#ocd advise

[derpybay]

OCD & Direct Mindfulness

So I was talking with a friend today about OCD and she mentioned how she’s having a hard time feeling like she needs to be absolutely certain on things.  We both have OCD and after rereading my book I began explaining how we need to build a tolerance for not being a hundred percent certain.  Then I explained to her about direct mindfulness exercises. A lot of people could benefit from taking five minutes a day to just close their eyes sit down acknowledge any thoughts or sounds they have/hear but not fixate on those thoughts.  It sounds dumb and its hard at first but it trains our brains to keep their emotional spotlight from sticking to negative thought or feeling.  Just a bit of OCD advise she says it helped so thought I’d share it. 

[soolregn]

A piece of advice for people struggling with intrusive thoughts/OCD

I struggle with intrusive thoughts, and one of the most difficult things for me is feeling like I have to worry all the time. Because if I don’t obsess about my intrusive thoughts then I’m a horrible person/something bad will happen. As you might imagine this is a bad loop to be stuck in. Obsessing just makes everything worse, but not obsessing is literally not an option since it makes me a “bad person” (in my mind). Dealing with this nonsense going on in my head is pretty exhausting. But I do have one thing that helps me with not obsessing. And I want to share it with you. Put on your favourite song and tell yourself “for the next 3 minutes and 24 seconds I am allowed not to worry. I am allowed to enjoy just this piece of music, and then I promise I will go back to obsessing”. This is great because since it is such a short period of time, you feel safe about not obsessing. It also is a great distraction, and can help your brain spin off in a positive direction. idk if this will help anyone else, but it does often work for me, so I thought I would share it.