So you’ve managed to overcome some of the small stuff – now what about the really painful obsessions?  What about the thoughts going round and round in your head?

The truth is, in my experience it is far easier to tackle more physical obsessions – checking, washing, etc. – than the overbearing thoughts.

For instance, I nearly ruined my Degree when I was in my third year of university, all because one day I was reading a Frederick Douglas story about a mouse that was shot up into space and I suddenly thought, ‘That poor mouse, he was just living his life and then bam!  It was over, without warning or understanding of what had happened.’  That was it – I literally did not sleep for the next 5 days, screwed up a paper I was meant to write, and I spent the next several months interrogating anyone I spoke to about their views on the afterlife.  Every time the lights went out at night, I could not get my mind to shut up with thoughts of death.  It drove a chill right through me, sent me into panic attacks, forced me into tears and terror.

There have been many such kinds of thoughts (referred to as ‘obsessive ruminations’ in the psychology world) – particularly after my son was born a few years ago.  He was so helpless and I was so overcome by my new godlike responsibilities, I became panic-stricken that I might accidentally hurt him, to the point where eventually I was convinced I would hurt him, that perhaps the obsession would drive me to hurt him, just to make the thoughts go away.  I felt incapable of looking after him safely and wished he were older and more self-reliant.  Now, looking back, I regret how little I savoured his baby time.  It will never come back.

So how do we get past these thoughts?  It’s all about fear exposure.  In my time with a therapist, and in all the books I’ve read on the subject, it seems the general consensus is to do bizarre ‘numbing’ exercises, such as writing out your worst fears in all their gory detail – then recording yourself reading it aloud and playing back the recording again and again until you stop reacting to it emotionally.

I scoffed at this when my therapist first suggested it, 10 years ago.  However, I’ve wound up doing just as she described, without even realising I was doing it.  I happen to be a huge Stephen King fan, and he always says in his introductions that he writes out all his worst fears.  He’s admirable in that he never seems to shy away from the most awful details of these fears.  Instead, he draws them out vividly and some of them are literally painful to read.  Anyone who’s ever tried to get through ‘Pet Sematary’ or his short story ‘The Ledge’ must know what I mean here.

To take ‘Pet Sematary’ as an example: this is a book that centres on the death of a child, and the parental desperation to get that child back.  The pivotal moment in the book was one of the hardest things I have ever gotten through.  I struggled and I cried all the way – and I don’t mean just cried, I mean bawled almost hysterically for about 40 pages, and then kept replaying it in my head over and over for the next few weeks and bawling then, too.

And you know what the craziest thing was?  I GOT OVER IT.  Eventually I reached a point where the emotion wore off enough for me to remember…it’s JUST A THOUGHT.  It’s not real!  And thinking about it will NOT MAKE IT COME TRUE.

It’s basic fear exposure, when you get down to it.  How you choose to do it is up to you.  Again, I would recommend reading a book such as ‘Brain Lock’ or ‘Overcoming Obsessive Thoughts’ before you tackle this, and it would be helpful to have some kind of outside support (friend, family, OCD survivor) – but now you know the basic principal behind the method.

Next time, I’m going to talk about fear and the power of the mind, so be sure to subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss it.

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