You all are just great! I am glad I found this channel. Your videos have been a great help in understanding what has been going on with me most of my life.
Let the fear and uncertainty be there, stop trying to solve the problem, accept that you do not know and will never know, and try to live the life that you value and want to live regardless of the intrusive thoughts. When anxiety and fear arise, feel them in the body, refusing to follow the thought-spiral and narrative around those sensations, and refusing to run away from the sensations of fear/anxiety. We are addicted to control and certainty. The more we try to solve/fix the “problem” and the more we insist on certainty and control, the stronger OCD’s grip on us gets. This takes time, courage, persistence, and discomfort. These are unavoidable. In the meantime, allow the intrusive thoughts to be there without letting them pull your attention in. Establish healthy daily routines, take the discomfort with you (instead of letting it stop you from living your life), accept your worst case scenario (not agree, but accept), and face your fears everytime they arise without fleeing or repressing them. If possible, get therapeutical help via an OCD specialist and work w them as well. These are the broad outlines to recovery.
@@RedRabbleRouser Thankyou for your extensive response. Can you just clarify what the difference is between acceptance and agreement? Like I don’t know how to differentiate between the two, Thankyou.
@@R4G3FULL sure! So OCD will latch wherever there is fear. The more we stay afraid of something, the more fertile ground we give OCD to flourish and grow. So we must face fear itself, which also means facing our deepest fears. With any specific OCD episode, there is a core fear involved. For me, it’s the fear of this specific sensation (I have somatic OCD) never going away and me being hyperaware of it forever. In order to address this at the ROOT, I have to tell my brain that I’m not scared of it anymore. In order to do that, I have to deeply accept the possibility of it never going away and still living my life even if it’s here. When my OCD sends the intrusive thought, I respond inwardly by saying “that okay. Even if this never goes away, I can still enjoy my life, I can still meet my responsibilities, I can still pursue my goals. Sure, I wouldn’t love it. But I could do it. So fuck it, keep sending these intrusive thoughts for all I care. I’m learning to love them!” This sends feedback to the brain that this thing it’s worried about isn’t a threat. I’m not running from it, trying to repress it, or wishing it’d go away, cuz that sends feedback to the brain that this IS a problem and needs to keep being monitored. Does that make sense? Do I want this sensation forever? Obviously not. It sucks lol. But I have to find that place within me that would be okay even if it never went away and stubbornly accept it. If I got cancer, so be it. If I went to jail, so be it. If I’m really the terrible person my OCD is telling me I am, so be it. If I fucking died tomorrow, so goddamn be it! This is the attitude of radical Acceptance. Again, I don’t want these things to happen, and hope they don’t. But I’m fostering that attitude of radical acceptance of ANYTHING life throws at me, which in turn over time reduces the fertile ground for OCD to flourish because I’m not running from anything. I don’t agree with these things, meaning I don’t want cancer or to die tomorrow, but I’m accepting them at the deepest levels possible to starve my OCD of the fear it lives on. Is that clear, or still confusing?
Great insight Sam. Thank you.
Thanks. Good perspective on a lot of things.
You all are just great! I am glad I found this channel. Your videos have been a great help in understanding what has been going on with me most of my life.
We are glad they have been helpful! Anything you'd like to see us cover and or cover again?
Great video bro. I needed to hear that 😊🙏
Perfect 10
264 Kuhlman Meadows
Sam, what do you mean when you say "we are not saying it is real"... Does that mean that this doesn't apply to real event OCD ? 😳
No it means - we need to sit with the uncertainty.
How do I approach this with existential OCD?
Let the fear and uncertainty be there, stop trying to solve the problem, accept that you do not know and will never know, and try to live the life that you value and want to live regardless of the intrusive thoughts. When anxiety and fear arise, feel them in the body, refusing to follow the thought-spiral and narrative around those sensations, and refusing to run away from the sensations of fear/anxiety.
We are addicted to control and certainty. The more we try to solve/fix the “problem” and the more we insist on certainty and control, the stronger OCD’s grip on us gets.
This takes time, courage, persistence, and discomfort. These are unavoidable. In the meantime, allow the intrusive thoughts to be there without letting them pull your attention in. Establish healthy daily routines, take the discomfort with you (instead of letting it stop you from living your life), accept your worst case scenario (not agree, but accept), and face your fears everytime they arise without fleeing or repressing them. If possible, get therapeutical help via an OCD specialist and work w them as well.
These are the broad outlines to recovery.
@@RedRabbleRouser Thankyou for your extensive response. Can you just clarify what the difference is between acceptance and agreement? Like I don’t know how to differentiate between the two, Thankyou.
@@R4G3FULL sure! So OCD will latch wherever there is fear. The more we stay afraid of something, the more fertile ground we give OCD to flourish and grow. So we must face fear itself, which also means facing our deepest fears. With any specific OCD episode, there is a core fear involved. For me, it’s the fear of this specific sensation (I have somatic OCD) never going away and me being hyperaware of it forever. In order to address this at the ROOT, I have to tell my brain that I’m not scared of it anymore. In order to do that, I have to deeply accept the possibility of it never going away and still living my life even if it’s here. When my OCD sends the intrusive thought, I respond inwardly by saying “that okay. Even if this never goes away, I can still enjoy my life, I can still meet my responsibilities, I can still pursue my goals. Sure, I wouldn’t love it. But I could do it. So fuck it, keep sending these intrusive thoughts for all I care. I’m learning to love them!” This sends feedback to the brain that this thing it’s worried about isn’t a threat. I’m not running from it, trying to repress it, or wishing it’d go away, cuz that sends feedback to the brain that this IS a problem and needs to keep being monitored. Does that make sense? Do I want this sensation forever? Obviously not. It sucks lol. But I have to find that place within me that would be okay even if it never went away and stubbornly accept it. If I got cancer, so be it. If I went to jail, so be it. If I’m really the terrible person my OCD is telling me I am, so be it. If I fucking died tomorrow, so goddamn be it! This is the attitude of radical
Acceptance. Again, I don’t want these things to happen, and hope they don’t. But I’m fostering that attitude of radical acceptance of ANYTHING life throws at me, which in turn over time reduces the fertile ground for OCD to flourish because I’m not running from anything. I don’t agree with these things, meaning I don’t want cancer or to die tomorrow, but I’m accepting them at the deepest levels possible to starve my OCD of the fear it lives on. Is that clear, or still confusing?
It's so persistent disorder , if I were even 10% as persistent as OCD in my studies I would have been my class topper 😂🥹
LOL