Not a sufferer of OCD, but anxiety and depression (and associated neuroticism). One of the scary things to accept is that you have no control over what you think, free will is a (darn good) illusion.
Since we have no idea why these obsessive and dark thoughts are occuring in psychiatric patients, the best thing you can do, as a patient, is to get good at identifying all the bullshit that's going through your head: "No, that random crowd of people doesn't deeply despise you", "No, you don't have to kill yourself because you can't finish your studies in regular time", "No, you won't be laughed at because you're looking for an SO"
Precisely none of the fears I had have ever come to pass. I am, relative to people I interact with, (by a huge margin) my largest critic, which can be disabling, when every time you make some small trivial mistake you think "Oh god, nobody will ever forgive me for this, what a stupid PoS you are". It's all a fiction told by a disordered part of the mind.
On the bright side, things have been improving a ton for me since when it was really bad a year ago, but it takes medication (not an option for everyone), time and lots of patience.
It's not that I learned some "magic fact" that suddenly frees me from all nonsensical thoughts, but it has opened up the complex, nuanced world of human biology and behavior and numerous interactions between genes and environment, between mind and body or between different functional parts of the brain (obviously a course like this can only give a broad overview).
There's so much hidden stuff happening that, without us being conscious of it, influences who we are, and yet one doesn't have to be a plaything of one's environment, because several of these factors can be influenced like which experiences you seek and which you avoid, once you are aware that these things can shape you. That said, a lot of stuff like your genetic predisposition, prenatal environment, childhood, external stressors (e.g. death of close relatives and friends) can not be changed, but it also matters _how_ you think about them.
One will not become resistant to psychiatric illness no matter how fancy and elaborate you think about it or yourself, but it takes off the edge of thinking of oneself as this especially hopeless case. And equally importantly Sapolsky's course/book shaped my thinking of others, made me much less prejudicial (I sometimes catch myself with prejudice, but normally I notice), much more aware that everyone else is also subject to the same rules and phenomena that govern human thought and behavior and there's nothing "wrong" with them (in the sense that they're just "an evil person" or somesuch thing).
Since we have no idea why these obsessive and dark thoughts are occuring in psychiatric patients, the best thing you can do, as a patient, is to get good at identifying all the bullshit that's going through your head: "No, that random crowd of people doesn't deeply despise you", "No, you don't have to kill yourself because you can't finish your studies in regular time", "No, you won't be laughed at because you're looking for an SO"
Precisely none of the fears I had have ever come to pass. I am, relative to people I interact with, (by a huge margin) my largest critic, which can be disabling, when every time you make some small trivial mistake you think "Oh god, nobody will ever forgive me for this, what a stupid PoS you are". It's all a fiction told by a disordered part of the mind.
On the bright side, things have been improving a ton for me since when it was really bad a year ago, but it takes medication (not an option for everyone), time and lots of patience.
One of the best things I came across on the web are the works of Robert Sapolsky, biology and neurology professor at Stanford. Specifically his 25 part lecture series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL150326949691B199, his talk on depression: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOAgplgTxfc and his book "Behave" (there's more from him, just look around).
It's not that I learned some "magic fact" that suddenly frees me from all nonsensical thoughts, but it has opened up the complex, nuanced world of human biology and behavior and numerous interactions between genes and environment, between mind and body or between different functional parts of the brain (obviously a course like this can only give a broad overview).
There's so much hidden stuff happening that, without us being conscious of it, influences who we are, and yet one doesn't have to be a plaything of one's environment, because several of these factors can be influenced like which experiences you seek and which you avoid, once you are aware that these things can shape you. That said, a lot of stuff like your genetic predisposition, prenatal environment, childhood, external stressors (e.g. death of close relatives and friends) can not be changed, but it also matters _how_ you think about them.
One will not become resistant to psychiatric illness no matter how fancy and elaborate you think about it or yourself, but it takes off the edge of thinking of oneself as this especially hopeless case. And equally importantly Sapolsky's course/book shaped my thinking of others, made me much less prejudicial (I sometimes catch myself with prejudice, but normally I notice), much more aware that everyone else is also subject to the same rules and phenomena that govern human thought and behavior and there's nothing "wrong" with them (in the sense that they're just "an evil person" or somesuch thing).