Why is it that… The more we…?

[wannabefreeParticipant]

….That the more we actually check that something is okay, the stronger the urge gets to… Check it just once more, just to make sure.

It does doesn’t it?

And when we ask for reassurance that all will be okay… The thoughts move onto something else so we need to ask about that too?

Well… Such is OCD.

It is a condition that can literally ‘drive us up the wall’ so to speak.

But it can be combatted. Simply by saying something to ourselves like… ‘I just won’t ask yet again/check again/or stress. I just won’t. Even though it goes against all the rules of being conscientious, blameless, responsible person. We find ourselves always at fault, negative thoughts abound, we live in a sea of fear and self-doubt. We sink to the floor in a dead faint.

And yet… Things probably turn out okay, just as they would do, even if we had fretted and stressed, and tried to ‘cover all the angles’, to keep everyone else safe.

In the modern workplace, we have things called ‘Risk assessments’. The delicate art of considering just how bad things could get, if certain conditions were not met. We expect disasters… We have to, cos in the extremely rare eventuality of them actually happening, We’ll get sued. People are driven to seek out the worst possible scenario. Just in case…

But this is operating in a totally negative context. We are actually trying to live a nightmare to avoid one actually happening for real… Living life in perpetual darkness and gloom… Like living in a horrible town/house/family.

And yet, none of this stuff is actually real, our over-active imaginations are living and reliving nightmare scenarios, and all that ultimately achieves, is ourselves getting very depressed and anxious about absolutely everything. We are digging deeper, the very hole we are trying to get out of…

So, Let’s try something, just for the next hour or so…

Let that door stay locked, without us going to actually check that it is.

Let my hands be less than perfectly clean… Just for an hour…

Can we do that? Well… If I suggest that; The more we do just that, the easier it will become to ‘Just do that’, all the way until we find that we are free to live again…

That our own, and everyone else’s natural defences will protect. That the sun will come up tomorrow, just as it did yesterday, and the day before… That, by an incredible quirk of fate, Things will actually be reasonably okay. Let’s be honest with ourselves… They did, Didn’t they?

Today, is the tomorrow you and I worried about yesterday… And so far… Yesterdays damning predictions aren’t actually happening, That today, right now, we are tangibly making things go okay, so the ‘worst possible outcome’, will in effect not happen. Maybe something else will, but until we are faced with an actual occurrence, we cannot take control, to steer ourselves safely through things as they present themselves to us.

‘Don’t fix it, unless it’s broke…’ is another saying.  If it is actually starting to break… Not just in case it could possibly break, say, tomorrow night… Let’s wait and see what, if anything, happens…

We try to predict and prepare for every possible outcome, on a negative footing. What if it goes right? Is it just a fluke? Or are we actually doing really well? We are definitely doing well…

When we work at not giving in to those intrusive thoughts, they do gradually lose their power over us, and just like any bully, will go away to haunt someone else, metaphorically speaking.

So, let us try with the smaller thoughts first… And then, as we become stronger, move onto the bigger thoughts… Just for an hour at a time…

Both you and I have the right to be happy…

Wannabe

 

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Well….  Isn’t it strange that, the more I go back to check, just to make sure… The stronger the urge to check, just once more, just to make sure… It is ridiculous to people who aren’t ravaged by ocd… They think I’m nuts! But I’m not… Just a bit over-conscientious, that’s all. My OCD makes me this way…  That’s a bit inconvenient for me, but the opposite extreme, where No-one checks anything at all, would obviously be downright dangerous for society in general… So… What would other people rather we did? Check everything a bit too much, Or just not give a sausage, or whatever?  The answer is obvious to me… But what we need, is a ‘happy medium’, a sort of middle ground where others do the checking for us, but then… We have to then have the good grace to believe them! Not easy, is it?!

So I’m gonna try and just ask once… If at all… And see how things turn out,,,

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Well… I left it… No one broke in… Cos the door was locked anyway… I found that out the next time I needed to go through it… Much less stressful doing things that way… I feel pleased with myself for achieving that. It may be only once, but it is a start… And I guess… It will get easier each time? Mmmmm… I’ll certainly try. I have to be in it to win it.  I have to be there for the miracle to happen…

That public loo I used today in the supermarket… I had to wait to use it… I have no way of knowing whether they would have washed their hands… Did they carry on shopping after re-entering the store?  Well… I did… It all went through the till, on the conveyor belt, everything… The trolleys… I only actually washed my hands before coming out of the loo room… I took no other precautions… After all, Why should I? There is no rule that  tells me that I must… I’m an ordinary member of the public, in a public environment, alongside everyone else, doing exactly the same! We are all free… Let’s be a little ‘reckless’ once in a while…

Wannabe

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