hi. i've struggled with pure O for 20 years or so, and after a lot of years of therapy and medication and various different efforts to get on top of it, i feel for the first time in my life like im making some meaningful headway.

i wanted to jot down a model for my anxiety that i have found helpful. nothing especially new here, it's just sort of an amalgamation of different stuff ive gotten from different sources, in particular my therapist, the lectures and writings of ram dass, jack kornfield and claire weekes. here goes.

during my most anxious times, there are three voices in my head.

1. first is what i call the Bad Voice. this is the voice that tells me i need to worry about something. i've been through a pretty bog standard laundry list of OCD focuses over the years, including sexuality, death, religion, health, and probably a bunch i can't remember. each one begins with the Bad Voice telling me i should worry. you are in danger, he says, because you (have cancer/are gay/are going to be alone/etc). what are you going to do? you are in trouble

2. second is what i call the Good Voice. the Good Voice wants to find ways to comfort me, to tell me that i am ok. the Good Voice googles every variant of the thing i am worried about, repeatedly asks friends and family if they think i will be ok, desperately tries to come up with the piece of logic that means, definitively, that the Bad Voice is wrong, and i will be ok

a crucial point re: both of these voices: both of them are trying to help me. i love these voices, because they are looking out for me. the Bad Voice wants to alert me to danger, so that i can be safe. the Good Voice wants to calm me down, so that i feel better. but neither of these voices are helping me. they are both, perhaps confusingly, Bad Voices.

3. the third voice is the voice that many of us spend our whole lives trying to understand and empower. i call the third voice, the Upper Voice. the Bad and Good voices are innate, but we have to learn how to use our Upper Voice. the Upper Voice sits peacefully above where the Bad and Good voices are frantically bickering, and looks down on them lovingly, and smiles and says: actually, none of this is real. you just have anxiety.

this sounds simplistic, and it is i guess. the reality of OCD is that your worrying thoughts, and your efforts to contain or suppress or fight them, are both harming your mental health in equal measure. the Bad Voice, which is your natural selection-given fear response, has overstayed its welcome and is no longer needed. the Good Voice, manifesting as the 'C' in your OCD, is creating a feedback loop of adrenaline that is worsening your fear response. the only voice you need to listen to, is the third voice, which says: this is just anxiety. this isn't real. this is not anything at all.

this line of thinking has started to function for me as a kind of safety mat under the tightrope walk of anxiety. as i successfully strengthen it, the upper voice becomes more comforting in my worst times. it says: good news, you are actually allowed to ignore the bad voice, and you are allowed to ignore the good voice too. that's actually the only correct thing you can do. because you're not actually battling cancer, or global catastrophe, or the breakdown of your relationship, what you're battling is anxiety. and remembering that, giving myself that permission, that can be a tremendous relief.

beyond that, i try remember claire weekes' advice, of sitting with your fear, observing its physical manifestation, sitting with it in the moment and letting it be. forgiving it, even. after all, it's a leftover physical response to many thousands of years of natural selection, and it's doing what it thinks it needs to to help us.

anyway. jotting this down almost as a means of journalling, but crossing my fingers someone might possibly find it helpful. xo