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Taking pics to calm ocd?

My mom is a therapist for 30 years and she thinks me taking pics of doors to see that I locked them or sinks to see that they’re off is a bad idea and may cripple me mentally. What exactly is wrong with me taking pics to see that doors are locked, water is off, etc?
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13167 tn?1327194124
One of the problems with anxiety,  OP,  is that it 'metastasizes' to other anxieties if you give in.  If you were able to manage this at only photographing the door and the faucet,  I'd say go for it.  But don't let it go further.  Don't then photograph the stove and your hair straightener so you can comfort yourself that they're off,  too.  I have anxieties,  and found this advice very helpful.  If you give in,  pretty soon you'll be catering to your anxiety continuously.
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20620809 tn?1504362969
She may be talking about the fact that your doing that just reinforces the obsession.  What if the door was left unlocked?  Intolerable? That's what ERP therapy does. It makes you get used to the idea of the unthinkable so that it doesn't bother you anymore.  The pictures are an extension of the compulsion. The longer you do it, the longer the obsession keeps ahold of you.  Since your mom is a therapist, talk to her about ERP therapy.
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Avatar universal
That's just giving in to your OCD.  If you have rituals, in other words you actually have OCD instead of some of today's diagnoses that aren't actually what we used to think of as OCD, the treatment is to get into therapy and when you do you will learn relaxation techniques, get an understanding of the disease, and eventually you will be asked to not do your rituals and learn that not doing them won't result in any harm to you.  That hopefully rewires your brain to stop needing to do the repetitive behaviors as you will have demystified them.  If you take photos, you're just finding another way to do the rituals which reinforces the disease.
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2 Comments
My fear is worrying I forgot to turn water off since I don’t want to worry about wasting water. I mean if I may ask what’s wrong exsctly with taking pics?
Did you read what I wrote?  Did your Mom explain?  Look, checking to see if the water is turned off once or twice here and there is normal.  But you actually know when you didn't turn the water completely off because it makes a noise of running water while you're still there.  But you pointed out the whole problem probably without meaning to, which is, you "fear" forgetting to turn off the water.  What's to fear?  It's great to not waste water.  It's not great to have fear about it.  One can be concerned about things without being anxious about them.  OCD, if you in fact have it, is an anxiety disorder.  I don't know how much more I can say about giving in to your OCD by performing your rituals by taking a photo, which is the same as continually checking it, which is the same as having an irrational fear of something that isn't scary.  That's an anxiety disorder, and you won't solve it by continuing to let it rule your life.  You'll solve it by not checking anymore because of "fear."  Now, I'm just repeating myself, and nobody's stopping you from taking photos of anything you like.  But if you want to be free of this obsessive thinking and the amount of time you're wasting giving in to it, and the anxiety that underlies it, again, are you in therapy?
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