Motherhood and OCD
There was a fantastic report on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour regarding mental health in motherhood. I think it’s a real elephant in the room and needs to be talked about more, hence why I am covering it on this week’s blog post. The programme talked specifically about perinatal suicide, the leading cause of maternal […]
Dealing with uncertainty via Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)
One of the most intriguing and indeed difficult areas of OCD to treat is what might be called False Memory / Real Event OCD. To summarise, it is where your brain takes a real memory that is innocuous and turns it into something horrific that gives you crippling anxiety. For instance, you may have a […]
How Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) turned my OCD recovery corner
I received an email from Russ Harris’ mailing list with a link to a free ebook which you may find helpful. Here it is – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sk6o4LB86JcXTkLGQMQxwRBgNfZI7_9O/view?pli=1 The link gives you five simple ways to defuse from thoughts, or what is known as cognitive defusion in the trade. Cogntive defusion basically means unsticking from those horrendous […]
Dreams + hurry + worry = OCD
I have been having some really vivid dreams of late. I hope this is because I am sleeping deeply, although I do feel absolutely exhausted at night. Perhaps that is the Easter holidays with four year old twins. The dreams are of course random but they seem to consist of similar feelings. There is control, […]
Perception, shower heads and OCD
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 […]
Coffee, addiction and Hamlet
Recently I went on a new medication for ADHD. I don’t work with people with ADHD specifically (although many of the clients I have worked with over the years have presented with similar traits to me) because actually my ADHD diagnosis is really new, although I was fairly sure I had it, and it came […]
Making an old fashioned bed with ADHD
As well as having OCD, I have ADHD and I am recovering addict. Ever one to indulge in gallows humour, I have called my triple diagnosis The Holy Trinity, which made my psychiatrist laugh. I am really good at some things, and not so good at others. Isn’t everyone? The ADHD side of me finds […]