Don’t Dwell on the Past (Live Mindfully)
Something that I believe a lot of OCD sufferers struggle with (at least, I know I did) is dealing with the inability to move on from past mistakes or actions, whether real or perceived. When we struggle with OCD, we struggle with the ability to accept uncertainty and to live mindfully, because we often get too caught up in our heads catastrophizing on “what if?” scenarios. What if I left the stove on and I’ll come back home to find out my house burned down? What if I accidentally typed something nasty in that work email I sent and I’ll get fired tomorrow morning? What if that bump in the road was actually me hitting and killing someone? What if, what if, what if…?
Your brain can come up with a million different ways to create uncertainty and force you into compulsions like rumination and checking, because that’s how it gets relief. The problem with this, as I’ve detailed in this blog post, is that by doing the compulsions, you are reinforcing the OCD cycle in your brain and inadvertently making this disorder stronger. The key to beating OCD lies in mindfulness and acceptance.
I’ve previously written a dedicated blog post just on the topic of Mindfulness, which you can find here, so I will elaborate on that post by explaining that mindfulness is all about how we choose to live our life in the present moment. It is an action and an active choice we make. When the urge to perform a compulsion, such as rumination or checking, manifests itself, we have two choices:
CHOOSE to indulge in the compulsion, which may bring a temporary feeling of relief, but actually strengthens OCD’s hold on you over time
or, CHOOSE to be mindful and focus on doing actions in the present moment which align with your values and goals, which will free you from OCD in the long run by teaching your brain the “proper” way to respond to intrusive thoughts and uncertainties
Let’s use an example. Say you are ruminating on a past event or action - perhaps you’re afraid that you said something awful and now your best friend hates you. Or perhaps you’re afraid you left the backyard gate open and your dog will get loose. Or maybe you’re afraid you forgot to write your name on your super important exam and now you’re going to fail your class this semester! Many OCD sufferers (myself included) would spend hours catastrophizing and conducting mental checks and reviews to try and reassure themselves that everything is OK. For example, they might repeatedly replay the scenario or memory in their mind to try and get clarity and achieve certainty that their worst fear won’t come true. Or try to find “evidence” that would prove that nothing bad will actually happen. Or simply just dwell on the past and think “stupid me! Why didn’t I do [insert action here], which would have prevented me from getting into this rumination cycle in the first place?!”
Right now, you are CHOOSING Option #1. You are engaging in compulsive behavior, you’re wasting your valuable time and energy on trying to solve a puzzle with no answer, and you’re only increasing OCD’s hold on you! You’re dwelling on the past and dwelling on uncertainties - you’re too busy trying to live in the past that you can’t focus on living in the present!
Instead, CHOOSE Option #2 - to live mindfully and in the present. What may or may not have happened doesn’t matter, and trying to figure that out doesn’t add any value to your life. Instead, what matters is making the right decision now to live your life mindfully and focus wholly on the present. CHOOSE to put your undivided and focused attention on the present moment - what you can see, hear, smell, feel, and experience now. CHOOSE to put your time into actions that add value to your life - such as enjoying a delicious meal and truly savoring all the flavors, spending time with loved ones (and really focusing on the conversation and time with them), or doing a sport or exercise you enjoy and reveling in the workout. Ruminating and dwelling on the past doesn’t add value to your life and certainly won’t help you recover from OCD.
This advice holds especially true when you’re in the later stages of ERP, when you are practicing your ability to eliminate compulsions. Commonly, therapists will ask you to track the amount of compulsions you perform so that you can hold yourself accountable. For example, if you perform 10 compulsions on Monday, try to reduce it down to 5 on Tuesday. During this process, it is very common to get upset or angry when we inadvertently slip back into old habits. I know at least for me, when I was going through my own recovery journey, I would get frustrated if I had a couple good days of performing no compulsions and then suddenly perform a bunch of compulsions the next day. I would tell myself things like: “You messed up! You made a mistake! You were doing so well and now you’ve ruined your progress! How can you recover from OCD if you’re still doing all these compulsions?”
The key thing to stress is to be kind to yourself. OCD recovery is difficult, and for many of us, we’ve struggled with OCD for years. (I spent nearly 30 years struggling with this disorder before I recovered from it!) So of course, if you’ve been doing certain behaviors (like performing compulsions) for that long, it’s going to be very difficult to “unlearn” all those bad habits overnight! Realistically it’s not going to be something that you can suddenly “switch off” in your brain and go from 100 compulsions a day to 0. It will be a bumpy road - you will have good days and bad days - and some days where it feels like you’re taking 2 steps forward and 1 step back.
When you feel yourself getting into this rut and perhaps beating yourself up a little bit for feeling like you’re not making good progress, just remember: don’t dwell on past mistakes. What matters is living mindfully and making the right decision in this moment. Instead of getting angry or frustrated when you perform a compulsion, just remind yourself: what happened in the past has already happened. I cannot change it. All I can do is choose the next action I can take. You can either choose to perform more compulsions, or you can choose to live mindfully and with acceptance instead. There is absolutely no value in beating yourself up over previous mistakes or for performing compulsions; instead, gently remind yourself to stay mindfully focused and take valued action. Because ultimately, OCD recovery is about choosing to do the right behavior now (refusing compulsions, living mindfully), and then making that same choice again when an uncertainty or intrusive thought pops up, and then making that choice again, and then again, and again… And once you consistently choose the right behavior (mindfulness, acceptance) over the wrong behavior (compulsions), you gradually re-train your brain to naturally respond in this manner which will eventually break OCD’s hold over you.
If I had to summarize today’s blog post, it would be this:
OCD recovery is all about CHOOSING to live mindfully and with acceptance.
Ruminating on the past adds no value and won’t change anything. Mindfulness is all about choosing to focus your time and energy on what matters now - the present moment.
OCD recovery is damn hard, and not a linear progression. You will have good days and bad days. As you can see from my recovery chart, there will be ups and downs. The important thing is to be kind to yourself, and when you inevitably slip up, instead of getting frustrated or dwelling on your mistake, simply choose to move on and make the right decision in the present moment. What happened in the past doesn’t matter - what matters is making the right choice now.
I hope this post is useful to my readers, because this is something that I struggled with during my own recovery journey, and something which I had to learn through trial and error. And even today I am still practicing mindfulness and acceptance, because you can ALWAYS get stronger and better at these skills regardless of where you’re at in your mental health journey, and these skills will definitely be able to help you throughout a wide variety of situations in real life, OCD related or not. So keep on practicing mindfulness and acceptance, and CHOOSE to live in the present moment, not in the past!
Eric