Question below...

Q.) I understand ERP. I am mostly purely obsessional. I also suffer from mild depression. When I start to feel depressive symptoms I dwell on them, feel helpless and try to find "the answer" to make the symptoms go away. Does it sound like I am obsessing about being depressed? And if so. How do I manage this? I know when I have an obsessional thought I try not to chase that thought away, I accept the discomfort of the anxiety and try to live with the uncertainty and accept the risk of never knowing if my obsession will come true. I am confused when I have depression. Am I supposed to treat it as an obsession? Should I use "mass exposure" when I am depressed and tell myself that I should live with the uncertainty of never knowing if my depression will go away. Or should I use mindfullness and tell myself that the depression is not me but my brain malfunctioning and with mindfulness and a shift in attitude, the symptoms will go away. (ie more traditional CBT).

A.) What you want to do is take your focus away from trying to "figure it out." OCD is in our heads, we created it, we can destroy it. Picture our thoughts like two dogs. Let a big mean dog foaming at the mouth represent your OCD thoughts. Let a good doggy represent the thoughts that make you happy. When you focus your thoughts on one of the dogs, you are feeding it. Which dog do you want to feed? You will still think about the mean dog, but let your focus be on the good dog. One of the ways to become OCD free is to learn how to change your focus so that you stop feeding your mean dog and start feeding your good doggy, and when they compete for your focus, the dog that you feed the most is the strongest and will win the fight for your focus.

(Questions are briefly answered here in this blog. I am currently creating a product that will answer these questions in great detail with "how to" step-by-step instructions and audio, so check for this in up coming e-mails!)

"No more OCD!"