First, I’m not a therapist, and I don’t have OCD so free free to disregard, but I had a thought that might be useful.
Your compulsion is you worrying about X risk, but specifically not doing anything real about X risk, right? Like, the problem is not that you are working on X risk too hard, the problem is that your worries prevent you from doing much of any sort of work. I would try to concentrate on noticing that difference. Like, say you don’t worry about X risk for a day, does that mean you did less on it? If not, then your worries probably don’t do anything productive, and noticing that might help. Maybe this can work within the exposure release therapy framework?
If you think you have something productive to contribute, you might set aside some amount of time to work on it, but then try to quit thinking about it the rest of the time, and then try to notice that that time becomes more productive with less worries at 3 AM.
Thank you for the response. My compulsion is more like constantly rehashing the low p(doom) arguments in my head or even reopening the same LessWrong posts; eg I could probably recite Garriga-Alonso’s “Alignment Will Be Easy By Default” post word for word. Short term it offers some reprieve, but long term the main effect is just keeping me thinking about x-risk for longer.
This does differ from traditional OCD compulsions in a way I think works in my favor. When I leave my house I quadruple check the lock, convinced in some strange way that if I don’t check again the door will be unlocked and someone will rob me. The compulsion “works” insofar as checking relieves the anxiety because I believe, in some strange way, that it causally matters. Rehashing old arguments doesn’t have that property. It gives me temporary relief in a way that’s characteristic of a compulsion, but I don’t believe on any level that my thoughts causally affect our chances of making it out of this alive.
Because of that, I’ve started trying to just let the “we are all going to die” thought sit in my head without fighting it. Not repeating to myself that empirically alignment seems easier than anticipated, not rehearsing arguments about takeoff speeds. Just having the thought and not engaging. It’s been quite successful so far. The lock checking is a different story; I kinda can’t fight that impulse yet since checking the lock, at least in my mind, does have a causal effect on whether my house gets robbed. But I’m optimistic therapy can help there.
First, I’m not a therapist, and I don’t have OCD so free free to disregard, but I had a thought that might be useful.
Your compulsion is you worrying about X risk, but specifically not doing anything real about X risk, right? Like, the problem is not that you are working on X risk too hard, the problem is that your worries prevent you from doing much of any sort of work. I would try to concentrate on noticing that difference. Like, say you don’t worry about X risk for a day, does that mean you did less on it? If not, then your worries probably don’t do anything productive, and noticing that might help. Maybe this can work within the exposure release therapy framework?
If you think you have something productive to contribute, you might set aside some amount of time to work on it, but then try to quit thinking about it the rest of the time, and then try to notice that that time becomes more productive with less worries at 3 AM.
Thank you for the response. My compulsion is more like constantly rehashing the low p(doom) arguments in my head or even reopening the same LessWrong posts; eg I could probably recite Garriga-Alonso’s “Alignment Will Be Easy By Default” post word for word. Short term it offers some reprieve, but long term the main effect is just keeping me thinking about x-risk for longer.
This does differ from traditional OCD compulsions in a way I think works in my favor. When I leave my house I quadruple check the lock, convinced in some strange way that if I don’t check again the door will be unlocked and someone will rob me. The compulsion “works” insofar as checking relieves the anxiety because I believe, in some strange way, that it causally matters. Rehashing old arguments doesn’t have that property. It gives me temporary relief in a way that’s characteristic of a compulsion, but I don’t believe on any level that my thoughts causally affect our chances of making it out of this alive.
Because of that, I’ve started trying to just let the “we are all going to die” thought sit in my head without fighting it. Not repeating to myself that empirically alignment seems easier than anticipated, not rehearsing arguments about takeoff speeds. Just having the thought and not engaging. It’s been quite successful so far. The lock checking is a different story; I kinda can’t fight that impulse yet since checking the lock, at least in my mind, does have a causal effect on whether my house gets robbed. But I’m optimistic therapy can help there.