“I Every time I leave the house, I keep worrying that I haven't locked the door properly. I sometimes end up going back five or six times to check. "
If you tend to be a perfectionist, never happy unless things are just right, you may find you have a tendency to become obsessive in times of extreme personal stress or change. This means that you are prone to intrusive, worrying, repetitive, and often nonsensical thoughts. Sometimes these thoughts may present themselves as a disproportionate fear of illness, such as cancer or AIDS, or a fear of violence, for example, "I'm going to harm somebody". Equally, they may be expressed as doubts: "I've left the oven on" or "Did I lock the door?" In an attempt to neutralize or put right such thoughts, you may also develop ritualistic behaviour, or compulsions, such as repeatedly washing your hands, checking, counting, or hoarding. Sometimes you may have intrusive thoughts that terrify you, such as "I'm going to stab my baby" or "I'm going to kill my father". Try to be rational about these. They are only thoughts, and the risk of translating them into action is almost non-existent. If you are frequently troubled by intrusive thoughts, you will often start to avoid situations that might trigger them. Although avoidance may help to reduce your anxiety in the short term, if you do not confront your fears, you may actually become more anxious in the long term.
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1. |
WRITE DOWN YOUR THOUGHTS |
List your most troublesome obsessional thoughts and identify any associated compulsions or rituals. |
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2. |
GRADED EXPOSURE |
List, in order of difficulty, the situations that you tend to avoid, then confront each one separately, starting with the easiest |
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3. |
PREVENT A RESPONSE |
Learn a relaxation routine to help you control your anxiety and prevent any compulsions that might follow. |
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4. |
MASSED PRACTICE |
Concentrate on your intrusive thought for as long as possible. Write it down repeatedly and think about it for ten minutes twice a day. |
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5. |
THOUGHT STOPPING |
Put a rubber band around your wrist. Every time you have an unwanted thought, tweak the band, shout "stop" to yourself, and deliberately think about something else. As you improve this technique you will eventually be able to give up the rubber band and change thoughts automatically. |