- Date posted
- 3y
- Date posted
- 3y
ERP is a type of behavioral therapy that exposes people to situations that provoke their obsessions and the resulting distress while helping them prevent their compulsive responses. The ultimate goal of ERP is to free people from the cycle of obsessions and compulsions so they can live better (https://www.treatmyocd.com/blog/what-exactly-is-exposure-and-response-prevention-erp) Yes it can help with your Pure O OCD. For example if you are ruminating on intrusive thoughts and trying to figure out all the what ifs and whys you can learn skills to manage those things and be able to go through your day without letting intrusive thoughts keep you in a cage for lack of a better term. Obviously it doesn't happen over night and it needs constant practice. I know it can be very scary to take that step and ask for help but once you do you feel so much better. Having suffered from so many themes of OCD I got to a point where even if I was scared to seek help I knew that I had no other option but to seek it because I did not want to live my life in torture from these thoughts. I hope this helps. I wish you all the best.
- Date posted
- 3y
I guess I'm just scared that I'd somehow start believing in the thoughts
- Date posted
- 3y
@Chad2 I know what you mean that’s the same fear I have but I’m learning the mental skills to how not to let these intrusive thoughts control me and I use to say to myself before I started therapy I have nothing to loose I mean I know it’s terrifying trust me but I’d rather try than to live my life suffering and unable to truly live. For so long I was just existing and everyday was torture. I’m not saying that once you start therapy that everything will magically get better but just like you learn new skills like exercising or cooking or any new skill why not learn something that will make your life better learning the mental skills needed. I know it’s not easy and I’ve tried CBT therapy and it wasn’t unhelpful but it wasn’t really helping me manage my intrusive thoughts in the best way so once I found and research ERP therapy I said to myself I have nothing to loose and I want to get better. I hope this helps. I wish you all the best. You can post any questions you have. I’m still new to ERP therapy but that’s what I appreciate about NOCD is that it’s a community where you can communicate with other people who are going through the same thing.
- Date posted
- 3y
With pure o it sucks I'm also trying to get hooked up with a therapist for erp do anyone have constant same thoughts from morning until you go to bed mine now is just ruminating on my ocd ,ocd,ocd keeps roominating same subject.
- Date posted
- 3y
At it's worst it can definitely take up the whole day. For me my intrusive thoughts focus on one major topic for months, until it eventually goes away and I move on to another topic
- Date posted
- 3y
Chad2 are you on any ssri are medication istarted 40mg celexas about 3 weeks ago seems to help with anxiety and slowly helping with ocd hopefully this will start to help more .
- Date posted
- 3y
I take fluoxetine but haven't noticed much
Related posts
- Date posted
- 18w
Hey everyone. Just watched a YouTube clip from NOCD and it became clear that ERP appears to be best when your ocd is centered around a theme. Ie germs etc. one thing, not many things The struggle with pure O is that it’s not just one thing, it can be ALL things Is there hope for pure O with ERP ? Love to hear the group’s thoughts
- Date posted
- 16w
I had just posted a summary of ERP for a group member, and I thought it might be useful for everybody. Here it is below (with a little extra added)…. ERP therapy is researched-based. Most other therapies don’t work. There have been people who have been literally stuck in their houses (from their OCD) who gained their lives back through ERP therapy. NOCD does ERP therapy exclusively. You can find it in other places too, but you have to ask around. There are two tenants of ERP therapy: The first one has to do with the repetitive thoughts inside our heads. These thoughts are actually defined as “obsessions”. You are not supposed to do anything with the obsessions. You are supposed to let them run through your head freely, without trying to fix them or stop them. Imagine a tree planted by a river. The leaves fall off and float down the river. You can see the leaves falling, but you don’t try to stop them or pick them up. You don’t try to fix them. You just let them float away. This is really important to do with your obsessive thoughts. The more you try to fight them off, the worse they get. I used to have blasphemous sentences running in my head 24/7. I felt like I had to put a “not” next to each sentence in order to “fix” it. But this just took hours of my time every day, and it was very scary, because I was worried that if I messed up, that I would go to hell. It was very freeing to learn later that I could just let those sentences run freely through my head without trying to fix them. The second part of ERP therapy is all about “denying your compulsions.” Every time OCD tells you that if you don’t do things a certain way that something really bad will happen, that is a compulsion. Once you recognize what your compulsions are, ERP therapy will have you practice stopping doing all of those things. For some people, that will mean stopping washing their hands or touching lights switches or, in my case, putting “fixing” words in their head. Compulsions are safety behaviors. During ERP therapy, you will practice stopping engaging with safety behaviors. All this is very hard to do and scary, so during therapy you will be given tools to help you deal with the fear. Often ERP therapy will take people from being non-functional to functional. I highly recommend it. ————————————————- PITFALL #1: After you have been doing ERP for a while and become somewhat successful, the OCD will try subtle little tricks to bring you down again. The first one is to tell you that your thoughts are REAL and not OCD, and therefore you can’t apply ERP therapy. Don’t fall for this trick! All thoughts are just thoughts. They are all meaningless. Don’t try to figure out what is real and what is OCD. Just treat all thoughts with ERP therapy. PITFALL #2: The second pitfall is that OCD will tell you that you can’t move forward unless you have absolute certainty that you will be safe. Hate to tell you this, folks, but there is no certainty in life. You will never know for SURE that you or your loved ones will be “safe” from the OCD rules. Therefore, you have to move forward in the uncertainty. It’s hard, but it gets easier with time and practice. We got this, guys !!!!!!
- Date posted
- 14w
I have, alongside my other OCD themes, an intense fear of insomnia. Although this has been improving somewhat — partly thanks to medication and The sleep school on YouTube — I still find myself ruminating about it throughout the day when I have something important the next day, I get stuck in the fear that everything will be ruined — for both myself and others — because my mind is so preoccupied with sleep. + a fear of depression coming back. It honestly feels like a form of sleep OCD. I'm not sure if that’s an official thing, but that’s how it feels to me. A form of erp is the idea of befriending wakefulness. That works great tbh. Things like sleep hygiene, meditation, etc. — tend to backfire because my OCD latches onto them and becomes too obsessive about “doing them right.” I’m genuinely wondering whether ERP — for example in the form of a worst-case-scenario audio loop (imaginal exposure) — could be helpful in this case. I’m hesitant to start unless I know it can actually help. Is there anyone who has experience with this or thoughts about it? I’m not looking for reassurance or tips to fall asleep — only for ideas on how ERP might be applied in this situation.
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