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OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) - Complex Anxiety seen from a new perspective with top tips

Mar 18, 2024
My name is John Glanvill and I specialize in the treatment of

anxiety

and OCD. And in this short video I would like to share with you some of the patterns and insights I have gathered, as I help hundreds of people, including myself, understand, interrupt and ultimately let go of OCD and its associated fears, worries and anxieties. . and silly games. We'll delve into how OCD works, so you can have a clearer understanding of what's happening to you, and therefore when you're ready to tackle OCD head-on, you'll be better informed of what you're dealing with. , because OCD really is a sneaky little creature.
ocd obsessive compulsive disorder   complex anxiety seen from a new perspective with top tips
I won't say get well and I won't say don't you see how silly this is? Because we already know that. So what is OCD? Obsessive

compulsive

disorder

? And I don't really like that word

disorder

, it is more like

obsessive

compulsive

order, because in OCD there is no disorder, in fact, it is quite the opposite. Most things are incredibly planned, thought out and very organized. I sometimes call it COD, carefully orchestrated dilemmas; Anyway, a popular medical definition for OCD is; OCD is a common, chronic, long-lasting disorder in which a person has recurrent, uncontrollable thoughts, obsessions, and behaviors.
ocd obsessive compulsive disorder   complex anxiety seen from a new perspective with top tips

More Interesting Facts About,

ocd obsessive compulsive disorder complex anxiety seen from a new perspective with top tips...

Compulsions that you feel the need to repeat over and over again. That seems fine, however, I think we should add how it affects the life of those who experience it, their health, their happiness, their emotional stability, their self-esteem and their energy. How it affects your work, how it alters your relationships. It can really disrupt a person's life. Now, OCD is part of the group of

anxiety

-related mental health issues and I'm not going to go into too much depth about anxiety in this video; however, there is a lot of information on my website about anxiety. However, it is very important to be aware that it will be necessary to initially address the management of anxiety at a central level so that the subsequent gradual elimination of this secondary condition, which we call OCD, is truly possible.
ocd obsessive compulsive disorder   complex anxiety seen from a new perspective with top tips
So we must ask ourselves: is OCD the problem or the symptom? Is checking that the door is locked a symptom of something else or a problem in itself? And, of course, the answer is: it's both! However, most people focus on stopping the behavior and not identifying with the underlying source of that behavior, and we often lose track of what has become the norm, rather than what started it in the first place. , which may have been many, many years. back. And when I look at it from my own experience, OCD falls into four key areas. The first group are intrusive thoughts that often lead to

obsessive

ways of thinking, and can range from simple self-doubt to horrible unwanted thoughts about harming people or all sorts of different things.
ocd obsessive compulsive disorder   complex anxiety seen from a new perspective with top tips
And secondly, we have compulsions, and these are the mental, bodily or behavioral rituals that we feel we must perform to reduce our anxiety, calm ourselves or prevent something else from happening. Then, thirdly, we must recognize that OCD tends to make us very controlling people. Controlling people, situations, outcomes, to ensure we can control and avoid anxiety triggers, or to manage our rituals. And many times we cannot see this control, but it is very obvious to other people. And these control strategies can be overt, such as getting angry at someone to get them to comply, or quite covert, such as saying, "I'll stay in, you come out, and I'll be fine." Where guilt is used to control others, and then we may even feel guilty for doing it in the first place.
Then come the strategies that we may need to execute, that allow us to hide our habits, for example; someone might say "if I get to work early, no one will see me disinfect my desk and disinfect my phone." Or they may say, well, they may think, "If I'm shy and quiet, people won't ask me to do things." So let's dive into these four headlines, starting with obsessive and intrusive thoughts. Let's explore some of the most common ways OCD hits us with involuntary thoughts and obsessions, and remember this: just because you have a thought doesn't mean you did it, nor does it even mean it actually means anything.
Your brain is simply a very intelligent thinking proposal device! And we all have some unsolicited thoughts from time to time that are silly or strange and, for most people, they just ignore them. For example; It's very common for people to have a little thought that comes along and says "what if I kill myself?" And these people seem to watch that thought arise, watch it, and then just let it go, don't take it personally or give it any deep meaning. It was just an unsolicited thought. However, when we experience OCD, we have many more unexpected thoughts that cover a wide spectrum of frightening issues and dilemmas.
Some examples are: "What if I hurt someone? Did I hit that cyclist while driving? Did I poison the cup of tea I gave to that person? Are those people following me? Did I lock the house? What What if I hurt my baby? Does that pain in my stomach mean I have cancer? And as these intrusive thoughts become more common, more repetitive, the fears they engender seem to become more and more real, more and more unrelenting, and they are scary and exhausting. And to combat these frightening, real but unsolicited obsessive thoughts, we may stumble upon strange habits, which can often become compulsions, that provide a temporary respite or distraction from anxiety.
And the Fear and compulsions, in and of themselves, are pretty irrelevant, whether you have to count everything three times or line up all your cans in a closet, or put on your left shoe first, these are simply strange behaviors that we've collected to help you control. your anxiety. And keep in mind that if you are trying to overcome your OCD by focusing solely on overcoming these compulsions, yes, you are missing the point, compulsions are just a symptom of anxiety, and even if you learn to handle a particular situation. compulsion, your unconscious mind will simply transform it into a different compulsion.
That's why the three most important things to work on when you're ready for change are: number one, separating yourself from your thoughts, the thoughts are in you, but they're not you. You're not asking for them, they don't mean anything. Secondly, understand and manage the underlying anxiety, and then the third thing is to spend more time being calm, so you can recalibrate your emotions. If we look at some of the most common compulsions, rituals, thoughts, and behaviors, the actual list is truly endless. The human unconscious mind, with the logic of a child, can make you believe and do almost anything!
Maybe pause the video right now and take a moment to check it out? Either way, it's exhausting just looking at all the ways we can trap ourselves and scare ourselves. And as I said before, these are the symptoms of underlying anxiety and this is where you need to focus, if you really want a big change. If you look at covering it all up, it can be exhausting to cover up your anxiety to cover up all the tics and behavioral rituals you have to perform, and what I've noticed, over the years, is that people fall into a few categories. .
The first category I call the stay-at-home prisoner, and for some people who have experienced OCD issues related to germs, infections, blood, and cleanliness, the idea of ​​working in shared offices or visiting malls or public areas, or even Taking children to school, with so many germs, colds and things like that, becomes scary and distressing. Therefore, it is easier to stay at home, in a sanitized environment. Then we have the technical loners, this group has learned to manage their ruminations and compulsions, getting lost in distracting thought processes or

complex

mental tasks, such as science-based activities or technical careers where they can often work alone or in small groups. .
And they often attract partners who are also very technical or who are happy to live in a more closed, unstructured environment. One of my favorite groups are self-controlled controllers, and some find it much easier to manage their OCD compulsions by working on their own, and I've always been amazed at how many business owners have varying degrees of compulsive behaviors and scary intrusive thoughts. And not only are they self-employed, but they usually only have one or two employees, or they employ family members to help them, this way they can still make a living and can more easily cover up their compulsions, and if they can do so do it in the privacy of your own office and if your office is in your home, even better!
The next group is called "go ahead anyway pragmatists" and I think this is by far the largest group, and in some ways they are the ones who have the most difficulty because they are always trying to face their fears and just move on. . . In other ways, they are the freest of the group, because they can "sort of" function, despite the OCD, and this group will find that their compulsions and ruminations will increase with stress and interruptions, hence vacations, Christmas and work. Interviews and appointments, trips, surprise events, can be very anxious and very, very mentally exhausting times.
Now, one of the things I mentioned earlier is that OCD is a subset of anxiety; Therefore, if you want to overcome your OCD, you must first understand the headlines about anxiety and how it works. The number one rule of anxiety is that you can't think your way out of anxiety; Anxiety is actually a problem of overthinking and because your body responds to your thoughts as if they were true, your body becomes very tired and exhausted. . Anxiety rule number two: Anxiety unconsciously tries to make you stay home, and almost all forms of anxiety unconsciously try to make the person experiencing it stay home or return home, where they will feel safer, or at least less insecure.
And OCD is no exception, the way your unconscious does this is to look for underlying fears that you probably learned in childhood, and then plays with them, a simple way to look at this might be to say; that the unconscious nervous system gets very tired, very exhausted by long periods of anxiety and it doesn't like this, and it wants to be able to relax and recharge. And it assumes, with the logic of a ten-year-old child, that if you stay home you will recover, you will get better, but this only works if you stay home and stop thinking - and most people with OCD stay home and then they think even more, which makes them even more tired and therefore the cycle just repeats itself, over and over again!
These unconscious sabotaging compulsions can be classified into five categories, and typically anyone who suffers from anxiety has symptoms of at least a couple of these categories. The first kind of unconscious hijacking is travel, here the anxiety increases the further you get from home, for example, flying, driving on highways, traveling on trains, and the logic here is very simple,

seen

from your unconscious mind, which is quite childlike, is: "If I give you a panic attack on a plane, you'll stop flying and stay home." It's pretty simple when you look at it from this

perspective

, the second kind of unconscious hijacking is your health - and your unconscious mind in association with your unconscious nervous system can use your health in three main ways to scare you into staying. at home.
First of all, it can make you sick, it can cause serious illnesses, we know that for sure. Secondly, the mind can present you with psychosomatic illnesses, such as headaches and eczema, chronic fatigue, IBS, ME, fibromyalgia, where there is no real illness, but there is an illness and that illness has real physical symptoms, which often make that you stay still. home. And finally, in this group is hypochondria, where the person fears every little pain and needs constant reassurance that they will be fine. They hate being left alone and this leads to them not being able to work, so they stay at home.
Can you see how these patterns start to form? Category 3 is unconsciously sabotaging your work, and here your unconscious wants you to be at home and not at work, so it unconsciously sabotages you - and you end up doing very, very stupid things at work and if someone says to you "Why?" what did you do?" That?" you say "I don't know!" But you keep doing them. Category four is the same thing but it sabotages relationships and it takes a lot of energy and a lot of commitment to be in a relationship. However, OCD doesn't like to give in, Therefore it is very common for anxious people to unconsciously sabotage their close relationships, with things like anger or affairs, or being overly controlling, or very rude comments, and unconsciously trying to end the relationship, so they can stay home and realign. with their propensity for OCD.
These are unconscious strategies that fly under your conscious radar. And the last category is sabotaging your social life, this means feeling anxious withfriends or at intimate social events, or being scared in social places like cinemas, shopping malls, busy streets and, once again, the logic is simple: "If she goes outside the house, I will scare her and then she will go home! " And when you look at OCD from this

perspective

, you can see why it takes her so long to prepare to leave the house and then close it. And then once you leave the house, you have to monitor everything until you can return home.
Let's talk about some sensible mindsets you can develop that will help you when you're ready to consider some type of recovery program. With the right help, the right attitude, and enough time, I think most people can bring their OCD to a very manageable state, or even overcome it, it's not easy, but it is possible. So here are 10 things to consider when you're ready to do something about your OCD. Tip number one, OCD is not a disease, you were not born with it, you did not get it, it is a

complex

combination of thoughts, feelings and behaviors that have unconsciously programmed the brain and body, and with the right help, it can normally be programmed.
Tip number two, most of the things that need to change are held unconsciously, or you could call it subconsciously, meaning they are involuntary, therefore you can't consciously think your way out of OCD! Logical thinking makes it worse. Tip number three: Your compulsions are a symptom, not the problem, although they do cause problems. You need help addressing the underlying fear of being anxious, before you can work on the compulsions. Tip number four, you are not your thoughts, the brain is just an organ that coordinates and proposes thoughts, they are not truths and just observe the thoughts, just observe the thoughts as they arise and do not give them any meaning.
Tip number five, your unconscious mind uses child-like logic to try to keep you safe, for example; he thinks, "If she stays in her room, nothing bad will happen." This is the simple logic you should apply to all OCD behaviors and then they will start to make a little more sense. And if you panic on the highway, you won't get out. Tip number six: Don't wait for motivation to come to you to seek help. Motivation is an emotion and your emotions are currently not working properly, just start anyway. Tip number seven: Who will you be and what will you do differently when you no longer have OCD?
And do you have the skills to do that? How can you acquire them? Is there a secondary gain from having OCD? Does having OCD prevent you from having to face reality? Something interesting: Maybe you want to go to Google and search for the word secondary gain? It is an interesting topic. Tip Eight, OCD makes you doubt everything, so you need to follow a process that guides you step by step through your recovery, or you will start to doubt that you trust yourself to do it. Tip Nine: Are your family or caregivers unknowingly keeping you stuck, coddling your needs, or not adequately understanding how anxiety and OCD work and therefore giving you bad advice?
And tip number ten: You will probably need some type of professional counseling and therapy to release unconscious habits, free yourself from past traumas, and change any self-limiting beliefs you have developed. And I'll just say, make sure you choose a person who really understands anxiety, because in my experience very few people do. I hope this short video has given you some new perspectives to consider and better understand your condition. If you found it helpful, please like or share it on social media and feel free to forward this link to anyone you know who is struggling with OCD or anxiety.
And there's lots more information on my website at www.johnglanvill.com and my online OCD recovery course at www.patreon.com/theanxietyspecialist

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