Critical Thinking Helped me Beat OCD

When I was around 11 I started having obsessive thoughts that compelled and urged me to act and behave in certain and specific ways / patterns; such as touching an object a certain amount of times in a specific way. This was during a quite turbulent time for me where I was faced with school bullying and parental quarrels that I experienced as quite stressful. What I found in my investigations of this ‘ailment’ was  its connection to fear – more specifically the fear of the unknown and “what if” – such as “what if my parents will divorce if I fail to touch this doorknob 3 times underneath and 3 times on top repeated 9 times?”.  These obsessive thoughts and actions provided some sense of ‘control’ and ‘order’ in my life that I otherwise experienced as quite chaotic and uncertain. 

The patterns became increasingly complex and intricate and as a result increasingly difficult to keep track of and increasingly time consuming and thus compromising my daily chores. When I was in my late  teens I found out that also other people had this issue and that it was called OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), which was quite a relief. I didn’t experience the same shame for it and I could more and more openly share my issue with others. It was also around this time I attempted to  stop these patterns using several methods, including screaming into a  jar and putting a lid on it; imagining that I was trapping the obsessive  thoughts in the jar. It was effective for a couple of weeks, but new  patterns would emerge with vengeance. The obsessive thoughts would be worst in times where I had a lot of stressors in my life, and the 'immune defense' to not act on them would be weaker. To my disappointment I later found out that according to the psychiatric expertise OCD is  chronic, and that you can only alleviate the symptoms with the help of cognitive therapy combined with medication. It was only recently through the tool of self-forgiveness and self-honest writing that I was  allowing myself to deal with the underlying stressors that I was able to eventually stop participating in these time consuming (and in  themselves very stress inducing) patterns, and also allowing myself to take back the authority and not automatically follow and act on the thoughts. I had a lot of relapses though, even after I found these tools, however as with all addictions important to not entertain guilt and shame, but to instead learn about what triggered the relapse and continue walking. I also found myself participating in old patterns  without even being aware of it or without even participating in thoughts about anything specific, just because it’s so conditioned / ingrained.  What helped in that was a large dose of humor and the ability to just laugh about it, instead of going into self-judgment.

What also assisted greatly with stopping these patterns was to apply critical thinking, because what I realized was how similar these  patterns and the ideas around them were to religion and religious rituals. Seeing that a thought like “if I don’t comply to this godly thought and perform this pattern / ritual it will have consequences / I will be punished for it”  is just superstition that gets reinforced by confirmation bias. Meaning, ignored when it has no apparent effect and made relevant /  given meaning when it confirmed the belief. Something else that  reinforced the participation in these patterns was obviously also the temporary relief experienced after complying to the thoughts, which contrary to my understanding only made things worse in the end.

There are of course different degrees of OCD, and sometimes a chemical bridge (drugs) is necessary to support you temporarily. In summary, being patient and gentle with myself as I’ve walked through these patterns by applying self-forgiveness and writing about the core / underlying factors – the emotions; the fears; the worries  – and pinpointing the external stimuli that triggers them to be able to prevent them in time, as well as applying critical thinking, has assisted me greatly on this journey to stop OCD from having influence over me.

Have a beautiful morning/day/evening/night fellow steemers!