I have a very odd form of OCD..please help?

[Ronan23]

When people think of OCD they think of people doing things like washing hands compulsively or counting things etc. My form is different but no less uncomfortable. I think it is OCD anyway.

The form of it I have is constantly and obsessively seeking reassurance . This is linked to my anxiety. I am constantly posting on the internet asking questions about my health - for example I developed an intrusive thought that I could make my heart stop beating by thinking about it too much and I posted on the net seeking reassurance that I couldn't do this. I constantly post questions on the net looking for advice about my life. Like why I haven't got loads of friends. Why I feel lonely sometimes. Should I go on a working holiday. Instead of making decisions for myself and accepting my life situation I am plagued by this compulsion to ask people on the internet if my life seems ok or how i should make a certain decision.

The problem is that after people have reassured me (as most people do), I feel temporary relief and then the urge to post questions again comes on even stronger. I'm basically living my life posting on the internet. It's sad but it has become so automatic that I don't even think about it while i'm doing it.
Hell, even this post is an example of reassurance but I am curious whether this is a form of OCD or not? And how the hell do I stop it. The internet is way too prevalent for me to just not use it. But I really need to stop posting on the net. It's like i'm addicted to reassurance - I even feel a sort of dopamine rush when I log into reddit and there are replies to my questions. please help me

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hi Ronan,

I commented on your thread on the HA board and the more you explain it, the less it seems HA because your need for reassurace is so widespread. Thats not to say that you can't have a comorbid condition between the two.

There is an article here that mentions this http://www.ocduk.org/ffc-advice

You may be involved in checking doors and locks for your loved one, or providing clean towels and washing for them, or preparing special meals, or constantly answering reassurance provoking questions over and over again. With OCD, once is never enough.

Because your questions are so widespread, I'm not sure about its origins but its very clearly a compulsion employed to mitigate your anxiety. The only thing I can think of right now is that your questions come from intrusive thoughts and/or how you consciously question things which leads to this.

If its a conscious thing, then I woulld suggest using a Thought Record (I can link if needed?) which will allow you to write down the question and then the next column asks you to break in down into why you think this and how likely it is based on what evidence. This might stop the compulsion as you rationalise it.

If its intrusive, you can do the same thing by engaging with it in the CBT way of challenging or accepting which is where the Thought Record comes back in.

It is a question of stopping the compulsion but it can also be a matter of changing how you think about those questions so that you don't trigger your own compulsion.

Distraction techniques might help so that you can't perform the compulsion.

Mindfulness meditation will help you, as it has with a lot of my OCD forms, so its worth searching on here or looking for MBSR (US) or MBCT (UK) for information & resources

Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) therapy is often used in OCD because it aims to habituate you to a lack of response so that you learn when you don't perform a compulsion, the anxiety will pass. Then over time you get less & less until the link in the chain is broken. ERP means having a hierarchy of low to high anxiety exposure situations ranked 1-100 in terms of their effect and you tackle them in order working from the easiest step. Its like a ladder. You create a set of steps and work through them, go back a step if you get stuck or break them down further if you can't get beyond one