My name is Nate. I am a specialist with OCD in Allen, Texas. Not everyone has access to good OCD treatment. I've been creating videos to help fill the gap to hopefully give some tips and information about OCD. Here is one of my recent videos. I hope it can help.
OCD is a bully in your brain. It is going to spend time finding your vulnerabilities and seeing how it can attack. The intrusive thought tells you a lie that you want to quickly defend. This give it more power. Learn how to become the boss and talk back to it in a powerful way. Learn to fight back and even drive your OCD crazy.
Thank you because I feel like I'm losing the fight with OCD. How do I conquer my handwashing and rituals that go along with it? For example, if I use the restroom, I feel like I left something behind on the faucet, so I feel compelled by the OCD to wash my hands over and over and then take cleaner and put it on pieces of toilet paper to wipe it down. The same goes with after I do my hair as another example. Thanks! I am not really getting the help that I need where I live and I have been feeling a little depressed with it all. I told myself I am just going to stop washing my hands period except after I use the restroom for a week, but then I have to function and do things with my hands. I have been feeling a little suicidal behind having an OCD brain. Thanks Nate and thank you for sharing this video.
I am sorry that you're struggling with this. Typically, an individual would use exposure and response prevention with what you're experiencing. They would identify the threat and allow themselves to leave this uncertain through thought and action. Repeat it over and over again. As the video explains, sometimes doing the opposite of what you're brain is telling you to do. If it says, clean, make it more dirty. Obviously, doing this with a therapist would be the best way to help you through the process. If you see some of my other videos I go through how to do the treatment.
I have tried to talk back and do the behavior therapy. It does not work for me. Seems to make it worse. The mind is complex. If response therapy works then there should be no OCD. We all just push back at the bully or in my case the repeat actions. Touching things a certain number of times. Flipping light switches a certain number of times. It just does not stop the anxiety. The thing what ever it is, me worrying about my help or worrying about my daughter with a mood disorder that ramps up
Ocd keeps it ramped up because the problem is still there. If I get well the ocd is less. I hope this make sense.
Each person's definition of getting better seems to be different. For some they must learn to reduce the amount of compulsions they have but know that anxiety may just be a part that they must embrace. That anxiety reducing may not be what success looks like. Which is such a hard pill to swallow. I know that doing this work with a trained therapist makes a difference in the level of success. Thanks for your comment!
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