How to stop making promises to God.

[AnonymousLizard]

I know this type of thing has probably been posted a lot, but here goes.

I've suffered from OCD from a young age. Recently thoughts (promises) would sort of pop into my head and I would try to ignore them. Later I would get anxiety unless I made promises. After that I would sometimes get urges to make promises, and sometimes randomly make promises without anxiety or urges from OCD (at least that I knew of), and try to deny them right afterward or halfway through. I guess you can see my problem.

Any advice for what to do or how to stop making promises?

 

[Mari17]

I know this type of thing has probably been posted a lot, but here goes.

I've suffered from OCD from a young age. Recently thoughts (promises) would sort of pop into my head and I would try to ignore them. Later I would get anxiety unless I made promises. After that I would sometimes get urges to make promises, and sometimes randomly make promises without anxiety or urges from OCD (at least that I knew of), and try to deny them right afterward or halfway through. I guess you can see my problem.

Any advice for what to do or how to stop making promises?

This is a VERY common obsession. Basically, the key to thwarting OCD is to stop playing into its hand. So, for example, if your OCD is making you afraid that you are promising things, and you feel like you have to deny or cancel those "promises," then you stop doing what your OCD is telling you to do. So in your case, for example, you realize that the feeling that you are making promises is caused by OCD, and that your mind keeps manufacturing more of these thoughts (unwanted promises) because you are so afraid of making them. So the strategy is to just accept that those thoughts are things your brain is throwing at you, and don't hold any meaning in and of themselves. Because of that, you would choose to not try to cancel or deny them, even though you feel like you "have" to. Because the more you focus on these types of thoughts, the more your mind manufactures them, and the more you ignore them, the less power they have and the less frequently your brain sends them. Does this make sense?