I have a couple of psychiatric disorders loaded up my sleeve, and one of them happens to be obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). OCD manifests for me in the form of extremely horrifying, often violent and depraved intrusive thoughts that repeat in my mind in an infinite loop. Most of my compulsions are mental exercises rather than physical actions (praying, researching excessively about my symptoms, etc). I go through periods of time when my intrusive thoughts are manageable and do not bother me a great deal, and through times like this where periods of prolonged stress, sleep deprivation, and/or major life changes cause a massive flare-up of yucky thoughts on an infinite loop pattern. Here's what I do to manage my flare-ups: 1. Lots of outdoor exercise--This can be tricky if the weather is miserable (I live in a desert, so November is paradise for outdoorsy types), but if possible, I try to take long walks outside. I find it best to do it on a sunny day to let the sunshine hit my face directly. We're not biologically evolved to spend all our waking hours indoors, so getting outside as much as possible grounds me a great deal. If anything, walking is remarkably cathartic on days when my thoughts are extra violent and twisted, as I often feel like I need to jump out of my skin when having these thoughts. Better to stomp those nasty thoughts out on the curb! 2. Creative projects just for me--One of my recurring OCD scruples is an intense fear of creating art (in this case, writing) that contaminates and corrupts the world, making it a more ugly, immoral, and depraved place. Writing things that are deliberately ugly, vile, nasty, and guttural, with the intention to keep it fully to myself and maybe burn it later, is a great way to get the ugly stuff out without harming other people. 3. Reminding myself that "bodies are weird"--Another OCD symptom is a phenomenon known as groinals--basically, your body becoming physically aroused in response to your intrusive thoughts, even if you find said thoughts horrifying and morally-repugnant. Groinals are difficult for a lot of people with OCD to move past, as they can trick you into thinking that you are secretly a depraved monster when in reality, bodies are just weird and send out signals at random. Treating my groinals with the same indifference as if I had just gotten a chill ("Wow, that was an odd sensation! Bodies are weird") helps me move past the icky, shameful feelings that groinals can induce. These are things that personally help me manage my OCD, and may or may not work for you. OCD sufferers of HF: how do you manage your OCD symptoms?
