rocd.co.uk

I do wonder whether there is a close correlation between OCD and addictive behaviours. I have had a few addictions over the years and sometimes they have overlapped and sometimes they have caused me a fair bit of trouble. If you stop to think about it, addictive behaviours such as drinking heavily, taking drugs, gambling, online shopping anyone, are all soothing behaviours.  Photo by  Annie Spratt  on  Unsplash You are self-medicating yourself because the thoughts that you are having are causing a distressed emotional response.  You have a thought, it causes a reaction from the emotional centres in your brain, your body releases hormones that cause really unpleasant bodily sensations to prepare you for the invisible fight and to make yourself feel better, you eat, you drink, get excessively sexual, work or whatever it is. And it works.... in the short term at least. Any behaviour that stimulates the reward centre gives you a nice shot of serotonin or other feel-...

Once you have accepted that you have some form of OCD, then you are in a really good place. You cannot get better until you accept what is going on with you and getting to that place of acceptance can often be a long and difficult path. It certainly was for me and not only that but I’ve had to make the journey back to ‘acceptance’ a number of times because I had actually forgotten that I even had OCD.  Photo by  redcharlie  on  Unsplash Yes, I know, that that sounds impossible but if the obsessive thoughts jump to something else, you are not always aware that this has happened. And so, making that journey back brings me to the 2 nd  of 12 steps; you can’t do it on your own. And by that, I mean that you have some kind of group to go to or some kind of weekly or monthly reminder of what you have. Firstly, as discussed, so that you always remember what you are dealing with but also for support. Of course, we can all read books and go through copious amounts of info...