I could not face therapy without a workbook. It was not long before it became a Therapy Scrapbook. This led to My Minfulness Workbook (1&2) and this eventually became my journal which I still make entries in every day. This in turn led to what I called star doodling, which included deoration in the garden and on rollerblind for our home. My journal has a new sticker theme every week. The things I record are happiness, gratitude, grumbles, health updates, doings, plans, to-do lists, achievements and OCD updates.
As OCD, a malfunction of my brain, kept (keeps) hitting me with false danger signals. I responded by shutting down parts of my life I loved including creative endeavours, firstly photography and then star doodling. It has even had a go at gardening which, apart from my faith and our marriage, both of which it attacked, is the fundamental bedrock of my life. I thought the solution was to deal with it by putting myself on guard and tackling each and every fear thoroughly, trying to find a solution and safety through what I now know are compulsions. An impossible task in an impossible situation as the fears (away from the realm of real worries and natural anxieties) are a projection of a random worry-thought that has got snagged in my brain possibly due to a neurotransmitter imbalance or deficiency. This type of churning worry has miniscule or no reality in the present, for me. OCD magnifies it because I am vulnerable to fear, I have a sensitive nature, events in my life have led to an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, I am often tired or unwell (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) I have a strong sense of duty and I care so much.
I realise now that editing the positive, fulfilling, and meaningful out of my life was the worst thing to do, for me. I was just giving OCD a bigger space to operate in and further inflated it by cutting off the succour a joyful, meaningful and creative life gives me. I had put myself into a state of 'negative' neuroplasticity, if that exists. The result of this, probably needless to say was that the compulsions got worse and occurred more often. I became more frightened not less. I can only fight back by accepting I have OCD, knowing what it is and how it affects me, identifying my obsessions, resisting compulsions which are not going to make me safe and only reinforce the obsessions. To have a good handle on OCD's best friends panic, doubt, the inner critic, rumination, black & white thinking, catastrophising, avoidance, and procrastination. To care for myself, body and mind. To renew and strenghten my happy home life. To appreciate it without fearing it's loss. To keep in the parasympathetic state as much as I can. To nurture my vagus nerve (possibly damaged by first glandular fever and lately Covid). To return to the joy and awe of gardening and flower watching. To keep on with this project to know myself through art. To pick up my camera and absorb the beauty of what I see through the lens as it's colours and shapes play across the surface of my eye. To keep trying and never give up.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
My Shape Art Notebook "OCD stops you taking risks with your potential"
Jeffery M Schwartz from two shapes and six colours...Fighting back against OCD; to find a renewed life where I can be creative, happy and fulfilled. This project is part of that battle. The information recorded in this Blog-Notebook is my personal experience not a recommendation.
My Project Ground Rules:
(for my mental and emotional protection) ArchivesInteresting Links |