Everything is perception – so say many spiritual teachers and writers who I happen to admire. To sum up (and apologies if this sounds a bit basic) change the lens of your circumstances, grab some gratitude for good measure, and have a better life. The great Chuck C of Alcoholics Anonymous wrote a book called ‘A New Pair of Glasses’ which does what it says on the tin. He also coined the wonderful phrase ‘uncover, discover, discard,’ e.g., do some digging, see where your thinking is warped, and let it go.
Unsurprisingly, I have really weird thinking patterns. I’ve had to use the phrases above many times, and they’ve been monumentally beneficial to me. This is as old and perhaps older than Greek philosophy, with Socrates saying ‘know thyself.’ It is no wonder that it has stood the test of time. Eastern philosophy and mindfulness cover watching your thoughts to great extent.
An example of my thinking is as follows: when something is new, or something is given to me, my brain switches into uber negative mode and tells me it’s no good. A beautiful dress that fits me well given to me by my mother or husband, for example. ‘It doesn’t look quite right,’ says my brain. ‘Take it back.’
A new shower head, kindly installed by my husband after the other one was doing strange things. We have had this shower head before, and bought it again. ‘It’s not pumping out water quite right, showers are going to be dreadful now, but, you know, I don’t want to complain.’
The difference now, after many years of therapy, is that I can mostly catch my thinking on this matter before it turns into behaviour that then sabotages my life. A few days in and I’m loving the shower. Same device. Different lens. I watched and observed myself and what I do. I do not always do this, and I am nowhere near perfect, but it did occur to me that progress has been made.
OCD is a perception problem on a scale that can far supersede shower heads and dresses. It can actually destroy your life if it is left to run wild. OCD likes to ramp up when left untreated, and if you try and fight it without the right tools, it’s like picking a barroom fight with The Rock – you’re not going to win. Ever. It will just get sneakier and cleverer with its proverbial kung fu kicks. The rituals and reassurances will work for a little while, but ultimately the stakes will get higher, the anxiety more ferocious.
Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy (ERP), where we learn to stand back and let the anxiety just ‘be,’ (easier said than done of course, and it takes time) really does work. I would say that the shower incident is pithy, but I did use ERP to stand back and just sit with the anxiety of change. I can see that this is my warped thinking, and I let the discomfort just be. Now I can see the shower in a totally different light. I’ve had far more serious intrusive thoughts and anxieties over the years, and I have learned to stand back from them, too. This is thanks, finally, to doing ERP therapy, where the fight or flight in my brain has come down in response to the thought. I have mentioned Chad Lejeune’s book ‘Pure O’ on this blog before, but I cannot recommend it enough if you want to discover more about OCD thinking.
Happy Easter everyone.
Jessica Drake - OCD / Anxiety Psychotherapist 