Not Such a Great Day :(

Hi all,

I woke up this morning and realized I wasn't worrying about anything. And it made me feel so uneasy. I think I'm so used to worrying that when I don't do it, things feel off. Someone on one of the OCD boards I visit, Stuckinadoorway.org, described his OCD as a protective sheild. That's kind of how I feel about it, like it protects me from the worst (which, in my case, is my relationship ending). In reality, the OCD does nothing to protect me. It's only a detriment to my relationship.

It didn't take long for me to start worrying. I have had a couple of themes repeating in my head today. One of them is thoughts of my friend and her husband's relationship (specifically, their sex life) and how great it is. Everytime I have a thought of them having sex, I feel a jolt of anxiety in my stomach. I have had obsessional jealousy about them for quite some time, and it always goes back to the idea that my relationship does not measure up to theirs. In other words, my relationship is not RIGHT if its not like theirs. This feeling of rightness is a huge preoccupation of OCD sufferers. It's why we perform our compulsions. I don't know that I experience any compulsions when I get thoughts of their relationship, but I know the thoughts are intrusive, unwanted, and cause me anxiety, so I consider them to be part of my OCD.

The other theme running through my head today is that we have no sexual chemistry. Sigh. This is a worry that rarely goes away. I do know that my OCD tries to make chemistry and our sex life my primary worry when it's not really my worry at all. But when I'm in the throes of an obsession and the anxiety is there, it feels like my sex life is my primary worry. This worry springs up no matter what I"m doing. We were at Superstore today doing our grocery shopping, and all of a sudden I thought "We have no chemistry" or "I don't want to have sex with him". There was no context to these thoughts. They were intrusive and unwanted. My thoughts oscillated all day between thoughts of my friend and her husband and my own relationship. So annoying.

I am trying so hard to be the observer of my thoughts, rather than the thinker. I try to be objective about them, and not emotionally react to the thoughts and the anxiety. But I worry that maybe I am engaging myself too much with my mind. I worry that I am not really observing my thoughts at all. I worry that everytime I fail at being the observer and get upset by the thoughts and anxiety or allow myself to be defined by them, that I will never get better. I worry that getting better means being perfect at the therapy. I don't always know what it means, to observe the thoughts. How do you not engage with your mind, at least partially? The thoughts are still coming from my brain, they are in my head. How do you stay separate from them completely? It's so hard. But I guess it takes practice. I do try to take a look at each thought and describe them to myself. Not analyse it to see if it is true or untrue, but describe its content exactly as the way it is presented to my mind. And then move on. When the anxiety is in my stomach, which is where I tend to feel it, I acknowledge that it's there, but I try not to let myself get upset that it's there. And I try not to describe myself AS anxious. I can tell myself that I'm feeling anxiety, but I don't indentify myself with it.

I have my doubts some days that I will ever be able to beat this. Today is one of those days. But I just started doing this, and I'm not going to be great at it right off the bat. I have to be patient with myself. I WILL get the hang of it. 4 years of thinking like this is not going to repair itself over night. I'm already seeing some good changes in myself. I'm not reacting to the thoughts in the same way as I used to. I'm not doing alot of the compulsions I used to do. I'm seeing the anxiety for what it is and the way my OCD misuses it on me. I also had the realization last night that thoughts and feelings aren't reality, and just because I believe something to be real or true, that doesn't mean that my belief is right. People believe all kinds of things that aren't true. And the fact that my OCD won't let me believe this new logic of mine to be true is just so it can stay alive in my brain and continue to protect me. Anxiety usually kicks in when I try to adopt this new logic or try to change my way of thinking, and in the past this anxiety would have made me back down from the new logic and think "No, all this IS real. I know it is!" But now I see it for what it is: a feeble attempt on the part of OCD to survive. And now I can look at it and realize that, at the end of the day, the anxiety is not an indication that my warped way of thinking is true. The anxiety is nothing more than a feeling and holds no truth. In fact, I don't think ANY feeling holds truth. They are products of the mind, and the mind is a fictional product.

I know that there is a person that exists underneath all these thoughts and feelings, a person who is not defined by her OCD. But I have made OCD an identity. Losing it feels like losing who I am, whether I realize that or not. It's such a hard thing to let go of, no matter how much I tell myself I hate it. As I already mentioned, I have always thought it protected me. Everytime I change my way of thinking, the OCD throws an image of a bleak future at me, as if to say "See? This is what you have to look forward to do if you get rid of me! You'd better think twice about this!" I wish I could believe that things will get better once it's gone, but I'm so scared I will discover this fear of us not having chemistry will turn out to be real and I will have to divorce him. I hate not knowing the future. I have an intolerance of uncertainty, as all OCD sufferers do. But hopefully I can someday learn how to live with the uncertainty.

I am looking into getting the book "The Happiness Trap" by Russ Harris. If anyone has read it, I would love to know what you think about it. It's about Acceptance and Committment Therapy and is supposed to be helpful for anyone suffering from anxiety. I know one of the tenets of this book is that one must practice mindfulness. I'm hoping it will elaborate more on how to practice mindfulness. Anyway, once I have read it, I will let you know what I thought of it and if I think it will help me.

K, I know this post has been depressing, so here a bit of good news. First, I ran 7.3K today! Woot! I am training for a half marathon in September --- 21.2K (I think) This was my second 7.3K run this week and tomorrow I run 11K. As of tomorrow, I will have run half the distance I will be running on race day. I'm pretty psyched but a little nervous.

Well, I guess I should call it a night --- my hubby and I are getting ready to watch a movie tonight. "And the Band Played On". I have already seen it but I find it really interesting. Thanks for reading this. I have to apologize for my attrocious grammar --- noone would believe I was a linguistics major in university based on my writing. But hopefully you can see past all that and get something out of my posts. Good night, guys!