Overcome my OCD

One of the articles below suggested replacing yes or no thoughts – - ex. “yes of course I locked the door, shut up brain, shut up shut up shut up” – - with thoughts relating to choice and chance. i.e., “yes, so maybe there is a chance that not tapping that object with my left hand is unlucky. but you know what? i’m going to take the chance that it’s not, and not do it.”

It’s working really well so far! It’s much easier to dismiss things when you don’t have to obsess about rightness or wrongness (which can be incorrect) but can instead choose (which is an act of will).

Going a little better. Being aware is always the best place to start, and even reading just a bit of cog.therapy helps fend of intrusive thoughts.

I do appreciate that those articles have some (small, academic) sense of humor—it’s certainly easier to deal with evenness issues when you actually tell yourself “yes. yes I bet being uneven will just KILL me. mmmmmmhhhmm.”

So stopping those in their tracks is going better.

It’s time for this nonsense to stop, and taking stock of it would probably be the best way to deflate the beast.

Rituals:
- Body evenness. Tap the left hand on something, have to tap the right on it.
- Numbers. Things have to be done in 3s. Or multiples of 3s. Or the multiple of 3, plus one, when the occasion calls for it. As though there’s a difference…

Pure O:
- Various disturbing thoughts about horrible things I “could be capable” of doing.
- The above, but of horrible things others could do to me, which is equally jarring.

There’s more, but it’s late.

A couple of good articles to have on hand:
http://www.ocdonline.com/definecbt.php
http://www.ocdonline.com/articlephillipson1.php
http://www.ocdonline.com/articlephillipson2.php
http://www.ocdonline.com/articlephillipson3.php
With each of these I had many “oh my god!” identification moments.

Here we go!