Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder by Jonathan Grayson

Author:Jonathan Grayson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-05-05T16:00:00+00:00

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1. When problem decisions come up, I will only have “x” amount of time to make them. Depending on the situation, this may range from a few weeks to a few seconds. If I’m buying a car, a few weeks may be reasonable, but for buying a brand of cereal, a minute is more than reasonable.

2. Limits on how much information to collect for decisions need to be instituted. For important decisions—such as large purchases or deciding where to go to college or where to move—a limit will be needed with regard to how much information to collect per option and how many options will be allowed. Internet time needs to be strictly monitored. If possible, have a helper set these boundaries and agree to whatever he or she says without argument.

3. Advice may be asked for only when making important decisions, and this can only be asked once. Whomever you are asking for advice shall determine what information they need to give to help you. This means you have to depend on them to ask questions about your decision—if they don’t ask questions, then you have to accept that they feel they don’t need to know more. Not knowing whether or not they actually need to know more is part of your exposure.

4. No advice may be requested for less important decisions.

5. Limit the number of people you ask for advice, and you may not ask anyone whose advice you are unwilling to follow. This is a critical rule and will eliminate many people.

6. Special environmental conditions for making a decision, such as demanding complete silence so that you can concentrate, are to be violated.

Exposure begins as soon as the time limit for deciding is over, and it involves simply making a decision. If you are willing and have some idea which decision is “wrong,” it would be useful for you to knowingly make the wrong decision. If you do this, you are choosing to risk living with regret to overcome your OCD. Most sufferers aren’t willing to do this, but there is another approach. At the moment of decision, if you have any awareness of leaning toward one choice over the other, then make the preferred choice. If you don’t know or you feel paralyzed, then we will rely on some very special, high-tech, binary decision-making aids to help you.

The first binary decision—making aid is the coin toss. Your initial response to flipping a coin to make a decision may be protest and horror, but if the decision between two choices is so close, then given that no decision is truly “right,” let the coin choose for you. You will accomplish more with quick random decisions like this than with the paralysis of OCD. What if the coin chooses the wrong option? So be it. The goal of recovery is not and cannot be making “right” decisions. In real life, the goal is to make a good-enough guess (I know

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