Unhappy days
Monkey Minds
by Monkey Minds
3y ago
Things got very overwhelming a few days after my last post in October and I wasn’t sure how to carry on. I’m still alive though which is better than being dead, given that if I’m dead there’s definitely no hope of getting better and having an enjoyable life. As long as you’re alive, there’s some hope, even though i really struggle to see it sometimes. I’ve had a medication change in the last few months, which has been destabilising to say the least, and have spent a lot of time hiding in my room, hiding from life, hiding from the possibility of suicide and from anxiety. This is how anxiety fee ..read more
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Exposures and fear
Monkey Minds
by Monkey Minds
3y ago
Wow, OCD is a tricky little bugger. I’ve just done some ‘exposure’ work on my fear that I want to commit suicide. By exposure work, I mean not reacting to the thoughts and tsunamis of anxiety that overtake my mind and body when it’s really intense. My brain is throwing all sorts of thoughts at me about why I’m not going to get better and why I should therefore commit suicide. It does this every day, more or less constantly. The anxiety is in differing degrees, but there is no way round the fact that to get through this, I have to radically accept the lot. Everything. The thoughts, the terror ..read more
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OCD: struggles with acceptance
Monkey Minds
by Monkey Minds
3y ago
I haven’t written on here in absolutely ages. About three months, in fact. I guess I just got out of the habit of it when I came back to the U.K. (I was abroad for several months with my main aim being to devote time to OCD research and recovery). Since coming home I have continued with that, but it’s been harder for several reasons: ⁃ big life change in returning to the U.K. ⁃ trying to ‘get my life back together’ in terms of jobs and working out where to live : it’s difficult to deal with this stuff at the same time as working on ERP/recovery (I’ll probably talk more about this shortly…) ⁃ f ..read more
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A few days in my brain with OCD
Monkey Minds
by Monkey Minds
3y ago
I haven’t written in a while because I haven’t been very focused on therapy and recovery. Actually, that’s a lie because I have, but I’ve also been distracted and busy with other things (socialising, finding a place to live, spending time with family and friends). I’m struggling a bit to accept the idea that I might not do ERP/therapy perfectly, and that therefore I will not overcome OCD in a perfect one-fell-swoop sort of way. I go through cycles where I do lots of ERP, go through the storm and come out the other side feeling great and as though I have overcome this particular strand of OCD ..read more
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Blog developments…
Monkey Minds
by Monkey Minds
3y ago
A couple of positive things have happened recently with regards to Monkey Minds. I had an article published on The Platform, a blog and current affairs site which aims to give a voice to new writers or bloggers. I also got nominated for one of the top ten mental health blogs by Feedspot. Yay! My medium to long term plan with this blog is to be able to eventually make a little bit of money out of it, either by increasing my readership here and using affiliate links to earn cash, or by getting articles published externally, so this is a good start. I would prefer not to have to use advertising ..read more
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Relapse and feeling sorry for myself
Monkey Minds
by Monkey Minds
3y ago
After a very good few days during which I had some major breakthroughs with ERP therapy, I had a relapse which felt worse than ever (though actually it wasn’t, it just felt that way because I thought I was okay) and am now picking up the pieces from that and reengaging with ERP. Feeling quite stuck, to be honest. Very fearful about where this might lead: what if my thoughts are actually true? What if by exposing myself to them and thinking them over and over again they become true? Both absolutely classic OCD thoughts, but nonetheless very disturbing. Am also finding it difficult to fully do ..read more
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Meditation is not always a good idea
Monkey Minds
by Monkey Minds
3y ago
In recent years there has been a lot of discussion about the use of Buddhist-inspired meditation for dealing with mental health issues. In my experience, meditation can be helpful at times, but not when I am in the middle of a severe episode of anxiety or depression. Research corroborates this, and studies have found that it’s not necessarily mindfulness that we need when we are really struggling. A while ago I was chatting with a good friend about the benefits of mindfulness practice for mental health. He has struggled with depression and anxiety to varying degrees for at least twenty years ..read more
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Review of BBC 2 documentary – OCD: a monster in my mind
Monkey Minds
by Monkey Minds
3y ago
Yesterday I watched a BBC Horizon documentary called OCD: a Monster in my Mind. The program starts with the presenter clearing up popular misconceptions of what OCD is v. what it actually is, which was a good start. It took me a while to warm to her floaty-clothed, dangling-earringed, isn’t-the-human-mind-a-beautiful-thing (actually, no it often isn’t, when you’ve spent the whole day wanting to die because you are trapped in your house unable to leave for fear of getting AIDS) persona, but despite the vague whiffs of happy hippiness, she explored the issue with sensitivity and intelligence an ..read more
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ERP is tricky…
Monkey Minds
by Monkey Minds
3y ago
I’ve been doing a lot of acceptance and exposures lately, which has been scary (to say the least) but ultimately effective. The trouble is, once you do exposures and realise, after a spike in anxiety then habituation, that you’re going to be okay because you really do have a choice about things, the temptation (and habit) is to cling onto this and stop doing exposures. Why would you want to keep telling yourself horrible stuff when you’ve had a few moments of clarity that it’s all just anxiety and you don’t have to believe your thoughts? There comes a point in OCD treatment where you have to ..read more
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What is ERP?
Monkey Minds
by Monkey Minds
3y ago
*Just in case I explain the following badly (I’m very tired as I’ve had two days of food poisoning in Kathmandu and might not be phrasing things too well) I am in no danger whatsoever of acting on any of these thoughts. This is not a weird internet cry for help. I ain’t going anywhere* ERP stands for ‘exposure and response prevention’ and is the absolute gold standard evidence-based treatment for this dickhead of an anxiety disorder that is OCD. OCD is basically a fear of one’s own thoughts (the obsessions) and anything we do to try and get rid of them (the compulsions). Unfortunately, the on ..read more
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