you have, just momentarily throw them away and move on to something else. Keep moving on until you are not thinking negatively.
3. Onto the ritualistic acts. Again, the key is to remember that you don't control anything but yourself. If you have rituals like I do, I suggest to try to stop them immediately.
Understanding fear
You have to realize that OCD brings your life to fear. Everything is fear, all day, every single day. Perhaps the fear has become so routine in your life that you do not even notice it anymore. And so, this fear gradually seeps into every other aspect of your life. I suggest that the next time you have one of your urges, take a second to stop and think about the FEAR that goes through your mind. Think about this gigantic weakness in your life. You are controlled by it. You are controlled by this pathetic fear. Feel the fear, scale the fear, and then convince yourself that it is NOT WORTH IT to live by this fear. Once this is accomplished, decide to disregard the ritual. It might be difficult at first, but the first time you truly overcome this fear you will feel great and you will be curious. You will want to see how good it feels to keep doing this. This is the great thing about OCD... IT CAN BE STOPPED AT ANY TIME!!! It is all up to your willingness to face your fear.
My first step in overcoming this fear was realizing that I really do not have any supernatural effects. This is extremely important. I had to realize that I am not magical. (Please realize that there are other people like you who think that they are magical. You have no supernatural abilities.) I then decided in that moment that I would not succumb to OCD. I cannot remember the exact ritual that I first decided not to do, but I think it had something to do with either moving my lip in a certain way or looking at the time on a YouTube video... Either way, I decided that I could not live my life in fear anymore and so I scaled the fear of the situation. I did not think about how moving my lip in a strange way would affect my loved ones, I just thought about the fear. I thought about how small it made me feel. I thought about how great my life would be without it. I abandoned it. I abandoned it and I have been continuing to abandon my rituals. I am here to tell you that you can do the same. If you need encouragement, advice or information, just contact me.
It feels fantastic not to be under the control of this. Please join me.
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