Beat OCD Tip #6 - Stockholm Syndrome

[nueamara]

‘Getting rid of your anxiety disorder means giving up those things that make you feel safe’
‘Act the way you know you need to act if you wanna get healthy’
So glad I opened this today

[everybodyhasabrain]

Anytime you try to be certain, it's only going to make your anxiety disorder worse.

[everybodyhasabrain]

To identify compulsions to cut out in my own life I look for the following: Anything that's an attempt to try to check on, cope with, or control uncertainty or unwanted feelings.

[everybodyhasabrain]

Thanks for enjoying them! Everybody experiences what you're going through. It does take longer than days--your brain is physical so think about how much time it takes to change any part of your body through exercise. Make sure you start with something that causes very little anxiety and then build from there <- that's REALLY important. If your anxiety peaks and doesn't come down, you probably started with an anxiety that's a bit too big. Pick a different compulsion and try starting there.

[ileanaprofeanu]

your videos are amazing, they really helped with my OCD and I've been watching them for three days now. i've been to cognitive behavioral therapy 5 times and every time I asked my therapist "okay, i really understand there are ways of looking at things and that our thoughts cause our emotions but WHY these sessione don't help me, why my anxiety somehow becomes bigger and bigger and my anxiety spike is getting higher with every episode" and she was at loss really! is it that hard to see that the person in front of you has OCD when you've been in the business for so much time and you charge 40 euros for every session, which is a huge price in Romania, where I live. Well, I guess it was something to be expected in the land of al bad possibilities. I'm very glad I found your videos, because I'm really skeptical about finding a therapist who could sucessfully help me with ERP and explaining these concepts to me in such an easy to understand manner as you do. I will continue therapy, but with another therapist. i've come to the conclusion that you can't relay soley on therapy to solve these problems, the biggest part of change is yourself. have I not tried to find information on my own, I would never have founded you. have I not had an obsessive thought four days ago that really lid a lightbulb in my head "wait... this could be OCD" i wonder when someone, a therapist or my psychatrist, would have realized what I had. in may 1st, i had the desicion to stop ALL my compulsions at once, which led me to daily panick atacks, and suicidak thoughts which eventually caused me to go to a mental insitution where i spent three weeks at the suicidal section. i believed that i had unsolved past issues that were causing my panick attacks, i didn't believe, even for a minute, until four days ago, that I indeed had OCD. I am a pure O, and it took weeks to realize that I had a problem with these, I tried to stop the compulsions a week ago and went of one of my medication, but I treated the issue lightly, i thought, again, like in the first of may "ill just stop with all my compulsions at once" i treated the issue lightly, i was in denial, because i thought that OCD is a mental disorder you can't recover from. but for days ago, after ruminating for half a day over the number of cigarettes i smoked that day, i thought "okay, I went mad, i have OCD, this is definetly OCD, what can I do about it now" and i went to youtube and I found Kathy d'Ath' videos, Matt's videos and now yours, and i am so grateful and so optimistic about fully recovering from my OCD and gaining control of my life, and even about getting off medication, which i thought was something impossible after trying to get rid of one of them (olanzapine) and having that cigarette counting compulsion and thinking that I went mad, before descovering all these wonderful videos.

[joeyjoey]

thank you for inspiring me that there's connection between OCD and Stockholm Syndrome. i've never thought it in this way. great video!~

[dont_harsh_my_mellow]

I never thought of my OCD in this manner. Thank you for shedding some light on my behavior.

[saketarora]

long live mark!! thanks for helping us.

[everybodyhasabrain]

When it comes to reality and illusion in your head, I find it helpful not to try to tell the difference. Thoughts are thoughts. I found it really helpful to focus on what my values are and then regardless of what happens in my head, just act according to my values. I just posted a video on "real" vs "false" memories and you might find that useful--the same rules apply to "real" vs "unreal" thoughts or feelings. It's the most recent video in my channel.

[everybodyhasabrain]

Yeah, I struggled with a lot of the same symptoms--letting my anxieties determine how I dressed, what I bought in the grocery store, what I bought in any store, really. But it is something you can overcome and it feels really great to start being who you know you are. It really helped me to tackle some of the big assumptions I'd made about other people and myself. Learning to get accept those and just act by my values instead of reacting to fear helped tremendously.

[munchkinamanda]

Mark, this video has hit closest to home for me. While I don't struggle with OCD, I understand the anxiety aspect. My biggest fear is living with out the anxiety and negative thoughts/depression...my brain keeps saying 'but you've lived with these things for so long, how will you live without them? This is who you are" Great video!

[EleniWiebeMentalWellness]

Thank you so much for these videos. God bless 🙏

[everybodyhasabrain]

Absolutely. That's what Stockholm Syndrome is all about. You start to believe your hostage taker's cause is your cause. You start to think that being a hostage is just who you are. When those doubts hit, just let them be. You don't have to be certain to be healthy. Doubts are just weather passing over. Let them pass and do what you know you need to do.

[everybodyhasabrain]

Thanks! I'm glad it's helping. This is all just stuff based on recent neuroscience research and the things I learned through recovering from OCD and a bunch of related mental health issues. The term "Stockholm Syndrome" was coined back in the 1970s after a hostage-taking during a bank robbery in Stockholm.

[everybodyhasabrain]

It can be. Repeatedly visiting websites to check things is a common compulsion.

[Jake]

Hey Mark thanks for your vids, your perspective on OCD makes it so much easier to understand and has helped me to overcome it. Keep up the great work!

[SailorMiMi]

Thank you so much! :] You really are an inspiration

[everybodyhasabrain]

Thanks, Jake! I'm glad you found them helpful.

[everybodyhasabrain]

But are you doing it in a structured process starting from the things you're least afraid of and building up to the things that make you the most anxious? A good place to start is actually not with your fears, but with compulsions that you like. OCD infiltrates every part of our lives and kicking it out involves kicking it out of everything, even the areas where you think your compulsions are useful--the areas where the Stockholm Syndrome is most intense.

[JaguerRhye]

I liked that stockholm syndrome analogy. :) Thanks for sharing Mark.