OCD makes me so mad and frustrated (duh!)
Everywhere I look lately, the concept of "living in accordance with your values" comes up. It's part of Acceptance and Commitment therapy, and well, it's just a good idea.
So I'm working on that. There are two main pieces for me: being a kind and caring person and developing a circle of friends. Pretty simple, shouldn't be so hard. While I consider myself a good person, I sometimes don't do the right thing just because I'm so anxious. And I've lost track of many friends in recent years because socializing is so hard for me.
At every turn, there's a difficult action to be taken. Intellectually I know that the anxiety I sit through now will lead to less anxiety in the future. And I also know that all the worrying and ritualizing in the world doesn't actually protect me or my friends or loved ones from much of anything. Knowing this apparently isn't always enough.
Hmm, I'm not sure this post has much of a point. Oh, well. I'm still here, still trying to make the right choices, still spending a ridiculous amount of time figuring out what the right choice even is some days.
Sigh.
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My Apologies!
4 years ago
Yeah, I'm in the middle of Hayes' book on ACT right now, and as much as I totally get the importance of my values giving me impetus to deal with my ocd and do exposures, there are times when the anxiety just knocks it all out. My therapist wants me to make a tape of my values to listen to a lot in order to make it more automatic to fight the ocd. Making friends and being kind is simple, but that doesn't make it easy!
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