Please help me make sense of this...

[Small Clone]

Hi all,

I would like to thank everyone who help on my previous CBT related thread and I would ask if you could help me out again. One of the characteristics of my OCD is I have a tendency to take things very literally and then get very fearful, placing far to much relevance on the ?thing? which then can spiral out of control very easily.

My CBT therapist is back from overseas very soon and I am going to get some more sessions booked, but in the mean time I would ask if you could help me put this current worry to bed. I am going to stop looking on the internet at OCD articles and just concentrate on what I have done in my CBT and get myself back on program with my therapist.

Ok I know this is going to sound bizarre (I start most of my threads and therapy sessions saying that!!) but I read something by an OCD expert Fred Penzel and think he is telling me that I can?t use my intuition or intellgence to help myself with OCD. I know that he can?t be saying that and that I must have misinterpreated his words (or his words were a little ambiguous) but I am now thinking that anything that I have discovered about my OCD traits on my own (using my own initiative or intellegence) or any time I detect errors in thinking (like I know this is an error in thinking) via CBT that it?s wrong or I?m not allowed to do it.

The Passage I read comes from an article by this Dr called ?Ten things you need to know to overcome OCD?

And it is point 8 that has alarmed me, point 8 goes

8. You cannot rely upon your own intuition in deciding how to deal with OCD.

In using your intuition to deal with what obsessions may be telling you, there is one thing you can always count on it will always lead you in the wrong direction. It is only natural to want to escape or avoid that which makes you fearful. It's instinctive. It really amazes me how common this is. This may be fine when faced by a vicious dog or an angry mugger, but since the fear in OCD results from recurring thoughts inside your head, it cannot be escaped from. The momentary escape from fear that compulsions give, fools people into relying upon them. While compulsions start out as a solution, they soon become the main problem itself as they begin taking over your life. People with OCD never stay with what they fear long enough to find out that what they fear isn't true. Only by doing the opposite of what instinct tells you will you be able to find this out.​

I think I know what he is saying and I think I can see where I am making errors in thinking (and placing too much meaning) but it was basically the bold title that alarmed me, I kept going back to it and back to it thinking ?is he saying that I can never use my intuition? That OCD people don?t have a trustworthy intution? ? again I know this sounds bizarre but I have stayed awake for more than one night with just this one thought.

You see my ?intuition? has lead me to discover, that well I take things ultra literal and that I am fearful that therapsists are going to tell me I?m doomed to a life of misery, amongst other things, my ?intuition? and my ?understanding? of what I am going through has helped map the path of correcting irrational thinking with my therapist, using my own intelligence to make discoveries.

It?s words like ?always leads you in the wrong direction? that fear me and ?you can always count on? these are very absolute words and really bring fear into my head.

What I think he is reffering to is more of the sufferer who has compulsions to try to combat obsessions, ie those who are contamination fearful may have compulsions to bleach their house or wash their hands thinking that if they rid themselves of germs then they will have nothing to fear, instead of coming to terms with the fact that germs are normal ok and natural ? gaining an understanding of living along side germs.
Or someone who thinks that there family is in danger if they don?t perform bizarre rituals, ie running up and down the stairs 50 time will mean that my wife wont die.

I understand all of the above and I have educated myself and understand that when OCD is in full swing it can convince you to do some pretty bizarre things that instead of alleviating the problem will help maintain it (as the irrational compulsion will not feel like you?ve done enough). My OCD is regarded as Pure-O so I don?t have the outward compulsions that some OCD sufferes have. But I get scared when people make bold statements, such as You cannot rely upon your own intuition in deciding how to deal with OCD, it makes me feel that I can?t use my initative or intelligence which cannot be right, OCD sufferes are not stupid and I feel are more than capable of helping work out what is going wrong.

Maybe if he had titled it differently I wouldn't have got so shocked.

Again I feel that I am so anxious about this that I have attached that feeling to the statement and that I am getting over literal.

I keep saying to myself, "you know this doesn't mean what you fear, you know what you have to do - you can trust yourself these are only thoughts and not fact" - however when I do that I get a nagging voice saying "you know that sounds a lot like using your initiative, you can't do that your not allowed to use your own initiative", I feel that I can't trust myself to know what is right - this can get very painful.

I thank you for reading this and wish you well.

SC

 

[David Baxter PhD]

What it means is that you cannot interpret the OCD thoughts, fears, or worries literally.

A woman who worries about her baby's safety may start to have thoughts of harming her. For someone with OCD, the literal interpretation is most often the opposite of the real worry. The sequence goes something like this:

I am worried about my baby. I want to keep her safe. I'm not sure I know how to do that. Maybe I'm not up to the task. maybe I'm a bad mother. If I can't keep her safe, maybe I am putting her in danger. Maybe I am a danger to my baby. Do I want to hurt my baby? How could I hurt my baby?​

Or another example - putting a sharp knife away in a drawer:

I need to do this carefully so I don't hurt myself. I need to make sure the blade is facing down so someone else doesn't accidentally get hurt. Why am I thinking about someone getting hurt by this knife? Why am I worrying about getting cut by this knife? This must mean I want to hurt myself. Am I trying to hurt myself? Am I suicidal? This must mean that I am suicidal. I need protection from myself!​

Notice how the worries or anxieties take on a life of their own and how the OCD sufferer gives power to those worries as if they were magical or predictive?

It's not that you can never trust your intuitions or thoughts. It's that you have to challenge them via CBT techniques such as cognitive restucturing. How much of the thought, worry, intuition is realistic and how much is OCD?

 

[Charity]

What I think he is reffering to is more of the sufferer who has compulsions to try to combat obsessions, ie those who are contamination fearful may have compulsions to bleach their house or wash their hands thinking that if they rid themselves of germs then they will have nothing to fear, instead of coming to terms with the fact that germs are normal ok and natural – gaining an understanding of living along side germs.
Or someone who thinks that there family is in danger if they don’t perform bizarre rituals, ie running up and down the stairs 50 time will mean that my wife wont die.

I think you're right-- I mean, I think this is exactly what he meant by that statement.

He might better have worded it as, "You cannot rely blindly upon your own intuition in deciding how to deal with OCD." Don't automatically assume that your own intuition is wrong. Just don't automatically assume it's right, either. Use those CBT techniques to test your thoughts and determine for yourself if they are correct or flawed.

 

[Small Clone]

David,

Thank you for your post I don't know if I am explaining myself properly... but I am still unsure as what to think when I read point 8 initially I thought to myself - how dare he say that I can't use my intuition to work out my OCD all of the discoveries about my OCD that have helped me came from my intuition and intelligence, that is when I started doubting all of my discoveries as I felt like I was being told that they are likely to be wrong and made me start looking at them with doubt (not very nice)

What I want to do is understand that it can't be right to say that your not smart enough to work out what is wrong with you. And be able to say to myself I can trust in myself - deep down I know what is right I have just allowed this statement to bread a little doubt.

If he is saying at the start when you are 'new' to understanding OCD that if you trust your intuition it may be telling you the wrong thing then I'm fine with that. Initially my OCD was P and H OCD and if I had trusted my intuition (I think bad choice of word from Dr Penzel, fear or heightened anxiety might have been better) I may have thought that I was something that I am not, but after using my intelligence, CBT and looking at my problem rationally I now every time these things come up know how to deal with them you could say instinctively!

Now if what he means is that when you are in the grips of OCD your intuition might be telling you wrong information - then that's fine. But if he is saying that at all times trusting yourself or your intuition is wrong then I don't understand surely if I am thinking about my OCD issues (as I had done in the past) when I was in a rational frame of mind I think it is obvious that answers will come, and they will be right - as they have been.

I want to know it's ok to trust myself, that he is only talking about OCD thoughts and not all thoughts.... I still don't know if I am coming across accurately here.

I just want to be able to trust what has worked in the past and stop doubting it due to a misinterpretation.

SC

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It's not that you can never trust your intuitions or thoughts. It's that you have to challenge them via CBT techniques such as cognitive restucturing. How much of the thought, worry, intuition is realistic and how much is OCD?

David this is how literally I can take things I've starting thinking that you are saying that I have to use CBT with every thought that I have. But I know this can't be so (how difficult a life would that be!!)

What you mean is when these thoughts are OCD, doubts or worries.

But surely the thoughts that I have about my OCD (I say about meaning that I am not in 'OCD mode') can tell me exactly what I need to know, I have had so many 'revelation' moments when the penny drops and I understand what I was worrying about or I get some element of how I have been thinking, the difference is that those 'intutative' thoughts come about when I am not worried, not anxious, I think that 'intuative' thoughts that he is reffering to is when you are anxious you are having intrusive thoughts.

Please help me understand this.

Thanks

SC

 

[David Baxter PhD]

I don't know which article it was that you read originally so I cannot speak for the author's intentions. All I am saying is that the basis of any CBT approach to OCD or anything else is NOT that your thoughts and feelings are never valid but rather that there are times when they are not reality-based, i.e., they are distorted perceptions or interpretations, especially if you suffer from depression or an anxiety disorder or OCD, etc.

So to your question, "Does this mean I have to challenge every thought or intuition that I have?", I would say the answer is "No. Only those that cause you distress, because if it is causing you unnecessary distress you need to know about that."

 

[Small Clone]

David,

If you would like to read it this is the article

10_Things

What you have said below is exactly what I mean - like I said I have trouble sometimes taking things literally so when someone titles a point

You cannot rely upon your own intuition in deciding how to deal with OCD.

I can see how if you take this literally you could assume it meant any thought and you can never use your intuition... which can't be true - I know that the discoveries I've made about myself are valid and are rational and do work.

So given what you have said below

All I am saying is that the basis of any CBT approach to OCD or anything else is NOT that your thoughts and feelings are never valid but rather that there are times when they are not reality-based, i.e., they are distorted perceptions or interpretations

I am safe to say that when I am thinking rationally and clearly and objectively about my condition then I can have faith in my own intelegence and initiative

I know this is very simplistic but it is difficult for me to term.

For example after reading point 8 I started thinking as most of my current CBT ideas were based on what has come form me from my initiative; that I should stop doing them as that would be using my initiative and therefore likely to be wrong?

One of the realizations that I had was around the notion of getting better and that I held a fear that I was going to find a therapist who was going to tell me I'm eternally doomed to a life of misery that I cannot ever lift myself out of this... that all the therapists who said that recovery was possible were 'lying to me' - my intuition told me how irrational and wrong this line of thinking was and that it was my fear of not getting better that was causing the anxiety and dis-belief.

I made that revelation when I was not in therapy but between sessions sitting at home thinking relationally.

I know that at the highet of my OCD I had to rationalize what was going on in my head challenge it - I think that is what he is refereing to. Before getting hung up on this element (and a previous one) I felt that the majority of my thoughts and intuitions were rational and therefore could be trusted....

There must come a time when you have looked at your OCD enough, come to terms with it, understand the process to know what thoughts are rational or irrational and therefor be 'trsuted' to know the difference.

Just to clear up it is possible and usual for people to have thoughts that they can trust when they are not in OCD style anxiety and that 'OCD people' can and do have intelligence to see their problem in rational terms and understand what to do, wheater it be that they are lucky and smart enough to work it out or through education and help.

Thanks again


SC

I don't know which article it was that you read originally so I cannot speak for the author's intentions. All I am saying is that the basis of any CBT approach to OCD or anything else is NOT that your thoughts and feelings are never valid but rather that there are times when they are not reality-based, i.e., they are distorted perceptions or interpretations, especially if you suffer from depression or an anxiety disorder or OCD, etc.

So to your question, "Does this mean I have to challenge every thought or intuition that I have?", I would say the answer is "No. Only those that cause you distress, because if it is causing you unnecessary distress you need to know about that."

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Okay. Thank you. I've now read that article. In this case your intuition is, I think, right on:

What I think he is reffering to is more of the sufferer who has compulsions to try to combat obsessions, ie those who are contamination fearful may have compulsions to bleach their house or wash their hands thinking that if they rid themselves of germs then they will have nothing to fear, instead of coming to terms with the fact that germs are normal ok and natural – gaining an understanding of living along side germs. Or someone who thinks that there family is in danger if they don’t perform bizarre rituals, ie running up and down the stairs 50 time will mean that my wife wont die.

He is talking about compulsive behaviors or rituals here and he is using the word "intuition" in that article more like the word "instinct". He is saying that the anxious thought leads to the urge to perform some ritual to reduce the anxiety associated with that thought. But the instinct in such cases is flawed because (a) the thought is only a worry, not a prediction or a fact; and (b) typically the ritual or compulsive act is unrelated to the feared event or outcome so that even if the thought were reality based the ritual would not help.

 

[Small Clone]

Thanks David,

When I get like this it is always this way that I know deep down that I am right but I just can't make it stick - so I usually end up asking for advice, which I know is reasurance seeking and something I need to work on . I think when my therapist is back (end of June) I know what we'll be looking at!!

Thanks David I so appreciate your effort - I didn't realise that you ran this forum site, it is such a credit to you, thanks again for all the help and advice you have offered me.

And no more tralling internet sites for article and getting confused for me!!!

SC

Okay. Thank you. I've now read that article. In this case your intuition is, I think, right on:



He is talking about compulsive behaviors or rituals here and he is using the word "intuition" in that article more like the word "instinct". He is saying that the anxious thought leads to the urge to perform some ritual to reduce the anxiety associated with that thought. But the instinct in such cases is flawed because (a) the thought is only a worry, not a prediction or a fact; and (b) typically the ritual or compulsive act is unrelated to the feared event or outcome so that even if the thought were reality based the ritual would not help.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

I'm glad I could help, SC. And I think your intuition about avoiding internet sites for a while is also right on.

 

[Small Clone]

I'm glad I could help, SC. And I think your intuition about avoiding internet sites for a while is also right on.

You can count on that!!!!