Dear Ag:

You are welcome and thank you for offering others a resource that helped you. I looked at it and reads like a good resource. Here is part of what it says: “People who experience unwanted intrusive thoughts are afraid that they might commit the acts they picture in their mind. They also fear that the thoughts mean something terrible about them”- notice the words afraid and fear, and this is what OCD is about: being afraid of thoughts.

Thoughts are mental events, they happen quickly and without consequence; there are many thousands of thoughts happening in every person’s brain every hour or so. None of the thoughts are dangerous. Yet people suffering from OCD are afraid of their thoughts as if the thoughts are dangerous, dangerous to one’s relationship, to one’s moral integrity (believing that a thought makes a person bad), and even to one’s life and others’ lives. I suffered from OCD since I was six and diagnosed with it many years later, so I am very familiar with the topic. It took me a long, long time to really understand that my thoughts are not dangerous to me or to others, that they have no power whatsoever.

The website you provided suggests to remind yourself that the thoughts we don’t want to have aka intrusive thoughts are automatic, not a matter of choice (therefore we are not bad people for thinking this or that), to accept them and the anxiety that accompanies these thoughts instead of rejecting the thoughts and trying to push them out. Basically, it’s about not panicking and instead of rushing (which we instinctively do when afraid), slow down. In regard to slowing down the rushing, panicking brain, mindfulness exercises are helpful.

anita