It has been a rough time in Israel lately; murders, deaths, drownings, and of course these are terrible things. So because my environment has been hyper-stressful, it makes sense that my ADD and OCD symptoms have flared up.
Now, as we’ve discussed, my OCD is no longer fear based, so I’m not particularly afraid of something bad happening to me or to my family Be”H. But still my repetitive actions have increased.
Look, there are always going to be good days and bad days, and everything in between. The real key, as I was discussing with a gentleman at lunch today, is to realize that no one else really cares.
Everyone has their own problems to worry about, not to mention their own OCD symptoms, which pretty much everyone has to some degree or another. They pretty much live in their little, medium, or large bubbles of a world, and that’s all that they are concerned with. And believe me, truly, it’s enough!
So what to do when either our ADD or OCD symptoms flare up? Well, pretty much nothing. We must redirect our focus. Back to our own social circles, families, friends, and even write a gratitude list containing all of the things that you are grateful for, and write one reason why you love each person that you do, it WILL get better. And push through the temporary increase in symptoms. If every time something happens in the world, we internalize it, we will be essentially, or quite literally paralyzed with fear, every moment of every day.
Why? There is ALWAYS something bad happening. Then again there is pretty much always something good happening as well, so why not re-direct our attentions toward those things? Well, that’s a conversation for another post, but suffice it to say, that it is our choice what we focus on. My family does not own a TV, nor do we read the paper.
We definitely do not need our days to be filled with the thoughts all of the inhumanity that man is capable of imposing on his fellow man. Our philosophy is that if something really big or important happens, that we’ll get a call from someone intending to share the news.
And guess what, It it works! Go figure. If we feel we want to look into an incident further, then we can always look it up on the internet, and sometimes do.
The point is that we are in control, of how out of control we allow our lives/minds to become. Give it a shot. And please, let me know your results.
Thanks,
Mordechai
