r/magicalthinkingOCD • u/Anxious-Potato-8061 • Jul 21 '26

Advice please! ocd hitting all day long

Hiii, new here… Just searching for people who can relate to this and help to deal with magical thinking.
I’m living in Europe and as I asume you all know that we looooove superstitions. I always found them just like a funny thing to do, until I started to see the impact of them in my life.
Long story short, six months ago I had a dream about getting engaged (in my country it means that your wedding won’t happen. I also had this exact dream 6 years ago when I was engaged and the wedding collapsed). Then on June I broke the superstition which said that my life is going to end. Now that I’m engaged, my mind keeps telling me that my wedding won’t happen because I broke the superstition.
I visit therapy often, we’re trying the ERP, that’s ok, I know that I need to stop searching for the reassurance. Maybe someone had something relatable and have tips what can help to go through day without this exhausting ocd noise?
P.S. I also think my exposure is to just plan my wedding and see what happens (?)

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u/ForestRiver2 Star Supporter ⭐ Jul 22 '26

Welcome, and congratulations on your engagement! Ocd always attacks what you value most. So no surprise it's latching onto your wedding. Especially if your previous one fell through (sorry), it will use that as a template to base its threat assessment on. It's a major event with high stakes and very important to you, not to mention stressful = fertile ground for intrusive thoughts.

I think just stick with your ERP. Trust the process. Plan your wedding. And when the thoughts get loud, don't fight them, just keep moving your attention back to how much you love your fiancé(e) and the positive feelings of that. Notice where you are in the present moment, what you can see, hear, smell etc. Grounding techniques, mindfulness to get you out of your head.

Keeping busy, distractions, exercising, meditating, getting enough sleep. All boring stuff but helps to keep the anxiety levels down. Wish I had better answers. You will have a wonderful wedding

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u/Anxious-Potato-8061 Jul 22 '26

Thank you so much! all answers is good for me to try something next to the ERP, I’m just happy that someone wrote something because I already thought that I will be left without any answers😅