Brain Tech Support Live - May 25, 2024
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- čas přidán 11. 09. 2024
- Our regular exploration of mental health and fitness questions as we navigate the experience of being human with a brain that throws up all the intrusive stuff imaginable (and then some more).
Mark, I’m so sorry for the loss of your cat. Sending you a big hug🤍
Thank you, Marisol! It was a sad time 😿
My condolences for the loss of Sasha, to you and your friend.
Thank you!
So sorry you lost your cat Mark, appreciate all the work you do around ocd. I find the brain tech sessions helpful and try to catch them when i can.
Thanks, Chris!
So, so sorry to hear about the loss of your kitty friend, Mark. 😞 Sending you a big hug.
Thank you for the big hug, Kelly!
Oh man i'm so sorry to hear what happened to the cat you were looking after. what a harrowing story. you did a great job looking after her during her final days
Thanks, Kenzo! It was an emotional adventure.
Hi Mark! About to watch this stream. I wanted to say I really appreciate your work, it’s invaluable. I’m improving mental fitness every day. I got your book and am doing the exercises from part 1. Having some relapses but I’m using strategies to manage and I’m looking forward to practicing more mental fitness despite any thoughts or memories or real life triggers or whatever my brain throws up!!! 💪💪
I’m sorry to hear about the cat :( Very sad
Thank you. It was a very sad experience. But an opportunity to care for the cat and care for myself. We can have these experiences as we adventure in life! As you go on your own adventures, I hope you discover many ways you can apply mental fitness skills to support yourself!
Brooo the beginning 😢😢 *hug
Thank you, Aseem.
Hi Mark, How do you express your thoughts and feelings to yourself? often times I find that the thoughts that cause me distress, come and go without me being aware of them so when I try to sit down to journal, I can't actually remember what the thoughts were. this might be tied to my obsession of getting my self-therapy process perfect as well so when I try and express my thoughts to myself, either nothing comes out or it never feels like I'm expressing myself in complete detail. Any advice?
I don't have a scenario I know of where I try to do what you're describing. If you've already recognized it's wrapped up in some compulsions, it could be useful to consider why this is a goal at all
Hi mark, first of all sorry about your cat 😥
I'd like your advice or opinion on applying ERP for physical anxiety symptoms please.
I'm still struggling with a very low tolerance towards feeling fight or flight symptoms, I'm in a constant looping cycle of:
Brain: Is that... dizziness\dpdr\brain fog\palpitations? DANGER!! PANIC!! ALARM🚨!
Me: no it's fine, just my normal stress response.
Brain: AAAAAAAAH IT FEELS SCARY, WE MUST PANIC🚨!
Me: uh... this is not necessary... It's unpleasant but harmle..
Brain: NO ITS FATALLY DANGEROUS!!! AHHH QUICK DO SOMETHING!!!
I'm just frustrated that I understand this on a logical level, yet my brain so stubbornly insists on treating my own stress response as DANGER.
I also practice acceptance as best as I can, understanding that I have no control over my involuntary part of the nervous system that is currently sympathetic branch dominant.
I made MASSIVE improvements in the past couple of months of consistently doing ERP as I pushed on my agoraphobia (i have alot of avoidance compulsions), I was willingly facing my symptoms when i'm outside, at stores, standing in lines, while driving, while interacting with people outside while feeling so physically ill, and I still do it - every single day with no exception!
But I feel like I plateaued on progress, I am able to function way better than before, but my fight or flight response is still very much activated and cracked up to high through out my entire day, still making it hard to sleep, relax, digest food or eat in general, and do things - naturally my brain raises concerns and doubts on this entire process, I know not to seek certainty as I will never find it and it'll just feed into this fear even more.
But I feel like I did plateau, this fear of fear wont budge from this point on, i'm doing daily exposures to make myself uncomfortable and to sit with it while following my values.
Am I just being impatient? Or maybe I'm not doing enough, I'm considering a more aggressive approach on the ERP but i'm not sure if that would be beneficial or just compulsive of me.
There are a couple of things I'd look at in here: 1) In your comment there, I noticed that you were often attaching labels to experiences and yourself and seemed to see it as useful, but were then seeing it as a problem that the brain was following that lesson to judge and label things as dangerous. It really helped me to look at how I was judging and categorizing experiences as a key mechanism at work with things like dpdr/brain fog/panic. For example, you labeled yourself as having a "very low tolerance towards fight or flight..." but what you then explained sounds like a very human experience. If you're judging it as a problem that makes you different from others, then it makes sense you'd also judge it as dangerous. And if it's dangerous, then the brain is naturally going to check for it. You also mentioned being "sympathetic branch dominant"?! That sounds like a large tree with a kind branch that gives lots of shade.
2)The reason I'd look at the categorizing and labeling is because I define that as a compulsion. I often describe judgment as the first compulsion. We're trying to get certainty and control by fitting the experiences of life into these tiny boxes. If you're doing ERP, I'd be curious about what compulsions you're cutting out around judging and trying to clean away physical sensations.
3) You mentioned doing daily exposures and going more aggressive with ERP, but are you doing that just to get rid of some feelings you don't like? Because that wouldn't be ERP, then. That would just be classic contamination OCD, except you're trying to perfectly clean your feelings.
4) What if you can have any physical sensations? The way I often explain this to people is like extreme sports or riding rollercoasters. The people who feel scared jumping a bike over a burning freight train and the people who like jumping a bike over a burning freight train are having the same physical sensations. But one is going to label it as a disorder and the other is going to call it a "rush" and a fun afternoon. Do you want to change how you interact with the rush of human existence? (You don't have to jump a bike over anything yet)
@@everybodyhasabrain oh wow, thank you for the very detailed answer!!
I think I can see my mistake, I have mixed goals i’m chasing that are conflicting. I do want to learn to experience any type of experience because this is really the only helpful way to go about it, if they were truly ok with me (no judgements) than none of these struggles and compulsions would be necessary.
But at the same time i do want to get rid of these experiences and i spend alot of time “hating” on them in a way, with judgements.
I do feel like I often weaponize ERP as a tool to eliminate my discomfort, and this just sabotages my previous goal because i’m doing compulsions basically.
Your points brought me some clarity, I see how all these points interfere with the first goal.
Thank you! Sending virtual 🍩🍩🍩🍩
@@zentai4324 Thanks for the donuts!
Sir I have one doubt.. I am keep on searching whether this thought is ocd or not.. I want to make sure before disregarding whether this is OCD or not.. kindly advice.. Regarding this topic
That just is a compulsion, so I would find it more useful to keep the focus on actions you want to be doing in life instead of trying to chase certainty about labels to stick on brain stuff
@@everybodyhasabrain Tq for the reply.. I am going to focus on life 👍can u give ur mail id or something? Or ur contact? So that I can have a conversation with you regarding my type of thoughts and need some more clarity regarding that?
So sorry 😞
Thank you