- Date posted
- 3y
- Date posted
- 3y
I think the percentage thing is innacurate. The goal is to learn to live with the thoughts, and just not pay attention to them as much as you would before therapy.
- Date posted
- 3y
Try not to compare yourself with anyone else either. I have gone years with little anxiety from my thoughts, then I’m triggered and fall back into engaging with them for a month or so. Then repeat. You will learn at your own pace:)
- Date posted
- 3y
@emmy sue I’m bad about comparing myself. It’s hard and then I’m like I don’t have ocd 🤷🏽♂️
- Date posted
- 3y
@emmy sue Thank you. Yeah I don’t expect the thoughts to go away. When I have moments of clarity and my ocd isn’t bothering me, I still have the thoughts but my brain doesn’t see them as a threat. It’s weird how that works
- Date posted
- 3y
Yeah we can’t make thoughts disappear and recovery doesn’t mean that the thoughts will disappear. I had the misunderstanding that they would disappear because I wanted them to so badly
- Date posted
- 3y
Yeah I just want the anxiety to go away really. But even when the anxiety is gone there’s just some thing about the OCD that causes discomfort. I have a lot of moments every now and then for a few days at a time where my head is clear and while I still have the thoughts during that time they just don’t bother me at all
- Date posted
- 3y
@Ocdislame Yeah I totally feel that cause I’m the same way bro.
- Date posted
- 3y
I like to think of it as “how life is managable with them”. That bit of u is still going to be there, but learning how to be unfazed is the goal
- Date posted
- 3y
Everyone’s percentages are different. Mine was a big reduction but I also had other intense therapy for childhood trauma, so I learned even more coping mechanisms too. You can’t get rid of OCD and its symptoms. You can’t control or stop your thoughts but they don’t matter. What matters is your REACTION. And that’s the key to ERP and coping mechanisms for when intrusive thoughts come back up.
- Date posted
- 3y
For me it’s just so crazy when I have these days where nothing seems to bother me. I still have the thoughts but the thoughts don’t trigger any sort of anxiety. I guess that’s what I’m aiming for
- Date posted
- 3y
Like other comments say, yes it depends on the individual and I think the intensity of therapy affects too. Doing intensive erp therapy dramatically decreased my symptoms, but I don’t think it ever does 100% as I have come to accept that Ocd will always be the natural bend of my brain. But now instead of having control of my life, taking care of it feels more like maintainence and is very manageable, with small relapses, but never even half as bad as how I was before.
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- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 24w
I find while doing exposures, rarely does my anxiety lessen. It usually amps up and stays that way for the remainder of the day. I could be having a fairly decent day, but dutifully do my exposures and then the rest of my day is anxiety filled. I guess that’s just how it is now? Also, I’m wondering if my therapist even believes I have OCD. I totally understand my therapist cannot provide reassurance. But it’s to the point it seems my therapist acts like I actually did the thing I fear. I feel so isolated.
- Date posted
- 20w
What does a therapy session with an OCD specialist look like for y’all? This is something I’ve always wondered because I’ve only had one OCD therapist through NOCD. Our sessions always looked like sit there and “reduce anxiety” meaning don’t think for a few minutes and take a few deep breaths and rate your anxiety level every couple of minutes. AND that was it. Is it supposed to look like that? Because I haven’t seen anyone on this app talk about this or how their therapy sessions go. I’m considering restarting therapy but I want to know how therapy goes for you guys before I go back to the same specialist. Any input would be appreciated :)
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- Date posted
- 19w
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 !!!!!!
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