I have a fear of my therapist not responding to my question before I go to sleep. I have harm and false memory ocd. My fear is over taking brain meds or supplements, being in a state of confusion, and acting on my harm fear or religious scrupulosity fear (basically something that prevents me from being saved). Yesterday I messaged my therapist about a new wave of thoughts I was getting. If-then thoughts. Example) if you stand next to this smoker you will act on your fear. Therapist told me to ignore those thoughts but didn’t answer my question of: if I get a thought that says if you send that text you will act on your fear then do I send the text anyway? I know the therapist would say yes and send my texts anyway, but the fact that I did not get a response makes me feel like something has happened because I had a “if the therapist doesn’t respond then you will do your fears”. I feel like it’s different when you are intentionally doing what ocd tells you not to do vs. not being able to get a response from the therapist and not really having a choice to choose to do the opposite of what ocd says to do. I feel like this could mean that something has happened and that I am ruined. I feel so hopeless. I am not sure what to do but I feel like giving up.

autisticompu...

Date posted: 3y

Hi alittleapple, Thank you for reaching out--it sounds like this is really causing you a lot of distress. If I'm understanding correctly, it sounds like there are two obsessions going on here: an intrusive thought that says "if I send this text I will act on my fear" and an intrusive thought that says "if my therapist doesn't reply to the text something bad will happen." (I'm not sure if it's the same bad thing or not, but from what you wrote I'm guessing it's different.) So treating the first thought as an exposure, by sending the text and sitting with your anxiety that maybe doing that means you will now act on your fear, also means there's a chance you'll have to do the second exposure whether you like it or not. It's definitely a tangle. I would agree that the best thing to do is send the texts anyway. Not sending the texts because you're scared that it might mean your therapist might not reply, which might mean something bad will happen, a) is an avoidance compulsion that will make both those fears worse b) risks cutting you off from a much-needed avenue of support. It sucks to have to cope with two exposures at once, but in the long run, it's less painful than always having to cope with both those fears at once. Exposure therapy-wise, there actually isn't much difference between an exposure you do intentionally and an exposure that is out of your control. Once I had something happen where there was no way to be sure whether or not my worst fear had come to pass for several days. Of course, I spent that whole time panicking. I asked my therapist what exposures I should do to cope with my anxiety, and she said "none, because the exposure already happened. Now you do the response prevention." I didn't have a choice but to do the opposite of what OCD wanted, because what OCD wanted was for me to go back in time. And it was really hard. But doing my response prevention meant even though I hadn't chosen to do that exposure, it got easier. Sometimes life is going to throw you exposures that you have no control over. And part of OCD recovery is moving from planned exposures in therapy to the exposures we encounter in daily life, the ones that aren't intentional. There will always be situations where we don't get a choice. But we still have a choice in how we respond. I hope this helps. I know you said you feel like giving up, but you didn't. You came here. You got this. <3

hereintheUK

Date posted: 23w

Please help 😭

I’m feeling really scared I’ve been left in the lurch by my therapist today as she said she doesn’t feel comfortable doing anymore therapy with me unless I increase my mirtazipine (Remeron) as my OCD has spiked a lot since I started with her and I’m only just at the beginning, but I’m not sure increasing my meds is the right thing to do so much as what she’s doing is causing it …….. basically my OCD theme is it tells me I’ve done horrendous things like I’ve harmed people, it’s in the affirmative tense not the “what if?” anymore, I guess it’s a bit like it tries to give me false memories but isn’t quite the same,and I just feel so unarmed how to deal with it and I’m really scared I’m going to end up in a very very dark place again 😭

samlovesjesus

Date posted: 21w

kind of a rough day

i’m trying to not let the thoughts bother me but it’s just so stressful. even me typing that feels like i’m lying when i know i’m not. i’m scared because even my therapist tells me that it’s just ocd, but in the back of my mind i slightly don’t believe her, and its making me scared that i AM like those people and im gonna act on something. sometimes in social moments i get a quick thought of me being an outcast because im like those people who are sick in the head and act on that stuff, and it just makes me feel like i truly am gonna eventually act on something. another thing that bothered me is earlier my mom yelled at me for not doing school work (it was well deserved im really slacking on it) and i had like no reaction to her screaming. it had me thinking what if i have no empathy etc etc, and what if i get mad that she yelled at me and i do something involving those thoughts. how do i TRULY know it’s ocd? like i try to remind myself and be like “dude, your therapist said it’s ocd, she isn’t wrong” but the back of my mind is like “she is wrong, it’s not ocd and she just happened to misdiagnose you. you are gonna act on those thoughts and it’s your fate”. please someone respond if you read all of this, im really struggling

Anonymous

Date posted: 20w

religious OCD

Please help. I have felt so off/wrong all day. I constantly worry that the “bad guy” is going to get me. I have awful thoughts and I constantly want God to know that I don’t mean these thoughts. I am at a point in my therapy where I need to choose to use my ERP but it feels too scary. I then do compulsions, which makes the OCD worse, which makes me want to use ERP less. And the cycle goes on. I am currently sitting in my car crying because I feel so lost and exhausted. I’m not supposed to figure out my thoughts, but today I just went into a spiral of sadness and depression, thinking that I will always feel like this. When my thoughts got really bad at the end of the day, I tried to use ERP even though I was shaking and not believing my responses and I ended up feeling like I missed something and that I gave into the “bad guy.” I have no one to talk when I’m not doing therapy twice a week. I am alone and have no one to talk to when I am like this… please help

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