You may have had an experience of something that happened years ago. It’s possible that you forgot about it for quite a while and all of a sudden BAM,  it hits you. Now you can’t stop thinking about it, you can’t stop thinking about what you’ve done. Even if it is something so small and meaningless. Your brain has all the sudden put a lot of meaning to this. You’re spending a lot of time convincing yourself you didn’t do anything wrong. This isn’t enough. Your brain replace it over and over and over again, the guilt sets in.  It almost verifies that what you are experiencing must matter. The thing in the past must be rectified. You must fix this in some way, even if it is absolutely impossible to fix.  Extreme anxiety and fear join the party. This past experience now consumes your life.
 
 This is what we call real event OCD.
 
 If you want to know more about real event OCD.  I will link my video down in the description and you’ll be able to click on it here.
 
 You may already know you struggle with real event OCD. I want to be able to help you learn how to retrain your brain and use the evidence-based treatment of exposure and response prevention.  With permission from “turning point psychology” and the clinical director Anna Prudovski;  I will be providing 10 tips that can help you right now with your real event OCD.
 
#1 -  OCD is known for attacking what matters the most to us, so this is your chance to use your obsessions as a guide to understanding yourself.
 
Which values lie underneath your regret? What is your pain trying to tell you? What matters most to you in your life? What kind of person would you like to be? How would you like to treat yourself, others, and the world around you?
 
As opposed to to being consumed by your intrusive thoughts, memories, and emotions, use them to uncover your core values and start taking active steps toward them in the present instead of being consumed by the past.
 
 This exercise is not to ruminate in the past. It’s not to problem solve whatever it is that you did. Instead this is focusing on you right now. What your values are, who you are as a person, and allowing your brain to move forward instead of going backwards.
 
#2 - Start making a list of what gets neglected while you continue being entangled in the battle with your mind.
Is being consumed by the past preventing you from having a present? Do you find that being hooked by your thoughts prevents you from taking effective action toward your goals? Are you spending so much time in your head that you don’t feel present or engaged in the moment with people you care about and in doing what you love? What would you be doing differently if you could put your memories aside and reengage with what matters to you in your life?
Make a list, put it somewhere visible, and use it for motivation in the moments where your OCD tries to hijack your attention by making you compulse.
3.     Every time you have an urge to check, ruminate, neutralize, reassure, or do any other compulsion – ask yourself, “If I let these thoughts and emotions determine what I do in the next few minutes or an hour, will it get me closer to the person I want to be or will it move me even further away?”
 Think about how powerful this is. Your living life right now.  The compulsions were only to keep you trapped. It seems important, I get it. What do you know what is more important. Living life right now, feeling joy, looking towards the future.
4.     Put a visible reminder somewhere that OCD is the issue, not your past event.

 We tend to put so much power and value to past experiences and events when really all filters down to the same thing. OCD and uncertainty. The past event, no matter what it is can be seen as OCD.  The OCD thinks it’s protecting you when really it’s your job to retrain your brain to show that you don’t need that protection. You’ll find that it wasn’t protecting you from anything.
 
5.     Practice self-compassion.
This is not the same as forgiveness (which, in your case, most likely will just constitute another compulsion).
Self-compassion is acknowledging that you are suffering. You can remind yourself that suffering is a common human experience and is a part of life. Give yourself a moment of kindness without reassuring yourself.
(Yes, yes, I know: your OCD will probably tell you that you don’t deserve kindness. Or that the kindness is another way to trick yourself into thinking you didn’t do anything wrong. Please treat this thought just like every other obsession – let it be… and continue practicing self-compassion)
 
6.     Do not try to get rid of your thoughts and emotions. They will come and go at their own time. Let them be and redirect your attention toward taking a step toward something that is important to you (not to your OCD). Don’t wait for the difficult emotions to subside to move forward in life. You can have them and still live your life the way you choose to in the present.
 
7.     Ban rumination. Rumination is a compulsion. It deserves none of your attention. It’s wanting you to problem solve and you don’t problem with anxiety anymore. You don’t “problem solve the past.” Don’t give it any attention or power. As thoughts come, you can answer them with, “totally” or “maybe, maybe not.” 
 
Even trying to figure out whether it is really OCD is an example of rumination.
 
8.     This is a tough one. The only way to recover from OCD is to be willing to live with the fact that your scary thoughts may be right.
WAIT, WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?
That’s right, your scary thoughts may be right. It doesn’t mean that you accept that they ARE right. It just means that you accept to NOT know. To not problem solve to know.
As long as you continue living with the hope that you will have certainty about the past, the future, and the kind of person you are, OCD will continue to have a grip on you. Yes, the thoughts about what you did and what kind of an immoral human being you may be are horrific. But these are thoughts. Not facts. (don’t use this as a compulsion). Hold them lightly. All our thoughts may or may not be true. As long as we don’t take them too seriously, we have the freedom to live our life. Allow the uncertainty to be there and continue with your day.

9. Seek treatment. Your OCD will, of course, tell you that treatment will not help, that you will be judged, that going to therapy is just an excuse to avoid repenting, that nobody can possibly understand what you are going through, that the shame will be unbearable, that  your OCD is very different from other OCDs and that, of course, it may not even be a real OCD.
 
Just like with the other thoughts, hold these thoughts lightly and don’t allow them to sway you from getting your life back.
 
10. Make sure that your therapist specializes in OCD and practices ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention) and ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy).
This is crucial. Seeing somebody whose method of treatment is CBT but who doesn’t mention ERP as their treatment approach on their website or in your phone conversation is not enough. Not all CBT is applicable for OCD and the therapist needs to know a very special way of using CBT for the treatment of OCD.

Don’t see a coach. They tend to charge less and use words like, “cure” “overcome forever” or “fully recover” making it sound very enticing. I mean, I’d want to go to them. Don’t fall for it. See a true specialist.

Jenna and I go through our health scares and talk about what to do when the "what if's" actually happen. We go through tips you can use for your OCD and health anxiety. Uncertainty is the key to feeling better. It's time for you to learn how you can sit with it comfortably. ​

​Maybe your dating, friends with someone, or married. Either way, you have a relationship with them. Do you ever wonder if you’ll be able to handle a flaw or perceived flaw of the other person? Meaning, you may be obsessing about your partners’ faults. Not just having a thought every once in a while. But truly obsessing about specific flaws or faults. Like all day. This brings a lot of anxiety. You’re not sure if you need to get out of the relationship. You’re not sure if you stayed, that you’ll ever stop thinking or feeling anxious about this flaw. 

If this sounds like you, you may struggle with what’s called relationship OCD, more specifically, partner-focused OCD. 

Partner focused OCD can be very distressing to those who experience it. This only comes to an individual who has OCD. Hence the name. What we know is that OCD attack so people value and care about. This means if you experience this, you must really care about your spouse, the person you’re dating, or even your friend. You value them greatly. So OCD jumps on in their and says , “how can I make this harder for you?”  You love the person, you care about them greatly. So why are you all of a sudden having doubts? 

 This is because OCD also takes normal natural things that everyone thinks about. Whether it is the shape of your partners nose, a mole that seems to be in a strange place. It takes these normal natural observations but then as a lot of value to it. Makes you want to think about it, makes you wonder if you’ll never stop thinking about it. It puts you in his problem-solving mode to see if you’ll build a handle of the rest of your life. To see if there’s anything you can tell them to maybe change this flaw.  There needs to be a solution, that’s what OCD says. When in reality there is no solution.

 You could have  your partner remove that mole but it wouldn’t be good enough. It would find something else to make you obsess about. It is very ego dystonic.  Meaning the responses and behaviors are against your actual belief system.  Internally, you’re probably not that person that really cares about these things, OCD is wanting you to care and put value upon it.

 With partner focused OCD there tends to be a few areas that individuals may focus on the most.

Physical appearance. Obviously this can be anything the person sees on the other partner. It can be a mole, a computer stomach, to be the shape of their nose, to be the way they do their hair, it can be the shape of their toes, really anything the brain puts value upon.

Sociability -  Individuals may be looking at others personality. The questioning and obsessing about if their social enough. Sometimes their processing if there two social. They look at their interactions with others. Can I be a somebody who is not meet my qualifications of being social.

Morality -  Does this person share the same morals and I had. Like I said earlier, these are normal natural thoughts that anyone would have in a relationship. But without OCD is just a thought, it’s observing, maybe a little problem solving, and then they move forward. With OCD, it’s on your brain all day long. They’re looking at every interaction that person has, the words that are coming out of their mouth they are appropriate or not. It will make sure they meet the same moral standards.

Intelligence -  individuals may be looking at simply how intelligent their partners is.  They may be listening to every single word they say to see if they have good grammar. They may be asking about what can grades they got when they were younger. There seeing their interactions with others to identify how intelligent are they or even competent. They cannot ignore their partner’s intelligence and competence level. 

 What a lot of this comes down to is that  in individuals are looking for certainty. Didn’t want to be stuck in relationship they can handle one of these areas of concern or perceived flaws. They need to make sure. But often, even when they feel like they are sure we can handle it and it’s not all problem anymore, the brain tends to doubt or try to find something else in the relationship. As I said earlier, once you take something you care about and exploit it.

Treatment

So what is the treatment? The treatment for this is called exposure and response prevention. What this really means is that you are no longer going to be problem-solving if your relationship is right for you or not. This sounds crazy, but the does not need to be much problem solving. Instead it just needs to be simple thoughts. You may be essentially moving closer to the perceived flaws, noticing them on purpose but learning to respond differently to them. For instance, you may be looking at your partner’s nose for a picture of their nose really acting like you don’t care. You may receive the complete opposite statements of whats going on in your head.  Statements like, wow I love the shape of that person’s nose. This can be awesome to look this entire duration of my life. So excited to be all to be with this person who has this type and nose.  I may or may not be able to handle it the rest of my life. 

The exposure part. You are exposing yourself to the upsetting fears or threats on purpose.

 The response part.  You are responding differently to these fears. Using a lot of uncertainty statements like maybe maybe not.  Allowing yourself to no longer do the compulsions. The compulsions of the things you’re doing to gain certainty about the relationship were about the perceived fears or threats in your head.

 A lot of rumination comes along with this, rumination is a compulsion, is essentially you just trying to problem solve. We need to change the dialogue to be more uncertain instead of problem solve that’s correct for you to be in a relationship or not.

Whenever I talk about this, someone always say, but what if I’m staying so uncertain that I miss if I actually need to be out of the relationship or not.  My response, that’s the risk.  When somebody relieves a relationship, they know, they don’t need to problem solve.  But either way were not using that as reassurance to count on you knowing. You job is to say,  I may or may not miss it and be stuck in this relationship forever. How wonderful is that going to be!

The Program
Do you need a little extra help with your OCD? I’ve created an online course that takes you through understanding your OCD and the treatment. Taking you through the evidenced based treatment strategies that work for OCD. It’s everything I teach individuals in my office. You can start for free.  I’ll link it below.

How is your memory? Do you remember the important things? Do you remember the bad things have happened in your life?  Do you remember small little details that really don’t matter, but your brain remembers it anyway?  What if you felt the need to remember everything, and when I say everything I mean EVERY-THING. The details,  It can be conversation, the way the room looked, how fast you are driving, something your boss told you, how many notifications came up on your phone, really anything your brain puts power and value to to tell you to remember. If you don’t remember everything your brain may convince you that something bad may happen.  It could just be an uncomfortable feeling because of something that you don’t remember.  It could just be that nagging feeling that there’s something that you forgot that you may be obsessing about because he just simply can’t remember.  
 
It’s not just an annoying thought or feeling, it’s anxiety, it’s anxiety of the unknown, anxiety of the uncertainty.   If you feel like you must remember every detail about a situation, a place, a conversation, or somebody’s life, and you feel anxious if you missed something, or if you simply just cannot remember;  you may struggle with what is called memory hoarding.
 
So what in the world is memory hoarding? We think of the word hoarding, it’s a collection of things, a lot of things, often things that have no value or much purpose. This is the same with somebody’s memory.  Our memories are actually not the best. Just by nature our mind is designed to remember things that it deems important. This is why remember negative experiences in our life, he wants us to learn from these experiences. But how often are we remembering the good?  How often are we remembering the small little details?  My guess would be not too often.
 
 Memory hoarding is when an individual feels the need, the urge, anxiety to be able to remember every detail about the way they may be living their life. It can be something that was said to them. It could be a facial expression. It can be the way that their driving. It could be even the feeling of wanting to know something about someone else.  They may spend a lot of time really focusing on every single moment of the day to make sure they don’t forget something. Really hyperaware of their situations. But, as we know  it is impossible to remember everything and this is where the anxiety likes to live. It lives in those moments and those things that you can’t remember.
 
You may be thinking?  Why in the world would somebody want to remember every detail about something?  But here’s why, they may  feel the need to review their memories to see if they hurt someone’s feelings are not, to know if they harmed somebody or not, to make sure they did not make any mistakes, to make sure you can review and see if there are good person, sometimes to make sure that the memory that they have is true or not.  That it really happened..  They need the memory to help them know if the way they were feeling was accurate or not.  Sometimes they don’t know why they need the memory they just know the feeling comfortable if they don’t have it. Sometimes it is just plain old, I might need to know this information in the future so just in case I’ll  remember it.
 
 This lives in the person’s mind. Hence it being a memory. A mental ritual. Which is essentially problem-solving and ruminating.  They may feel like they need this memory so badly because it’s very all or nothing. If I don’t have is my life is ruined. I do remember it out prevent something bad from happening in the future.
 
Compulsions

 Here are some common compulsions or individuals do. The compulsions are things that help you gain certainty in the perceived fears or threats that come to your mind.
 Obviously one of the bigger ones would be focusing very hard and straining in order to commit something to your memory.
 Carrying around notepads or using your phone to write down notes and details about everything.
 
 Sometimes carrying this around with you anywhere you go just in case you need to recall this memory. People may have bags and bags full of paper of different details and memories just in case.
 
 Reassurance seeking. Individuals may ask others with the memory they are having is accurate or not. They may ask them if they saw the same thing that they did.
 
  Taking pictures or video. A good way to remember detail to take a picture of it. Their phone can be riddled with thousands and thousands of pictures that can be reviewed at any time.
 
 Doing specific random things in order to remember an event or detail.
 
Treatment
 
 So what’s the treatment? Treatment is called exposure and response prevention. Your goal would be to reduce the compulsions you are doing down to a point where you are no longer doing them. You may be risking that you’re going to lose a memory. You actually want to lose a memory. You want to risk whatever that perceived threat is in your mind on purpose to test out the theory to see if it’s true or not.  For instance if my brain says I don’t remember the thing my teacher said so if I don’t write them an email to verify I may not go to college.
 
Using exposure and response prevention we would definitely not send that email. You would actually work really hard to not have that memory.  Allow yourself to feel uncomfortable or anxious if needed. Allow that feeling to go down all by itself without controlling it. Using a lot of maybe maybe not statements to say “I may or may not go to college we will see.”  And have you risk this.
 When the brain is mentally replaying situations, your quickly responding with uncertainty answers or agreeing with the threat.  Something bad may or may not happen.  I’m willing to take that risk and not have this memory right now.  Closing times where you feel like you need that memory and you’re starting to focus, distract yourself do something so you can’t remember on purpose.
 
You are essentially facing your fears and responding differently to them.   The compulsion’s are the things that are going to keep you trapped. But you must respond differently to the upsetting fears you have. Act like you don’t care. Get in the mindset of not wanting that memory.

We talk so much about what to do when you’re in your OCD. But what about when you’re not in your OCD? What is life look like after OCD treatment? You finally feel like you’ve overcome a lot of your OCD symptoms. So what now?
 
 Now it’s time for you to live life. To enjoy the things that OCD has robbed you of. While I want anybody going through treatment to focus their efforts on enjoying life. Many may see this as an all or nothing approach. I cannot enjoy life until OCD is gone.  Stay away from this kind of thinking. There are moments where higher symptoms may come in moments where symptoms will be gone. You can live life and enjoy regardless.
 
 What I find is that individuals who are at the end of treatment and are not feeling many symptoms describe it as kind of a strange feeling. There almost not sure what to do because the anxiety has been there guiding light for years. This told and what to do, how to think, and how to behave. All of a sudden individuals are now set free and needing to learn to live life without these anxiety prompts.
 
 Life after OCD means learning to live in trust in yourself. Trust that anxiety was a liar this entire time. OCD completely lied and had no value. Often individuals need to learn who they are without their OCD.  It feels uncomfortable.  It actually takes a lot of effort to understand yourself without OCD. Just like doing and exposure individuals learn to tolerate this feeling without their OCD. It’s almost like losing a buddy that’s been with them for so long. Even though it’s wreaked havoc on their life some may feel lost without it. This is where trusting in your self goes a long way.
 
Individuals learn to live life again. Do things they never done before. Enjoy life and follow your value system.   It is absolutely okay to feel uncomfortable after  OCD treatment. This feeling will pass the more you start living and enjoying life. Ultimately you are living  your life the way you want to, not the way OCD wants you to. You might start identifying goals that you want to achieve, what you want to get out of your life.
 
 You may need to start working on self compassion. It is not your fault that you have OCD. We don’t focus on  the time lost were missed because of your OCD. We focus on what you’re going to gain.  Start working on any residual depression that comes your way.
 
We also know  if you have OCD then you have OCD. So life after OCD treatment turns into maintaining the progress that you have made.  Meaning, you are willing to do treatment strategies and exposure and response prevention anytime you have an intrusive thought. Anytime you feel like OCD is rearing its ugly head.  So life after OCD really means life.  Feeling relief, gratitude, excitement. But not forgetting about what treatment looks like and maintaining progress.
 
 If I wanted to get really fit, I started exercising and eating healthier. I get to a point where I’m happy and content. I’m living my life. Do I stop exercising? Do I stop eating healthy? If I do I may end up in the unhappy rut  I was in before. Where I might not have to try as hard to stay in this happy zone, I still need to do something to maintain the progress.
 
This is just like your OCD. Remember where you come and what you’ve done. Enjoy life. Have some self compassion, talk about all the successes that you’ve done and where you’re going. Focus a lot of your time on gratitude. The things that you are grateful for every single day.

Feeling anxious about knowing your sexual orientation? Is it on your mind all the time? Do you have to do tests or research to figure it all out? If so, you may struggle with sexual orientation OCD. Let me show you how to use treatment strategies for it. I've outlined 3 steps that are researched based. Learn more by subscribing to my channel.

In any facet of existence, from cleanliness and germs to people's values and conceptions of right and wrong, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder may show up. In and about the relationships of individuals with others and their relationships with themselves, OCD can also occur, and it can include sexual orientation.

A distinct subtype of OCD that is marked by persistent obsessions with one's own sexual identity is homosexual OCD, or HOCD for short. Intrusive feelings, pictures, desires, or suspicions can contain certain obsessions, such as:

Fears that your thoughts about the opposite sex are either in denial or somehow suppressed;
If your sexual orientation is different from the one you associate with, think about compromising your reputation and' true self';
Concerns that you will "turn" gay or "turn" straight, and because of your sexual orientation, your marriages will be ruined;

Obsessions with your actions and how you have behaved or engaged in a "gay" or "straight" manner with others;
A hyper-awareness, particularly the groinal response, of physical reactions.​​

ERP is an evidence-based therapy that lets people find new ways to connect to their feelings and emotions. In order to get past them, it is a driven mechanism that allows individuals to confront their fears.

The aim of the solution prevention part of the process is to help people learn without judgement or any effort to alter, repair, interpret or analyze the existence of their intrusive ideas.

​Based on a person's personal perceptions, causes, obsessions, and compulsions, a psychiatrist may help develop customized exposures. These exposures can contain such situations as:

Looking at images of attractive men or women, while refusing, urges their bodily reactions to make sense.
Consciously being friendlier with their peers than normal while fighting concerns they could "hit" on them.

Have you ever hit a bump with your car and wondered what it was? Most people do, but when this happens it’s a question for a few seconds and then their brain moves on. What is every bump you hit he wondered if it was a person. Every noise you heard me do you wonder if you had somebody. Maybe your brains even telling you that you want to hit somebody on purpose. You obsessively check your mirrors to make sure the pedestrian wasn’t hit. It’s possible you go back to make sure that you didn’t hit somebody. You feel a lot of anxiety and stress about this. You do not feel comfort until you get a verification that you didn’t actually hit someone. If this sounds like you, you might struggle with OCD. More specifically hit and run OCD. Some put this in the category of harm OCD.
 
Let’s go through how someone may experience hit and run OCD and what the treatment looks like.

• Only driving with the people in the car. These passengers can verify to the driver if they actually had somebody or not. Because the passenger will definitely say something right.
• Individuals may entirely avoid driving altogether. They may avoid certain areas such as schools, roads with bike lanes, anywhere there are potholes, and playgrounds. If they can completely avoid these areas they don’t have to worry about accidentally hitting somebody.
• Often individuals will reassure themselves not to say certain words or a statement such as no one was hit, nothing bad is going to happen, it was just a pothole, you would know if you actually had somebody. The problem with this is that they can tell us of this but the brain will immediately start doubting again.
• Individuals will start seeking reassurance from others. Ask their spouse, ask their parents, as their friends. Do you think I should go back? Do you think I would know if I actually had somebody? Do you feel like I should follow my feelings if I had somebody or not? They want the other individuals to tell them that they are fine Internet go back. But this often is not enough and causes them to go back anyway.
• Often individuals will not even listen to the radio. I want  to make sure they hear every single sound such as the screeching tires, or even the sound of somebody getting hurt. They may be completely hyper focused on the sounds.
• The rearview mirror as well as the side mirrors become your best friend. Let me obsessively look at these to make sure they didn’t hit somebody. They could even be looking for other cars that my signal to them that something happened.
• Probably the biggest compulsion is actually returning to the scene. They may go around in circles and check the spots very clearly to make sure nobody was there or that they didn’t see any blood.
• They may look for news reports to see if they said anything about someone getting hit by a car.

Many who have OCD struggle with the fear of staring at someone’s private areas. Some may just feel annoyed and distressed because they actually are doing it. Whether it’s in a TV show or in person. They start avoiding places because they don’t want to have to take the time and effort to avoid staring or looking. It’s not something they want to do, so of course, the brain is going to urge them to do it or throw out threats. Let’s go through what it looks like and how to stop staring. ​

Existential OCD involves intrusive, repetitive thinking about questions that cannot possibly be answered. Individuals will think about really any question. Most don’t have answers, but they feel the need or urge to find the answer right then and there. Often feeling anxious until they do. Let’s go through the treatment for existential OCD and what it looks like to those experiencing it. ​

It is also difficult to identify existential obsessions, as they can seem like the questions many of us think about often and then carry on with a shrug of the shoulders. Existential obsessions can also be confused with the kind of thoughts encountered by people while they are depressed, constantly going through pessimistic thoughts about how pointless life can seem. And, existential OCD is much more difficult than that.

Typically people with existential obsessions spend hours going over and over these questions and thoughts, and can become highly anxious and depressed. They may be seen as suffering from concerns or existential fears as they seek help, or they may be misdiagnosed as suffering from Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Existential OCD is most likely, however when a person fights ongoing distracting, repeated, constant, anxiety-producing, doubtful thoughts of this nature.

In the general population and the media, many individuals have a somewhat stereotypical view of what OCD is all about. Individuals with OCD are seen as individuals who either wash their hands too much or are super-organized and perfectionist. It can be difficult, therefore to identify the forms of OCD that do not resemble these typical stereotypes. The truth is there are a lot of forms that OCD can take. 

Even if you don't have existential OCD, at one point in time, you could have had existential obsessions, spending hours contemplating why you have your particular thoughts and wondering precisely what these thoughts might mean. This is yet another form of intimidation that follows obsessive thoughts, and never leads to any real responses. Your obsessive suspicions can not be argued, reasoned, examined, or challenged while you have OCD. This is particularly the case for Existential OCD.

Existential OCD includes distracting, persistent thinking about questions that may not be answered and that in nature, may be metaphysical or scary, or both. The questions generally revolve around life's meaning, intent, or fact, or the nature of the universe or even the existence of one's own. In a university philosophy or physics class, these same questions could come up. Most individuals, however may quit such classes or read about these subjects and move on to other thoughts.

The aim is not to escape or stop the "response prevention" aspect of ERP, so you are taught to comply with your existential thoughts and not try to evaluate, challenge, or disagree with them. You are also discouraged, as this is another way of escape, from finding reassurance from others or even yourself. Sadly, avoidance may become a learned habit that becomes very automatic over time. Unconsciously, without even thinking about it you can avoid your triggers.