OCD attacks

[Hedgehog25]

Hello everyone,

I’m new here and this is my first post. I suffer from terrible anxiety related to my OCD. I struggle to calm myself down. I find that rather than needing to relax I become “activated” and need to burn off energy. This often isn’t practical if it’s late in the evening. Does anyone else experience this or have any tips to deal with it?

Thank you

[deValentin]

Welcome to the forum, Hedgehog25!

In my experience, one way to reduce anxiety and inner tension is, like you say, to burn off extra energy with strenuous exercices, so you become so tired after a while you don't have any energy left for anything else, including doing compulsions. It's a form of response prevention through exhaustion. However, it doesn't work all the time and it's not always practical, like you say. I also tried response prevention through sleep. Afer a good night of rest the unwanted intrusive thoughts that bothered me before going to sleep leave me alone when I wake up. But it's also hit-and-miss. They aren't reliable and sustainable methods, in my opinion.

My most effective method to manage OCD is to try to make good choices to begin with, in spite of the difficulties. I know that if I start on the wrong path like doing ruminations, I enter a downward spiral from which it's very difficult to escape. It's a downward spiral because I desperately count on finding the answers I'm looking for to justify my present rumination, so I deny the possibility of failure. I get caught in a futile and endless search. However, I find that refraining from excessive reassurance seeking and making timely decisions is a reliable way to appease my mind. It takes work and time, but it's worth it in the end.

[Natureloverpeace]

Welcome to the community. OCD sucks, it lies, it’s a bully and a scam artist. Liars. bullies and scam artists can be effectively dealt with and OCD can be overcome. Anxiety is a very common symptom of OCD which people understandably want to reduce or get rid of since it’s distressing. OCD uses this against the person to entice them to do mental and/or physical compulsions to make that happen. It works but only very temporarily. The temporary fix reinforces the obsessions (negative reinforcement) and the OCD cycle keeps repeating unless it’s broken. Anything can become a compulsion if it’s used to negate the distress from the obsession, even things that would be considered healthy in another context. What is the function of the behavior? The behavior can be done mentally or physically. If it’s to negate the distress from the obsession, such as anxiety, it’s likely a compulsion. The function of a compulsion is to reduce the distress.

So, negating the distress brings temporary relief in the short-term but causes more distress in the long-term. The more the OCD cycle is repeated, the stronger it gets. The cycle can be broken. OCD can be overcome. I encourage you to check out the IOCDF at iocdf.org for a wealth of resources. I especially like their livestreams.