Any anons in here with genuine OCD?

Ask a brother for advice. I can genuinely help you.

t. saw two expensive pros and had an insane journey. OCD for 35 years. Seize the opportunity.

>>33400338 (OP)
Why did you wait 35 years to solve it?

Ok let's start with the most common one: hand washing.

About a year ago I found out someone in my family is HIV+ and this habit became worse, whenever I touch anything in the house: doorknobs, the fridge door, light switches, you name it, I thoroughly wash my hands. How can I stop or mitigate this?

>>33400366
0–25, I did not know I had it.
25–30, I did not what I solved, but I did solve something.
30–33, rituals changed from general rumination and obsession to physical rituals (placing things on the table, closing faucets, locking doors, turning on lights).
33–35, rituals + obsessive rumination from a failed relationship pushed me to my limit.

I knew it was OCD when I started doing rituals, but I knew exactly what the rituals "solved", and I preferred doing them over going back from where I came (0–25, obsessive rumination and general anxiety about everything). I'd take counting a little over being too afraid to leave my house every day of the week.

But the rituals grew in numbers, and when the relationship stuff happened, I felt like I was regressing back to childhood.

So: I knew rituals = OCD but I did not know rumination was OCD. I thought I developed OCD later in life and did not know I had it all my life.

At 35, I started suffering physical symptoms and considered the worst "solutions".

By happenstance, I figured out what the entire matter was. I journaled it elsewhere. Suffice to say, I understand everything now, from childhood until today, and things I used to think I had figured out, I see completely clearly now.

Rituals and ruminations used to be constant occurrence, 24/7, but it's been 4 weeks now and I haven't ruminated or done a ritual once. I cringe looking back at my behavior now.

I know how miserable this illness can be, how difficult it is to treat, and how elegant the solution is. These 3 factors are why people love to treat it. Hard, ruins peoples lives and the solution is beautiful.

Now I want to help others.

>>33400452
Is it only handwashing or are you/have you been OCD about other things too?

>>33400452
>with the most common one
Derp. Sorry. Didn't catch that.

So when you treat OCD, it is not about treating each ritual individually. The problem is that *you* are OCD. It's not that you happen to wash your hands, that is just the latest thing you're obsessing with. Per this post: >>33400457, I understand that it isn't just one ritual.

Thus, you will never solve that one ritual. That's like shoveling off water from a sinking ship. You need to fix the actual ship. The way your mind work is faulty right now. Surely the hand washing isn't the only problem in your life, no?

>>33400452
When you solve OCD, you use the thing you've tapped into to address the panic you feel from the hand washing.

>You feel compulsion to wash your hands
>"Wait, this is OCD."
>It feels like this if I don't wash them
>This is fine
>Compulsion goes away and you don't care about washing them

The difficult part about doing ERP (what I explained) without going through a real treatment plan, is that you jump to the last step before learning about the previous 4.

You need to first know what it is about you that is even OCD. In other words, you know hand washing is OCD, but do you know if the rumination that leads up to it is? You may know the fear of HIV is OCD, but do you know if the experience that caused this rumination to begin with is?

The steps are like this:
>1. Learn to become mindful.
>2. Learn to differentiate between what is and isn't OCD (I explained my journey earlier and as mindful as I was at age 35, I had not the wildest idea). This step is often the most difficult one to bring across to someone with OCD. It was in my case.
>3. Learn to identify, accept and feel.
>4. ERP (example above).

>>33400453
Have you been depressed? How do you become mindful if you are exhausted from constant worrying, rumination and rituals?

>>33400338 (OP)
>OCD
I constantly move my tongue on my teeth and my fingers on my nails and such. Is this OCD, how do I fix it? I mean it's not that bad, I'm not sure I care about fixing it just asking

>>33400457
>>33400471
>>33400508
I guess I'm just a neat freak, not sure if it's OCD, but I used to wash my hands a lot way before knowing about that, and this situation only made it worse because I fear of getting infected or whatever, even though I am aware it can only happen through sex or blood, I freak out about the smallest things like having a cut in my finger and touching a light switch that was touched by this person, microscopically you never fucking know so in my head I MUST wash my hands or... you know.

I do have a few other "rituals" like double checking if the door is properly closed when I leave my apartment, rinsing dishes/cutlery at least 3 to 4 times as to not leave any soap on it, folding my clothes in a very specific way to keep them sorted, etc.

>>33400338 (OP)
I have OCD, been dealing with it since I was a kid. Most of my current rituals are mental (rumination, avoidance, etc.). I've been learning to recognize when a thought pattern or behaviour is OCD and to refrain from engaging with it, but it's been really difficult, and I keep slipping back. How can I be more consistent with not engaging in my rituals?

>>33400615
>Have you been depressed?
I was so depressed as a teenager, I stopped going to school. I had poor grades in 8th grade through 9th grade.
In high school, I felt a constant fight or flight. Second year, I stopped going. I was ultimately caught by my parents. I barely passed with acceptable grades. I dropped out of college and reapplied each semester, buying time. I never left my room except when I had to. I hated walking past my father, who was glued to the couch. I only left the room for necessities, otherwise I played video games and waited for the day to end.

If you told me, I wouldn't know where to begin with "mindfulness" when I felt like this. It is really difficult to treat this.

When my brothers left the house after marriage, my situation became worse, but I had some space mentally to start recovering, even though I didn't know at the time.

I didn't try meditation until 25, after a lot of ups and downs. I had financial success at 21, used all money I made to pay for businesses for my brothers, and then my income stream stopped and I was still right where I started. Suffered a mental breakdown and gave mindfulness a go. I don't know if this would work for me at 16–20, before getting some confidence from the financial success, but at 25 I tried guided meditation with the Headspace app, and that changed my life.

During this, I still did not know I was OCD. I solved OCD recently.

>>33400629
>I constantly move my tongue on my teeth and my fingers on my nails and such. Is this OCD, how do I fix it? I mean it's not that bad, I'm not sure I care about fixing it just asking
Do you feel a weird feeling if you DON'T do it?

Ticks are common. The difference that makes it OCD is if you catastrophize if you don't do it.

For me, I had an instance where I needed to swallow correctly. If I didn't swallow correctly, I would lose continuity in my head and feel dread. My previous mental state would feel fake and "reality would catch up" (all from swallowing incorrectly). Now I imagined if this or that happened, and how I would not know how to react due to anxiety. I would panic over panicking, and the spiral would begin. I could end up ruining my entire life, all because I swallowed incorrectly.

A psychiatrist put it neatly for me, OCD: "If I don't do [nonsense], [catastrophy] can happen." If you think that way, it is OCD.

>>33400900
Do you feel any physical symptoms from the OCD? Such physical symptoms can help you quickly identify OCD and to learn what to stay away from.

A useful tool is to know that *all* rumination ultimately is OCD. If you catch yourself ruminating, stop yourself, and if you want to truly stop the compulsion to ruminate, figure out what it is you are obsessing about really.

In its essence, OCD rumination comes from unresolved emotions, a reality we can not accept. When you suppress emotions, rumination takes over as a way to reframe memories. We try to solve things in our heads, but it's all fantasy. If we sit and think about what we feel, and we accept that we feel that way without identifying with the emotion, the rumination immediately ends. If we've felt the emotion we've suppressed, we have nothing left to loop on.

Example from my life: brother talked down to me like I was his bitch. I stood up for myself at the time but later in the day, I felt increasingly uneasy. I began ruminating. "God I hate my brother, I fucking despise him." I would argue with him in my head, retort, wonder why he behaved as such, etc. Rumination could last for a lifetime, and it would in a time when I hadn't learned about OCD. This time, I knew I was ruminating because of unresolved emotions, so what was my problem?

I paused and calmed myself (mindfulness). I thought back to what it was in our encounter that really bothered me. I realized my brother doesn't respect me, but that wasn't what bothered me. I continued.

This process went on for days and caused a lot of frustration until one day as I was doing this, I realized that my brother views me a certain way. I won't say what way but when I realized what my issue with him was, I chose to accept it. "My brother views me this way, and I am fine with that." 1/2 (short 2)

>>33400967
2/2
I used to fight it and feel a compulsion to prove him wrong. My life revolved around this. But now? I accept his view of me. I do not internalize it, I just accept that this person thinks of me like this, and that is fine. I felt a weird sensation in my body, and I felt it, asking myself how it felt. It was tingly in my upper back and going to my arms. I felt a warmth take over me. "He views me as that." I breathed calmly, looked up to the dark ceiling. "This is fine."

I walked calmly to the kitchen and made myself a sandwich, and then I proceeded on with my day.

All rumination regarding this? It stopped completely. What left do i have to ruminate on? I know exactly what is going on and I accept it. He views a certain way, and I am fine with him viewing me that way.

I processed the situation. Felt the emotion. Accepted reality. And I moved on. I let go. Will I ruminate now? Not really. There is nothing left here to loop on.

Rumination of many weeks immediately ended.

In short: ALL rumination is bad and the solution to it is to feel (process) the emotions suppressed. Learn to observe your emotions; feel without identifying with it and you will process things and get over them immediately. Rumination will resolve immediately as a result of that. Hope this helps!

>>33400698
Yeah, this is definitely OCD.

Sidenote: Questioning OCD is a hallmark of OCD.

>>33400967
>>33400977
Thanks for the advice. I've come to a lot of the same conclusions about completely abstaining from rumination and letting myself feel and process emotions. Sometimes the desire to ruminate becomes too powerful and I end up spiraling back down, but I've been able to pull myself out more frequently. I guess it just comes down to practice.

One thing that's been helping me is reading through this website that focuses on rumination-based ERP. It touches on a lot of similar things to what you've described.
https://drmichaeljgreenberg.com/articles/

The author speaks out against mindfulness however, because he advocates for not engaging with the thoughts whatsoever, and considers mindfulness to be directing attention to the problem. I'm curious what your thoughts on that would be? He talks about it here:
https://drmichaeljgreenberg.com/how-to-stop-ruminating/

>>33401956
>I guess it just comes down to practice.
Remember, it must not take effort. If you're finding yourself suppressing rumination still, you have not yet addressed the root cause. You have only addressed it when the compulsion immediately vanishes. You must feel absolutely no compulsion. Similarly to how if I asked you now to start ruminating for 2 hours over how Lord of the Rings ended. Could you do it? You'd be exhausted. Your mind would wonder over the reason to even ruminate, you wouldn't bring yourself to do it.

That is how it must feel when the idea to ruminate over whatever you're ruminating over right now comes up. There must be no interest at all. Your mind must be completely still. That is when you know you've addressed the root cause.

It's difficult to know when you've done it successfully, when you haven't truly succeeded at least once yet. For me, in the example with my brother, it took days, but at least this time I knew I hadn't completely addressed it so I stuck to it, and it took a few days to realize what the underlying issue actually was. Felt it through, and now I have nothing left to ruminate on. The *compulsion* to ruminate is gone, it is not that I'm suppressing it. It doesn't exist.

>https://drmichaeljgreenberg.com/articles/
I read his work when I was in a bad place last year. It didn't really resonate with me because it didn't feel true. He argues more for a passive approach. "Just let it be there." But this is terrible advice. We want something active. We do not want to passive to our thoughts, we want clarity. We want to know what is going on. That is how what I'm suggesting differs from him. But he has the diplomas. His work didn't help me, but I managed to fix it in the way that I described.

I have contamination OCD. That means I can't have guests, and if I do, it means having to clean the floor and anywhere they sat for example. I have indoor clothes and outdoor clothes and it goes without saying that if I go outside it means I have to shower when I get back before interacting with my space. It limits me but I almost feel like it gives me a feeling of control and confidence that I wouldn't be able to get from anything else. If I cured myself and let things run naturally everything would be disordered and unclear. That's why I feel like it's a good thing despite having these limitations. Ofc, my case isn't as severe as others but what if your OCD actually empowers you in this way despite taking things away? I don't think I could live with an SO ever in my life for reference.

>>33400916
>Do you feel a weird feeling if you DON'T do it?
I guess I don't. It's just that my body does this thing without me wanting or asking it to do it.
>A psychiatrist put it neatly for me, OCD: "If I don't do [nonsense], [catastrophy] can happen." If you think that way, it is OCD.
This doesn't describe me at all, so I guess I don't have OCD. It must be just ADHD.

>>33400338 (OP)
Foot tapping.

When I sit down and my legs brush or hit the floor hard, I have to balance out the duration my feet are on the floor, the amount of times I tap the floor etc.

only until I feel both legs have been evenly distributed in energy, do I then place my feet on the floor flat at the same time to symbolize "the end" and continue about my walks.

I get leg and foot cramps all the time but can't stop, the cramps just add onto me tryna balance pain on each leg now.

Advice?