Hey, Nick, great video as usual. I relate to your fear of "being unable to be present". Before OCD, I remember just "consciously" paying attention to my surrounding (as mindfulness exercise, if you will) and getting joy out of it, without much thoughts spinning in my head. Fast forward to today and I just have non-stop rumination all day long, and I experience this peculiar feeling of having a mental barrier that won't allow me to "get out of my head", "give full attention to my surroundings" and "connect with the present". It's simply not possible as of now. Plus, the continuous rumination makes me "dizzy", in a way, even though I can function.
Thanks Gonzalo! Yes, unfortunately there are many prevailing myths surrounding the present moment - for me it comes naturally and I never try to redirect my attention if I am not 'in the moment'. Common misunderstanding for sure - for non-ocd sufferers as well!
Would you say a big part of your recovery journey was just giving up the fight to stop noticing your sensations? For me that’s what I’ve been doing and the anxiety has been kind of going down on its own
@@aguywhohikes1271 Good to know! Also do you have any advice for when you’re specifically trying to pay attention to someone or something else? That seems to be when my sensations are most bothersome for me is when Im needing to pay attention
My own experience: I had Breathing ocd in 2019 and it got better slowly, with the help of zoloft, and me ignoring it. It went from having the thought every 30 minutes to where in 3 months i was having the thought every 3-4 hours. Then after a year, it reduced to once a day and didnt affect me. And I lived perfectly fine til this year when the death of a loved one combined with a medical issue sent me spiraling into depression and anxiety. Now the breathing ocd is back, stronger than ever. :(
Nick, Im looking for guidance in March of this year I couldn’t sleep one night due to being hyper aware of my body while on a substance I was so aware of my heartbeat I couldn’t fall asleep, after this experience I became so concerned about not sleeping that it consumed my thoughts that i needed to sleep to be healthy due to this worry I found it extremely hard to sleep and soon began getting all kinds of physical symptoms, muscle spasms, body tension, blurry vision, shaking and so forth, fast forward 8 months later I find myself completely stuck on awareness all day, it could be that my eyes are blurry and i can’t focus and feeling completely zoned out, or that I really want to sleep but now my body has forgotten how, or that Im consciously breathing, the fear of being stuck and permanently aware of my multiple body symptoms and not being able to fall asleep has completely crippled me now I lay in bed for hours mind you in silence hoping to fall asleep at night but only getting stuck in a rumanation loop of fear the entire time in bed. Now Im at the point where Im so stuck that I dont even know how to plan my day or think beyond the hyper awareness that i can’t even get out of bed to face all the physical symptoms required to break the cycle. Im currently not working and desperately want to start making some progress any help on were to start would be great.
I know this doesn’t have to do with sensorimotor but when you mentioned compulsively watching pornography this posed a question in my mind. Did you ever feel like pornography caused you to have ROCD with your partner? I’ll try to keep this as PG as I can but I feel like for me it caused my expectations to be unrealistically high of what a woman’s body should be like and what a woman should do during intimacy. Which completely kills intimacy between my wife and I, this is one that I haven’t really figured out how to combat yet. Any input is greatly appreciated.
Hey Kyle. I would say my usage caused a plethora of unhealthy, unrealistic, and problematic, issues with my wife. Dropping pornography was the best thing I did for my marriage and my OCD.
@@aguywhohikes1271 It’s crazy too because I haven’t looked at it or used it since April of 2021, I just got married in June this year and even not having used it in over a year my views are still messed up as if I had just used it like last week or something. Makes me feel like I’m just permanently broken now.
Hey Meagan! So exposures can certainly have benefit for breathing OCD, but recovery primarily comes from breaking down the belief that noticing our breathing forever is horrible. Always good to work on that as well :-)
So if i am able enough to apply the principles of self life acceptance and the books on the reading list to a healthy extent without forcing acceptance ofcourse will i be able to completely get normal like other people and even if someday i noticed my sensations again I'll treat them just like any other human being or even better? So I'm just about to begin my journey so where exactly should I start? Shall i constantly let those intrusive thoughts pass through myself without judging them and take away all my avoidance behaviours and compulsions? Or would it be better for me to do nothing with the internal fight and let my sensorimotor be there until i eliminate all my avoidance behaviours and lower down my anxiety levels ?
Hey Octavarium! So it's important to understand the goal isn't to 'become normal' again as there is no such thing as universal normal. I had this idea for a long time and it really held me back. The goal is to apply to tools and bring down the fear of noticing XYZ sensation again. The beginning of my journey entailed bringing down all my avoidance behaviors - this was crucial.
Hey Nick. Been waiting for another somatic OCD video ever since I binged all your videos in like 2 days haha. I had an epiphany the other day which really made me understand how fear-driven this whole thing is: why don't I have the blinking variant of sensorimotor? Or the breathing one? It's because I have absolutely no fear of noticing my blinking nor my breathing. I imagined what it'd be like if I were to notice my blinking indefinitely and I didn't feel a shed of anxiety, whereas for whatever reason saliva/swallowing latched like crazy after noticing it in July last year. Same thing applies to almost all sufferers of sensorimotor. At the end of the day we all have an equally irrational fear of being stuck forever noticing one or more of our many bodily sensations. I have a couple of questions if you don't mind. How do you distinguish between avoidance behaviours and compulsions? I feel like I haven't been affected to much by avoidance behaviours. I've already cut out pornography which was one of my BIGGEST compulsions. I would literally watch porn everyday because it was the only thing that temporarily alleviated my physical symptoms, however as soon as I was finished I instantly came back to my original state. Another one was food. I'd eat food because it completely removed that feeling of saliva accumulating in my mouth. As you can imagine I put on a decent amount of weight. It's hard to fight these compulsions and now I've got a general feeling of anxiety which I've never really felt before until now. Also do you have any other recommendations for books that don't appear on the reading list? Thanks.
Just to reiterate, I didn't mean "I gave myself blinking sensorimotor" and experienced it, just that I know it'd never ever latch like swallowing/saliva.
Hey Jimi! That's a terrific realization! One that took me quite some time! Here are a few other books I read this year and thoroughly enjoyed - "lives of the stoics"/ "Principles - Ray Dalio" / "How to stop destroying your relationships - Albert Ellis"/ "REBT it can work for me it can work for you too - Albert Ellis". I especially love principles by Dalio.
See I don't feel afraid of being stuck. I'm more just really annoyed. I live my life and push through the anxiety that comes with it. I've had sensorimotor for years in multiple categories. But I feel like just a slight relief in the anxiety would cure it all. Like I get something like a thought of being stuck in my body but where am I gonna go?? Lol and the thought hits but I sit there and let the extreme fear come and go. I guess I'm not afraid of noticing it forever which is what all these videos say. I'm just really annoyed of having to deal with it in general
Hey Matt, I thin what may be going on, especially how you said 'cure it all' is you're working on recovery (this is a subtle mistake we all make) in order for this to 'go away'. Sensations, especially bodily sensations such as breathing, saliva, etc. never go. So becoming more comfortable than we usually think is key. Sometimes this slight perspective shift is key.
@@aguywhohikes1271 can you elaborate just a bit more on becoming more comfortable than we usually think? I feel like I understand but am not 100 percent sure I get the point your making. Thank you for the reply friend
@@matthewcutrone7073 of course! So I had to ask myself this - if this never went is it truly that bad? But then I did have other hidden avoidance behaviors that weren’t as easily spotted
@@aguywhohikes1271 so basically it's ultimate acceptance. I get the concept very much. And I'm someone who wants things done now. Which is probably why I'm struggling. So basically again the only way to get over this is to go through it like most videos and articles I have read. I think that's the point your making to me friend
You have to ask yourself if human beings are just a psychological experiment carried out by a higher civilization (aliens). I would love to see a video about your philosophical beliefs and nothingness after death. I believe the best knowledge is from people who have came out of great darkness, and you're one of them.
