Have you ever really thought about what you’re responsible for? I mean really analysed it? If you agree to lock up for the night, are you responsible you accidentally leave a window open and are burgaled? Is it your fault if you do not wash your hands after seeing a friend who is ill with a cold and then pass the virus on to your family? Would you say that you were responsible for an accident because you had not neutralized an intrusive thought?
As you can see, the line between normal behaviour and hyper-responsibility is very blurred and only becomes more so when you start to think about it. Unfortunately for those who suffer from OCD this is exactly what happens – a vicious circle of analysis of thoughts and guilt over past, present and even future behaviour that literally feeds the OCD.
We are tricked into believing that we have a powerful and quite ridiculous ability to influence and therefore either cause or prevent “bad things” from happening. CBT attempts to reattribute at least some of the responsibility that sits squarely on an OCD sufferers shoulders by showing the limited effect that we can have on these situations – if a burglar has decided to break in then he is unlikely to be deterred by a locked door – it therefore makes no difference how many times we have checked that it is locked.
Then there is the fascinating “thought-action fusion” which is just psychospeak for the belief that the mere presence of an intrusive thought will trigger the feared action – if I have an image of myself stabbing someone then I feel that this is a sure sign that I am not only capable of doing so, but also that I have a secret desire to - I am therefore obliged to control these thoughts, to suppress them or neutralise them... it is my responsibility.
You can try to get over these feelings, the scrutiny of the consequences of every action by passing the responsibility on to someone else – the avoidance that I talked about before. This is not a solution – more a sticking plaster than a cure and is unhelpful for everyone involved. The only answer is to accept that most of these "bad things" happen only because we are in the wrong place at the wrong time and that we have a very limited influence on the course that life takes.
I'm not quite there yet.
Obsessively compulsively yours,
Bellsie
I don't know why I identify so much with your posts, but I do. I don't have OCD but the anxiety of constantly ruminating over every single action, and forcasting future consequences is a not quite dead past time for me.
ReplyDeleteAccepting that bad things just happen and are sometimes unavoidable is a real tough call. The thought that we are all subject to the whims of chance is a really scary prospect. I guess everyone has methods of coping with that, and I can see how rituals and routines could seduce someone into feeling protected, even if that protection turns out to be tantamount to fort knox and traps you inside it.
Stay safe Bellsie
Lola x
Hi I have recently picked up on your blog from Mental Nurse .
ReplyDeleteI too suffer OCD and am undergoing CBT, taking Sertraline aswell.It's good reading your blog because I def share similar probs - particularly intrusive thoughts.I occasionally blog, though not much at the moment.
I have HROCD and you are right. People say, it won't happen - but it HAS happened to someone, somewhere. If I am not careful, it can happen to me. What is crazy about that? The only differance between me and a 'normal' person is that I KNOW it might happen, they don't. So does that make me crazy?
ReplyDeletePeople just don't understand. Yes, you may have an image of you stabbing someone - but look at how many normal people are in prison because they stabbed someone.
Think about it. I am aware of the fact that something bad can happen, and I check my door 10x to make sure it is locked so I don't become a victim. Now - realistically - who is crazy, me or the person who allows themselves to become a victim because they accidentally left their door open?
Just something to think about