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Alishia88 · Jan 13, 2020 at 03:43 PM

Thank you both for your responses.

Since its been close to 2 weeks I though I´d check back here.
So this is how it´s been going.

The first, I think, 4 days went really well. I was not able to stop 100 percent of all behaviors, but I´d say maybe 90 percent.. What was left were a few micro-compulsions like brushing back a hair or touching something once or things I just did automatically without thinking about it.

So these really did take none of my time. All the time consuming compulsions that I used to do over and over and over again, I stopped.

Then on the 5th/6th days I noticed some more behaviors returning, that someone else could be able to see as well, but maybe it was still only 70/80 percent of what I used to do.

Then in the second week some more returned and I saw that I repeated a few things as well (as opposed to doing them just once).

However, all in all, I´d say I´m still doing a lot better because the most time consuming things did not return.

I think what happens over time, is that you lose focus on not doing the compulsions and when it´s not a priority, they creep back in.

So I suppose its important to set new goals when this happens.

I also feel it helped me, that I wrote about my plans here.

Once again I will try to stop all including micro-compulsions this time, and my most difficult one: taking a shower without thinking about how and what I am doing but just taking a shower intuitively like I used to before.

Overall I can tell that when you tell yourself you won´t do any compulsions, I think the brain catches up on that after some time and to some extent stops making the obsessive thoughts because it understands "it´s not worth the effort", because you won´t give into them anyway.

Also I am happy to report I did not die in my sleep, even though not doing the compulsions I felt I needed to do before.

Yes, if you feel, you can stop just a couple of your regular compulsions, I say go for it. It does save a lot of time!