How To Fight Obsessions
Obsessive-compulsive disorder affects 1 in 50. It is one of the psychological problems that people who suffer from it tend to hide. Occupying thinking is when you stick to a single idea and you can not get it out of your head. In general, obsessions arise along with worry on an irrational or absurd level. All this causes unnecessary suffering. Especially because it is difficult to combat obsessions.
We have all experienced bad days, quarrels or situations that ruin our whole day. These situations make us spend the whole day thinking about them and how we could have acted or reacted differently. Yet, no matter how much we want to, we can not stop thinking as if we were obsessed . Although it can not change anything, our mind does not stop going through the situation over and over again. It turns into a “I want to stop, but I can not” situation. These thoughts are obsessive.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder as a psychological problem
We all have obsessions once in a while. That is, having some of these thoughts does not necessarily mean that there is a problem, let alone a disease. Still, it is a psychological problem for some people as these thoughts change their lives significantly. In addition, they tend to hide these thoughts. It is embarrassing to admit that you have something strange and ugly.
For these people, obsessions are recurring. The obsessions they have deal with absurd concerns. Even though they know they are absurd, they cannot avoid these thoughts. A classic example of an obsession is “Would I be able to do something dishonest, illegal or seriously criminal?”
Causes of obsessions
Obsessive-compulsive disorder arises for various reasons or rather from the combination of several factors. One of the most common is related to the future, especially the need to predict the future. We want to know the future in order to predict it and we want to know that there will be no tragedy in our lives tomorrow. We want to control the uncontrollable, but we can not. Unexpected things happen every day.
Another cause of obsessions is our low tolerance for anxiety. We live in a world where we are always running around and are constantly bombarded by stimuli and information. We always have to do things. All of this creates stress and can cause anxiety. It is a normal thing that our bodies are prepared for, but not our minds. When we are confronted with a particular idea that makes us nervous, we want to get rid of it and shut it down. We tend not to reflect on it.
The last reason is one we would like to call “terrible-infection.” Terrible infection is the belief that any challenge is “terrible”. We believe that we are the center of the universe and therefore any setback looks like the end of the world. This tendency to exaggerate problems is one of the reasons for having obsessions. While these are the three main causes, there are others. Superstitious thinking, excessive feeling of shame, fear of being ridiculed, etc.
What to do when you want to fight obsessions?
Obsessive thoughts have some defined properties that can help us neutralize the negative influence. All people can fight obsessions or reduce their power to the point where they can be ignored. We can all fight obsessions without resorting to medication. Nevertheless, you need to undergo a treatment.
This treatment is based on learning to tolerate anxiety. The more anxiety we are able to deal with, the higher levels of anxiety we will be able to cope with. For this you need to get used to anxiety or at least to certain levels of anxiety. You must also learn to tolerate uncertainty. We must be able to live without thinking about the things we cannot predict.
On another level, we must also stop considering “nonsense” as important. Most of the problems we have are not very important. One of the best things we can do with a problem is to place it in its rightful place in the big picture. To do that, we must accept ourselves. We have to erase the “perfect” picture of how we should be, which is so unrealistic. We must begin to accept our imperfections. All of this will help us to move away from useless thoughts in general and combat obsessions in particular. In summary, we must keep in mind that “nothing is too terrible”.
