- Date posted
- 3y
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y
Hey! You are doing an awesome job. I am working with the same themes. Ultimately by not doing the exposures you are avoiding and yes it can feel awful the fact you have to do them but I got to the point where I just thought, I feel crap regardless, let’s go for the exposures whole heartedly multiple times a day from now on and see what happens. No one wants to do exposures and of course it makes us all feel bad and low. It is awful. To help with the hopelessness I have been working on making sure I live my life to the fullest, meeting up with friends, always going in to work and doing some form of exercise. I know it is hard to get the motivation but it has certainly helped me. It does get easier just keep trying a little bit each day.
- Date posted
- 3y
Thanks Tom; I do my best to try to live my life regardless of the OCD but I just get scared that I'll ruin it somehow. It' good to know that others experience a similar thing but are still able to have a fulfilling life :)
- Date posted
- 3y
Hey tuxie, I'm so sorry you're struggling with this. And I'm glad you felt able to come here for help. I haven't experienced Suicidal OCD, but I have definitely had anxieties that doing my exposures could make me worse. For me it was health anxiety around my chronic illnesses--that if I exposed myself to certain things, my physical health would get worse, and if I didn't, my OCD would get worse. The best thing I can suggest is to trust in the process and do the exposure anyway, even if your OCD keeps coming up with reasons you should avoid it. If you're doing these exposures with a therapist, I would also check in with them about these fears. Apart from that, I think Tom made a really good suggestion, and that's to counterbalance the hopelessness you're sitting with during exposures with lighter, more fulfilling things in the rest of your life. You're doing really hard work right now and sitting with some really scary things, so if you can, make some extra space for self-care and activities that give you a sense of meaning. Exposures are hard, and they're necessary, but that doesn't mean the rest of your life can't be a little more soft. I hope this helps. Much compassion. <3
- Date posted
- 3y
Hey, thank you for your response - I'm very early on in the treatment process so I guess these are probably fears that a lot of us have had at some point!
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y
I an proud that you are starting to do the exposures and I feel you. I have just started with a therapist and also have suicidal ocd, just reading about these kind of exposures triggers me and scares me. I hope I can get to a point of doing them and eventually feeling better. I know you can too! We can do this!
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y
You could try put that worry of ruining it in to one of your exposures and work with it.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 24w
This might contain triggering content, but I'm also wondering if others have dealt with this similar thought, and if so, how to deal with it? Overall, I've been doing so well these past few days. I'm able to eat again, which I hadn't been able to do because of how much anxiety I'd been experiencing. I'm spending time around loved ones and not just rotting in my room, and I've been able to wake up without immediately being bombarded by intrusive thoughts. When things first got really bad, I'd wake my mom up every night for reassurance, but I haven't done that in a while either. I'm really proud of myself, but there's still this nagging thought in my mind... While looking through others posts on here, hoping to find advice that'd fit my situation, I ended up making things worse. Someone mentioned how they had a fear that they'd purposely search for illegal content (related to POCD). I panicked, and "what ifs" flooded my thoughts. "What if the intrusive thoughts affect who I am as a person, and I do that?" I'm terrified that I'll search for those things, which I know means I wouldn't do it. But then, another person on here said they'd actually looked for those things, and that freaked me out even more. Does that mean it's possible for that to happen to me? I don't want to do that, but I keep having intrusive thoughts surrounding it. I've been doing so well these past few days. I'm just... stuck. I don't know what to do. I've spoken with other people who have the same fears, but how do I manage this? It's not something I've even thought about before seeing those posts. I've been practicing accepting the uncertainty, but I'm really struggling with this one. I hate this. This morning, I woke up, and the intrusive thoughts were back. It's just disheartening.
- Date posted
- 23w
Really bad theme right now is death, I keep thinking about how one day or at any moment my heart will stop my brain will stop & my memories & everything I know will all fade away. It is giving me so much anxiety I’m only 18, but I realize it all happens to us it is bound, we are born to die. I know it’s a silly thing to be scared because it’s not helping the quality of my life worrying about it and even when I do die, I won’t care , if you don’t have a working brain then how can you care 🤷♀️. It is tainting my everyday life currently & honestly making me terribly depressed & it is giving me derealization & making me feel nihilistic, I’ll remind myself it’s okay but then with my ocd i don’t stop thinking and thinking about it and it’s seriously so hard to stay present in the moment because this thought just feels like I can’t scrub it away it’s miserable I struggle with religion, but I do pray to anything that’s out there possibly listening, because it is comforting, it just feels like this whole experience Is pointless & I am afraid of the unknown and what is to possibly happen but I’m subjected to it anyways so why should it matter
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 16w
Hi guys! I’m new to the community and I’ve recently received my OCD diagnosis (tho I’ve known about it since childhood). I’ve been somewhat spiraling lately as I wait for my first ERP session (hooray!) I was just wondering if any of you guys have received ERP for existential OCD and if it was successful? My existential OCD compulsions are more so mental and have been affecting me in the sense of dream/memory flashbacks and giving me a sort of “uncanny” feeling about everything around me. Any advice is appreciated! Thank you❤️
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