Last Friday I found myself compulsively checking the internet and researching about
OCD and stuff. Not sure why I felt the need to do it that day, but as you can probably guess, it set off a few triggers and I spiked a bit. In the afternoon, I decided to stop looking stuff up. Sure, some of the stuff I found was reassuring, but some of it also triggered me and I know how my head works - the stuff I found reassuring at that time, my head will eventually flip on me. I don't need rassurance anymore - I need to move on!
I've been on 25mg of Zoloft for a week now and today I upped it to 50mg. I don't know if it's the medicine, the work I've put in or a combination of both, but I am starting to understand how my head and mind are working. The instrusive thoughts are much quieter, seem much less threatening, but are indeed still there. One thing that has bothered me (and always has as I start to put anxiety bouts behind me) is the idea of "how could I have these thoughts?" I get disappointed in myself for having the thoughts that I had, for having the doubts that I had and even start to fall back into that mentality of "well if they were there they must mean something."
But then I stop. I am starting to finally get that the mind is random. Thoughts are random. Everyone has weird, unpleasant thoughts from time to time and that's okay. The mind can literally come up with anything, which sucks sometimes, but one thing I've done to try and show myself this is I try to think of the most ridiculous thing I can possibly think of in the setting I am in. So if I'm in my classroom, I'll imagine the door or something growing arms and legs and starting to talk to me. I know that sounds absolutely insane, but it shows my head "hey look, anything is possible in your head."
I also have to say (don't know if this is good or not) but I've seen myself getting anxious about other things too, which is almost like a relief. I mean don't get me wrong, I don't want to obsess about anything, but man, I have to say not thinking about the thoughts that I knew were BS and have been consuming me for the past weeks is nice. For example, I don't want to have health anxieties (gone through that before - I know it sucks), but it was almost nice worrying about somethng else. I know that may sound weird.
I'm in a stage that I'm starting to call the "of course not" stage. Meaning that an instrusive thought comes in and it bothers me and I'll just say "of course not, of course I don't want that/that doesn't appeal to me/that's nothing to worry about" and sometimes the thought kind of just fades away.
Biggest and most important thing I'm realizing is the thoughts are NOT ME. I know I've SAID this many times before, but it's honestly starting to set in. The thoughts do not represent who I am, my beliefs, my morals or anything like that which therein means that they mean absolutely nothing. I still have some work to do, but having a clearer head is nice for a change.