OCD/Intrusive thouhgts - Helpful advice/resources THREAD

[Z3AL]

OCD is like quicksand...the more you "fight" it, the more you sink and get stuck...so the question should be, how do we get "unstuck" so to speak?
Please post resources/advice that you find helpful in this thread.

 

[Gregory Thompson]

First identify the first thought in the string that you actively began "conversing with" as if it mattered.

Dismiss all connected thoughts to first instance.

Thoughts only have the power you give them, the key is finding something more worthwhile to pay attention to.

Since OCD is recursive in nature, consistency is key.

 

[Tolworth John]

OCD is like quicksand...the more you "fight" it, the more you sink and get stuck...so the question should be, how do we get "unstuck" so to speak?
Please post resources/advice that you find helpful in this thread.

Look up this link:-
International OCD Foundation | 25 Tips for Succeeding in Your OCD Treatment

point 4 dealy with not talking or arguing with intrusive thoughts but acknowledging and then ignoring them.

Read it several times and share/discuss with parents, friends, doctor etc so they know how to help you.

 

[Dustoff]

I don't know anything about OCD but I do know about thoughts as we all have them. You should try putting Gods word into your mind.

Heb. 4/12 The word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword

It was Gods imperishable word that caused your life to be cleansed and renewed at salvation. 1Peter 1/23. If you fill your mind with Gods word it will continue that work. Find a verse that applies to your situation and fill your mind with it. Think on it roll it around in your mind. Thoughts and everything else has to give way to Gods word the same way your unregenerate nature did at salvation. Start doing that and you will notice a change. If you practice it when you're not having a problem it will help when you are.

Here is a verse to start with.
Isaiah 26/3
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.

 

[NBB]

Hi!, i had hammering intrusive thoughts that disturbed me greatly, after 'deliverance', i mean detecting and driving off an 'entity' those were gone forever, never had them again. I think this is already known by some christians that ocd is an spritual problem, i don't care what others may say i need to tell the truth, Jesus and his disciples dealt with spiritual issues all the time, a church that doesn't deal like the disciples did with these issues is doing something wrong.

 

[Mari17]

OCD is like quicksand...the more you "fight" it, the more you sink and get stuck...so the question should be, how do we get "unstuck" so to speak?
Please post resources/advice that you find helpful in this thread.

Great analogy! OCD is very much like quicksand! I think one helpful thing is identifying what compulsions you're engaging in when you find yourself spinning your wheels (or sinking, to use your comparison). Then, force yourself to stop doing that action (even if it's a mental one!), and choose to do something else instead. Common compulsions include researching, asking for reassurance, ruminating/analyzing, trying to push intrusive thoughts away or cancel them out, repeatedly asking forgiveness for the same thing, etc.

 

[angelsaroundme]

I thought this was helpful.

 

[angelsaroundme]

Longer video but worth watching. He words things very well.

"Faith is not the absence of feeling uncertain. Faith is going through the uncertainty."

"OCD wants me to believe that uncertainty and doubt are dangerous. While uncertainty is uncomfortable, it is not dangerous, and I can tolerate it."

 

[Hoping]

The Lord's Prayer is comforting if you have thoughts of doing evil, since it directly asks God to deliver us from evil. It states our intention to not do those things.

As a 20-year sufferer from OCD, now almost completely free of it, I may have more to say when I've read the other posts on this thread. I just don't want to repeat what somebody else has said.

Edited to add: I just read the 25 points from the OCD website and that summarizes 80% or more of what I've learned.

 

[Hoping]

My further thoughts: the 2 videos are good too. I didn't finish listening to the long one, but it sounds good so far.

I think we can fight this religiously, which I do or did by the Lord's Prayer, and we can fight it by secular means, which is what the OCD Foundation and the videos cover, although the long video is partly religious or at least talks a lot about religion and the presenter is a pastor.

The OCD Foundation list was referring to the treatment known and Exposure and Response Prevention. Apparently it works well for the most people so it should probably be where you start. But it's very unpleasant at first, and it doesn't ALWAYS work, and it's hard to find a therapist who really knows how to do it. I had one who started out all wrong, telling me that OCD was lying to me. While probably true, that's not the point of exposure and response prevention at all and is counterproductive. I never went back to that therapist, and she was the only one in my area who claimed to treat OCD. So I just kept researching how to do it, and went through a lot of emotional pain, and improved my life, but there was still trouble. So I tried medication, and that knocked it out 95%, and I've been able to lower the dose a lot. Maybe if I had kept on with just the Exposure it would have kept improving things... and I think it works better for some people than it was working for me.

There are other methods of non-drug treatment; the pastor/counselor in the long video talks about at least one of them, ACT. That's Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, if I remember correctly. There's also DBT, another therapy plan. There's even TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation. So there's a lot of hope, a lot of things to try.

 

[angelsaroundme]

I'm glad they are trying new things to treat OCD. ^-^ Also, happy the medicine helped you so much.

 

[angelsaroundme]

The "Is God Even Real?!" is supposed to be an OCD type of thought. Anyways, what impressed me with this video is how well his wife understands it. She says the version of God constructed by his OCD is cruel and spiteful and impossible to please. Which is opposed to his normal view of a loving, forgiving God. She is very insightful for apparently not having OCD herself and also compassionate with what he's going through.