How to Stop Compulsions

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Welcome back. Danielle Thornton here. I'm an anxiety and OCD recovery coach who has personally recovered from OCD and anxiety, and I've been helping others do the same for years. So today we're going to talk about two requirements that you need to do in order to stop compulsions. And first, let's talk a little bit about why we want to stop compulsions or why we need to stop compulsions. The compulsions are what is causing your suffering, okay? It's not the thoughts, it's not the anxiety or the discomfort. It's the meaning that we're giving those thoughts and the need that OCD has for certainty or perfection. Okay? So the compulsions are what we're doing to get rid of the discomfort or to gain some sort of certainty or perfection in some way. The reason why we have to stop seeking certainty and perfection or for things to look a certain way is because it's impossible. Certainty is not possible, and either is perfection. And the pictures that we create in our head, we can't control. We're trying to control things that we just cannot do. And essentially the more we try to do this, the worse OCD gets. The OCD cycle, which I will put up here again, is when we get intrusive thoughts or fear based thoughts or thoughts that cause discomfort. And essentially when we engage with these thoughts, when we give them meaning and attention, we are engaging with the part of the brain that's going to get more active. When we don't engage with it, it is going to get less active. Now, uncertainty is part of life. So it doesn't mean that we can just eliminate anxiety and uncertainty and doubt from life. It's not possible. It's part of life. What we have to do is learn to deal with it. So I have been in the recovery stage for years now, and how I do that, how I did it and how I stay there is I got my compulsions to zero and I keep them there as much as possible. There's a couple that come up from time to time. Sometimes I ruminate or overthink about something, but I recognize it and I bring it back down. I stop doing it, and that's how I stay in the recovery stage. So again, compulsions need to be at zero. And so what we have to do is recognize what our compulsions are, number one. And number two, we need to stop doing them. So here are the two requirements that we need in order to stop doing compulsions. The first one is we have to be willing to accept uncertainty or imperfection in Some way, we have to be willing to accept risk. There is risk everywhere in life, but the more we give it attention, the worse we're going to feel. So acceptance is key because the compulsions, again, are usually ways that we're trying to get certainty about something, trying to figure it out, okay? Trying to get reassurance in some way that leads you down the rabbit hole and keeps you in the OCD cycle. Acceptance is really a mental choice. It's a mental choice to say, okay, I accept that I don't know if this particular thing is contaminated. I accept that I don't know if my relationship is going to work or if I'm with the right person. I accept that I don't know if. If my family member is doing that thing that I don't want them to be doing. I accept that I don't know if I'm going to hurt somebody else someday. Okay? These are all just examples, and there are thousands more of them. But acceptance is a choice. It's a choice to continue to accept and not to fight the thoughts or fight the reality or what might be. The second requirement to stop compulsions is to allow ourselves to feel uncomfortable. Now, you can practice ERP and that that particular thought or that thing cannot bother you at all. But often the discomfort doesn't just go away right away. It takes time. So when something is bothering you, when you've got an intrusive thought, you need to practice exposure, acceptance. But that doesn't mean that the discomfort is going to go away right away. It will go away if you practice ERP consistently and for long enough, it will definitely go away. It sometimes takes seconds, minutes, hours, sometimes days. But it's going to work every single time if you do it properly. So you have to be willing to allow yourself to feel the discomfort and not focus on it. Right? We don't want to focus on it because then it just makes it worse. But we have to allow ourselves to feel uncomfortable. That's going to happen sometimes, again, part of life. So if we're willing to accept uncertainty and allow discomfort and then go on with life, not give the discomfort or the thoughts your attention, it is going to fade away slowly, quickly, who knows? But it will fade away every single time. So those are the two requirements for stopping compulsions. It takes time, it takes practice. But I highly, highly suggest that you get help with this. If you're not already getting help from an ERP specialist, a therapist, or a coach, someone who really understands OCD and how to get to the recovery stage. It's so important. There's no way I could have done it without getting the right help. I needed someone to remind me over and over again what to do. I needed someone to teach me what was going on in my brain and what I needed to do differently. And just having someone I could talk to that understands what you're going through and who can push you in the right direction. Yes, you eventually need to learn it and get it and do it on your own. But. But having that support is so important. I have not worked with anybody yet who did this work and did not get better. Okay, so get support if you need it. In the description of this video, it's a link for all of the options of working with me. I have cost effective options, coaching options. It's all there. And if it's not me, it's someone else who understands exposure and response prevention the gold standard treatment for ocd. So thank you so much for joining me today. We'll talk to you again next week. And again, recovery is awesome.