Sometimes does your mind get glued to a thought or feel like you have this urge to do something over and over again? This could be Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) which is characterized by unwanted thoughts, repetitive behaviors, and uncertainty. However OCD can also manifest itself differently. To know everything about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, consult with an OCD specialist.
Why might there be much over-sharing in people with OCD?
Requiring Reassurance
- Intrusive Thoughts and Anxiety: Obsessive-compulsive individuals often have intrusive, distressing, and recurrent mental images or thoughts. These thoughts can lead to significant pain and anxiety that causes them to seek reassurances.
- Validation Seeking: In order to prove the reality of their obsessions and remove irrational fears from themselves, those who suffer from OCD may share their obsessions with others. They believe that this will help them achieve some comfort by getting comforting reassurances while at the same time reducing some of the feelings of anxiousness.
- Reducing Shame and Isolation: By telling their own stories, one can support reducing the stigma associated with social exclusion. Speaking about it helps those affected by OCD to feel less alone in battling against the condition.
- The Compulsion to Share: For some people, oversharing is an obsession itself. No matter how uncomfortable it is for them to discuss certain ideas or behaviors publicly, it becomes a routine part of their life.
- Building Understanding: In cases where others don’t get them especially due to stigmatizing mistakes by themselves and then oversharing by someone indicates that they want others to understand them more. This applies more when they find hard times in understanding what has happened within themselves.
- Coping Mechanism: Talking about feelings or experiences can be therapeutic. Through sharing, people affected by OCD try to accept their thoughts and symptoms, thus finding relief through expression.
- Seeking Connection: Sharing personal experiences creates deeper connections among people. These relationships are important for someone suffering from OCD who might feel isolated due to his condition.
- Lack of Awareness: Lack of display of self-awareness is a characteristic exhibited in most individuals who overshare because they possess little knowledge of social norms. Persons should have empathy and take into consideration those with OCD problems so as not to wound them further.
Difficulty Filtering Thoughts
- Distinguishing Intrusive Thoughts from Reality: Differentiating between intrusive thoughts and ordinary ones is a challenge for those with OCD. This inability may result in inappropriate or unnecessary sharing of information.
- The feeling of Incomplete Thoughts: Some individuals feel a compulsion to share every aspect of a thought or fear they are experiencing. They find that by talking about it, they can complete the cycle of thought and thus decrease their anxiety.
Oversharing problem in OCD
Strained Relationships:
The burden on Friends and Family:
- To over-share as an individual with OCD can place a large burden on their close friends and family.
- It is emotionally exhausting for loved ones to be repeatedly told about disturbing thoughts or fears.
- They may feel overwhelmed and unsure of how to respond.
Frustration from Reassurance Seeking:
- People with OCD usually go out seeking reassurance because they have fears that are always disturbing them.
- However, the constant need for reassurance can be annoying for others.
- Friends and family may find themselves repeatedly comforting the individual only to see him/her continue in the same pattern.
Perpetuating Cycle
Reinforcement of Obsessive Thoughts:
- When someone seeks validation for their obsessions, that person is actually looking for a reprieve from doubt.
- After talking about their obsessional thoughts they experience a temporary relief but this brief moment does not resolve anything.
The more they look for assurance; the stronger their obsessions are.
Strengthening Compulsions:
- Another compulsion equals reassuring oneself.
- By sharing excessively, individuals involuntarily reinforce the need for validation thereby creating an endless pattern of anxiety, reassurance seeking and compulsions.
Breaking the Cycle: Healthy Alternatives
Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)
Obsessive-compulsive disorder is most commonly treated by exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP). Here’s what it does :
- Exposure Component: ERP involves deliberately confronting the thoughts, images, objects, or situations that trigger anxiety or provoke obsessions. These triggers are faced with the assistance of an OCD therapist in NYC, exposure therapy helps individuals to learn how to be in distress without involving themselves in compulsive behavior.
- Response Prevention Component: After triggering anxiety or obsessions, individuals make a deliberate decision not to participate in any compulsions. They reduce the fear and uncertainty associated with their obsession by resisting performing rituals.
Why Exposure & Response Prevention Therapy Works:
- Initially, there is an increase in anxiety and obsessional thoughts. However, they learn that these feelings are painful but harmless.
- By consistently facing their fears without performing compulsions, they experience habituation—the natural decrease in anxiety over time.
- Exposure & Response Prevention Therapy assists individuals in recognizing their fears of uncertainty, helping them accept uncertainty.
- Analogy: Think of anxiety as a fire alarm; however, even minor triggers are responded to by the alarm system as if they were catastrophic threats. Exposure & Response Prevention Therapy retrains the brain to no longer perceive these triggers as dangerous.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
CBT has been known to be a useful OCD treatment in NYC, and the following is a brief overview:
What is CBT? CBT stresses that thoughts, feelings, and actions are interwoven. One aspect can be compensated for through the others. CBT changes thinking patterns and behavior for better emotional health.
How CBT Works for OCD:
- Breaking the Bond: People with obsessive–compulsive disorder engage in compulsions because they reduce anxiety associated with obsessions. The objective of cognitive behavioral therapy is to sever the association between these thoughts and ritualistic behaviors.
- Avoiding Rituals: In OCD, individuals learn how not to succumb to rituals despite having more anxiety. This helps in accepting and tolerating uncertainty rather than performing compulsions to eliminate it.
Common CBT Techniques for OCD:
Exposure & Response Prevention Therapy (ERP):
- In Vivo Exposure: Actual contact over time with objects that tend to evoke fear.
- Imaginal Exposure: Visualizing what one fears mentally, including possible consequences.
Building a Support System
Having friends and family who understand what OCD is about and offering support is critical. Here’s why:
- Importance of Support: During OCD treatment in New York, family and loved ones give emotional support.
- Reducing Reassurance-Seeking: To avoid excessive reassurance-seeking from parents or friends. There should be open communication among them, which could result in compulsion or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
ACT Therapy and the Management of OCD
- Allowance of Ideas: This implies that ACT supports acceptance of the uninvited thoughts without judging them to curtail their effects.
- Values Commitment: This focuses on living in a manner that is based on one’s values rather than being caught up with obsessive behaviors.
- Mindfulness Practices: Teaches mindfulness for staying present, reducing the need to control or avoid thoughts.
- Unsticking: it helps to detach oneself from obsessions by treating them as mere mental events.
- Tolerating Uncertainty: This encourages embracing uncertainty over being certain which is a common cause for OCD behavior such as over-sharing.
- Behavioral flexibility: It develops adaptive behaviors instead of rigid rituals thus offering healthier responses to triggers.
Conclusion
Although oversharing may be common among those suffering from OCD, it does not have to dominate your life, as long as you know why it happens. Remember that open communication is key among family members who understand your condition since it helps in reducing excessive reassurance-seeking behavior.
Securing a therapist specializing in OCD in New York is pivotal for managing mental health hurdles. Reach out to the psychotherapist in New York Gita Sawhney, practicing at GS Mental Health & Wellness in Manhattan, New York, to take this significant step.
