antares_wish

Ok I am totally unfamiliar with CBT but being OCD myself I can give you an idea of something to try that works for me. First of all let me just say that OCD doesn't *have* to be a bad thing all the time. I actually used my OCD to help keep me from becoming psychotic when I was going through a very difficult time in my life. I got to the point that I was starting to seriously have thoughts of injuring other people or worse! That scared me to no end and I decided that I needed to do something about it. OCD ended up being my best friend in this case. I decided to use my OCD to combat these thoughts by telling myself that the moment I would catch myself having one of those thoughts that I would mentally repeat the phrase "he / she is a person" 10 times for every thought. This not only forced the unwanted thoughts from my head but after a while I think my mind got so annoyed at hearing that stupid phrase over and over that it decided it was easier to give up the offensive thoughts.

This experience taught me a trick that I can actually use to change any unwanted OCD behaviours. If you have a specific behaviour that is bothering you then tell yourself that you will perform some other act or thought instead every time you feel the urge to do that. What I've found is that the new pattern seems to replace the old one and for some reason the new pattern is much easier to stop than the undesirable pattern. For me at least I find the most effective replacement behaviours are stupid phrases that you repeat in your mind multiple times, the more lame and annoying the phrase the better it works. My Dad uses snapping fingers as a replacement behaviour.