Anxiety Treatment

My OCD symptoms are getting severe.

I have been repeating things to my husband many times in the day.

I ask him questions, or I give replies, doubting begins, repeating.

This cycle of this format of symptoms have been continued since a long time.

When I had taken therapy in the past, I was taught to sit with the feared consequences of the obsession, in a room, to try to focus on it.

Also, to write down the feared consequences on a paper, and keep reading it.

This way the anxiety reaches its maximum level.

Slowly, you will get desensitized to the feared consequences.

Thus, the anxiety will get lower.

I have to stop doing the compulsion rituals with my husband, since OCD is feeding on it.

I need to get strict with myself by resisting the compulsions with my husband, so that I get better from OCD.

I am going to keep trying by hoping that this technique works.

[MothFir]

I have been doing better with ERP lately after I learned to better separate my anxiety from its content. I sometimes had a hard time resisting compulsions because the feared consequences (content) were so terrifying.

Then I read an article by Dr. Reid Wilson in which he mentioned that "no one" can tolerate the idea that they might have run someone over with their car, or that they might become a pedophile, or other OCD themes. This seemed to contradict much of his other advice about learning to accept such ideas! When he wrote about "stepping back" from the content and "stepping toward" a GENERIC sense of anxiety, I didn't really understand how that worked.

Finally a light went off and it changed my perspective on my ERP exercises. To use the common handwashing theme as an example, a person may wash their hands sufficiently one time before cooking for their family. Then they have an obsession that their hands are still dirty with germs or chemicals, and they feel they must wash again. At that moment their choice FEELS like a choice between "wash again to make sure I'm clean" and "resist the compulsion and risk making everyone sick." But the choice is ACTUALLY between "wash again to get short-term relief from this anxiety" and "resist the compulsion and risk becoming very anxious for awhile in order to overcome OCD in the long term."

Either way, making people sick doesn't really enter the equation. Of course part of getting better is also accepting that there's always a chance your fears may come true and you shouldn't try to get 100% certainty that they won't. But once you've established what are real threats and what is OCD, you shouldn't think that resisting an OCD compulsion increases the odds that something bad will happen in a meaningful way. It only increases the odds that you will feel anxious about it, and feeling anxious now paradoxically helps you become less anxious in the long term.

Hope that might help you some.

[Acb0010]

I’m starting ERP with my therapist as well. It’s a wonderful technique.

Would your husband be willing to not participate in your compulsions? I know mine had to start saying “this sounds like OCD. I am not going to participate in this”

That’s helped me as well.

[Hidden in reply to Acb0010]

My husband tries his best to not participate in my compulsions.

But it is usually myself that creates a panic attack, and I am after him to give into my compulsions.

It is not easy at all.

[3BirdLover]

Just a thought.....can you make a pact with yourself that when this happens, you will give it like 20 minutes BEFORE you give in to it. During that 20 minutes (or whatever) you do some exercises that you have learned.... see how you feel after the 20 minutes....you might find that you have calmed down enough to deal with it and won't give in to the compulsion, but you HAVE to keep the 20 minute pact with yourself. Just an idea....

[DeathtoOCD]

Often with OCD you just have to find that technique that works for you, generally it is a few techniques that work, but they all sounds like ones I have heard of before.