Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) - Tips

A compulsive disorder is especially troublesome. It's literally the loss of control over your thoughts, they control you. Treatment may consist of following a compulsive protocol, sometimes possibly with medication.
 
If the compulsive disorder remains a part of your life, you can learn to give it a place in your life so that the compulsive thoughts and sometimes even the actions give you less bad feelings. A therapist can think along with you about how to do this.

Check the tips at 'anxiety and fears'
For tips about OCD, also check the tips about anxiety and fears.
https://www.therapycounselling.org/free-tips-advice-anxiety-fear.

In compulsion, panic can arise when you cannot obey your compulsion.

My advice would be to give in to it one a little bit. Watch how it doesn't completely go as you would like it to go and try and literally just stand and watch.

And wait.... the fear will reach a peak at some point. But then it lowers again. But you have to patience to wait for that to happen. And you cannot do anything else then just watch it and feel what is happening. Remember, this too shall pass.

Good luck with practicing!

For many people it helps to write down and share their story with others. You can share your story on the obsessive-compulsive-disorder-peer-support-forum on this website.

Do you suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and could you use some support?
A therapist or counsellor can help you.

OCD is an anxiety disorder which is maintained by certain thinking styles. For example "worry chains" are very common in anxious inner talk. When you worry chain in your mind you are thinking that when one negative thing happens it then leads to another negative thing happening and so on. And at the end of the worry chain, there is a big catastrophe. There are many other anxiety-increasing thinking styles as well. To reduce anxiety, people with OCD then start to do certain compulsions, which unfortunately only help in the short term but not in the long term. CBT-REBT therapy helps you to challenge the thinking styles increasing and maintaining OCD.

Exposure therapy is evidence-based help with OCD. It can be challenging to do exposure on your own. In CBT therapy with exposure therapy, you get support to work through the exposure process at your own pace. You don’t need to do anything which you are not ready to do but the process is planned individually with you. You learn first about the OCD cycle, what happens in your brain when you are triggered and how to challenge your thinking style in those situations. Then when you are ready you can move to the behavioural part of the therapy, the exposure therapy part.