“I sometimes get the same thoughts over and over again and they keep me awake at night.”
“I engage in repetitive behaviours that seem very important at the time but are taking up far too much of my time.”
“My relationships with loved ones are affected by my OCD.”
“I feel great shame and anxiety because of some of the nasty thoughts I am getting.”
Whether you have some obsessive compulsive traits or fully diagnosed OCD, the solution centres around not carrying out the compulsions your mind tells you to do in order to soothe your anxiety. Compulsions can take the form of cleaning, washing, checking, counting. Or they can take the form of ruminating – a kind of mental checking, such as going through your mind’s data banks for memories of something that feels anxiety provoking or shameful. They are compulsions when you carry them out over and over until you “feel better”, only the urges to carry out the compulsions will start all over again when the next trigger situation pops up. But how to stop doing something that feels so urgent, and often almost automatic?
Take your first step: sdittmar.therapy@gmail.com