View Full Version : What Kinda Tools Do You Use?
What kinda tools do you use, for bad intrusive thoughts? To help regain your mind back to normal state?
I have anxiety and OCD, my anxiety worries about a situation. And then my OCD grabs ahold of it and replays it like a record player and makes me miserable.
What helps you when these situations come about! Thanks have a great day!
Best thing to help you is distraction, in my opinion. Usually when I used to have OCD attacks (Don't have them at this point), I would go watch an interesting movie, play a game, talk to someone or anything to forget about it. Also educating yourself about OCD and understanding how it works and why you have it helps a lot too.
Best thing to help you is distraction, in my opinion. Usually when I used to have OCD attacks (Don't have them at this point), I would go watch an interesting movie, play a game, talk to someone or anything to forget about it. Also educating yourself about OCD and understanding how it works and why you have it helps a lot too.
Thank you sir for writing I'll look into that
Could really use other peoples ideas and ways they cope with these situations.
What kinda tools do you use, for bad intrusive thoughts?
There are no tools.
Simple acceptance. Intrusive thoughts are not worthy of tools or gimmicks. That gives them importance.
The best way to deal with them is quite simply "the art of not giving a ****" and stopping taking your thoughts and yourself so seriously.
I do something that I find works very well, at least as far as I am concerned. Whenever I'm in a bad loop with obsessive iterations, I think like: what would I think and how would I behave if I did not give a shit about it? And then I play as if I was that guy who does not give a damn about the problem at hand. When I mean I play, it doen't mean I act as if for other to see, I play it in my mind only and try to stick to it. As an example, let's imagine I'm petrified with anxiety about say a health issue. If I think ´what would the dude that is not giving a goat's dump do or think in my place' and the answer is ´he'd head out for a beer with friends' that's exactly what I'd do.
It works.
I've been dealing with mine for a while now, and honestly the best thing that has helped me so far was actually having a mental/emotional breakdown about it where I was just furious and frustrated and fed up with not being able to eat out or go out and do things. After that, I became a lot braver and started powering through things even if I was uncomfortable.
Another thing I tried, though very briefly, was keeping a journal/log. Since my OCD is associated with a fear of there being drugs in my food, I had several sections: what I ate that day and how difficult it was to do so, how I felt emotionally/my mood, and then any remarkable (positive or negative) occurrences, i.e. one day I felt really good the whole day and didn't struggle very much.
A final tool, enforced by my partner, is that if you have an episode or you miss an event or just have a bad moment, to move on from it rather than give yourself a hard time about it so it doesn't give you a negative association or bad memory.
Feel free to message me if you ever need to talk!
Best thing to do is really just let them be there, trying to find solution to them is impossible as they themselves are not real and are just thoughts which you cannot fix. Once you stop obsessing over them, anxiety will slowly decrease and you will feel fine again. Trust me, I've been in a single obsession for 3 months and it was terrible, until I gradually stopped giving a f*** about them and they slowly went away.
My favourite thread of the day.
Some fantastic answers here Civics.
MyNameIsTerry
25-01-17, 05:32
There are no tools.
Simple acceptance. Intrusive thoughts are not worthy of tools or gimmicks. That gives them importance.
The best way to deal with them is quite simply "the art of not giving a ****" and stopping taking your thoughts and yourself so seriously.
There are tools, CBT has them. So, I think it's right to be open to them although I did similar to you but CBT is evidence-based and NICE guidance stipulates it's use in OCD treatment.
Did you mean typical "guru" stuff?
Of the tools I know of, ones like Thought Records are good. There are various other tools with a similiar aim in examining thoughts and either re framing them or encouraging changing beliefs.
I wonder if the evidence is based on the compulsory questionnaires though? Personally I wouldn't give intrusive thoughts the time of day-the less attention/analysis, the better in my opinion
Thought Records seem like overkill for plain intrusive thoughts. Maybe if you have deep-seated problems, they can be of benefit. It's not really my area.
In the past, if I had to fill out a form every time I had an intrusive thought, I'd never get any work done!
My philosophy would be this:
1. If the thought makes you panic, it's because it goes against your conscious rationale or morale code.
2. Such thoughts are triggered by our desire to not have them. This creates a cycle in the brain that cannot be interupted without a change in the cycle.
3. Therefore do not try and resist them. Do not react. Move on and reaffirm why the thought is not resourceful.
What kinda tools do you use, for bad intrusive thoughts? To help regain your mind back to normal state? I try to distract myself. Sometimes it doesn't help. I listen to music, which can help a lot. I will watch TV, watch youtube videos, or write. That's usually how I cope with these thoughts.
"I have anxiety and OCD, my anxiety worries about a situation. And then my OCD grabs ahold of it and replays it like a record player and makes me miserable"
I have the exact same problem. It really sucks. The best thing to do is take it one day at a time. You should try to resist your OCD compulsions. But it may be hard. But in the midst of it all, try to calm down. Take some deep breaths. Try to distract yourself. Your anxiety won't last forever.
I may not know your exact situation. But the only thing you can really do is be patient. In life, there is always going to be uncertainty so you can never be sure of the future. Anxiety has a lot to do with being worried about the future. So I would suggest to meditate. You could try to talk to someone.
MyNameIsTerry
26-01-17, 05:29
Thought Records seem like overkill for plain intrusive thoughts. Maybe if you have deep-seated problems, they can be of benefit. It's not really my area.
In the past, if I had to fill out a form every time I had an intrusive thought, I'd never get any work done!
My philosophy would be this:
1. If the thought makes you panic, it's because it goes against your conscious rationale or morale code.
2. Such thoughts are triggered by our desire to not have them. This creates a cycle in the brain that cannot be interupted without a change in the cycle.
3. Therefore do not try and resist them. Do not react. Move on and reaffirm why the thought is not resourceful.
I went the Mindfulness way with mine but I can't deny that CBT is evidence-based. Acceptance methods have been included in third wave CBT in ACT but CBT itself, and mostly Exposure Therapy in ERP, is what NICE recommend therefore IAPT have to follow it.
Deep seated issues are dealt with using other tools, Thought Records don't attempt to work on those. I wouldn't be able to full one in each time so they must have ways around that. My OCD was by far he worst on the compulsive side and I couldn't document them for a week at my therapists request as I could've done half a dozen in a matter of minutes. 24 hours in a day wouldn't be enough, even documenting them would have caused more compulsions as I had ones with touching, rereading, etc.
I agree with you, I'm just pointing out what the NHS say.
---------- Post added at 05:29 ---------- Previous post was at 05:27 ----------
I wonder if the evidence is based on the compulsory questionnaires though? Personally I wouldn't give intrusive thoughts the time of day-the less attention/analysis, the better in my opinion
I'm not sure. I think they were developed by different people.
They do use the scoring methods when doing studies though so they would at least be used later. They use those same methods when measuring the drugs too. The scoring methods are the basic measure of change. For us, they are far too basic to measure things, aren't they?
I've always thought they are a huge cop out, Terry. I've been at consultations when half the time was spent adding up the scores on a poxy form. How can you quantify mental health anyway? I have an aversion to rating myself out of 10 in terms of my ability/inability to do certain things. Maybe it's just an age thing but I find it a ridiculous way of truly assessing deeply troubled people.
Thanks you all for the replies!! It's means alot I seem to be getting a hold of them now, with me getting back on my meds and also me working them out in my head...
My new thing I have been doing is having bad pedophile thoughts during making love to my wife... how do I help this?! It drives me insane!!
---------- Post added at 09:49 ---------- Previous post was at 09:48 ----------
I've been dealing with mine for a while now, and honestly the best thing that has helped me so far was actually having a mental/emotional breakdown about it where I was just furious and frustrated and fed up with not being able to eat out or go out and do things. After that, I became a lot braver and started powering through things even if I was uncomfortable.
Another thing I tried, though very briefly, was keeping a journal/log. Since my OCD is associated with a fear of there being drugs in my food, I had several sections: what I ate that day and how difficult it was to do so, how I felt emotionally/my mood, and then any remarkable (positive or negative) occurrences, i.e. one day I felt really good the whole day and didn't struggle very much.
A final tool, enforced by my partner, is that if you have an episode or you miss an event or just have a bad moment, to move on from it rather than give yourself a hard time about it so it doesn't give you a negative association or bad memory.
Feel free to message me if you ever need to talk!
Seems like I can't message you on my phone. Try abd message me I would love to figure out a solution to defeat these thoughts
My new thing I have been doing is having bad pedophile thoughts during making love to my wife... how do I help this?! It drives me insane!!
Distraction. Focus on her tits or something.
Seriously, just laugh at yourself mate.
Life is funny like that. Don't worry about them. Slap her ass, and just laugh at the absurdity of it all.
Distraction. Focus on her tits or something.
Seriously, just laugh at yourself mate.
Life is funny like that. Don't worry about them. Slap her ass, and just laugh at the absurdity of it all.
Great idea!!!
MyNameIsTerry
27-01-17, 06:41
I've always thought they are a huge cop out, Terry. I've been at consultations when half the time was spent adding up the scores on a poxy form. How can you quantify mental health anyway? I have an aversion to rating myself out of 10 in terms of my ability/inability to do certain things. Maybe it's just an age thing but I find it a ridiculous way of truly assessing deeply troubled people.
Yes, I know what you mean. It's all too basic and high level. What can you get across on a GAD-7 other than you are anxious in a general way?
There are other questionnaires that are a bit more detailed but I never had those with IAPT.
I understand the need for a universal method otherwise everyone is doing something different and health agencies around the world can't work together properly. It's impossible to work up data from patient notes unless you fund an army of analysts to categorise data but this goes against modern business practices that have evolved.
From a patient point of view, other than a pretty graph, you don't get much out of them. It's the therapist notes which matter.
I picked up on how filling the scores in was a time waster and asked if I could bring the form but email the scores through beforehand. She still wanted a quick review but it saved a bit of time.
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