- Date posted
- 6y
- Date posted
- 6y
I’m not sure if you mean me Bob999, but sure! Let’s say you had a fear of being contaminated by door knobs. Your first job would be to stop avoiding situations where you would have to be the first one to open the door, or you would be by yourself so you would have to open the door. Then you would PREPARE yourself to not respond for as long as you can to the compulsion (washing your hands x times) to the exposure of the door knob. You would open the door and first make yourself wait 5 minutes until you wash your hands, and then 15 minutes, and then 2 hours and so on. While you are doing this you would also decrease the AMOUNT of time you need to wash your hands, gradually.
- Date posted
- 6y
Hang in there. I don’t have suggestions since I’m struggling on this myself and I have tried less than you but I wish you the best.
- Date posted
- 6y
I see:/ ACT is basically changing our relationship with our thoughts! It is usually added alongside ERP to broaden the scope of the treatment. https://iocdf.org/expert-opinions/expert-opinion-what-is-act/ Here’s an article explaining it- it’s worth looking into!
- Date posted
- 6y
Thanks Leah and Bob super helpful!
- Date posted
- 6y
Laurpln - I got a prescription for Prozac but cannot take it until finals is over. I am worried the tiredness or nausea or whatever that is will make my studying challenging and my grades drop
- Date posted
- 6y
I felt slight nausea at first but that was the only side effect ! Feel better and good luck !
- Date posted
- 6y
Hmm. I’m sorry nothing seems to be working for you!:( Just wondering, did your therapist practice Exposure Response Prevention with you? Also did they go over Acceptance and Commitment therapy and mindfulness? Trust me every time I would hear ‘mindfulness’ I’d think yadda yadda okay yoga whatever- until I realized what it really was and how it was basically what I was internally doing to beat ocd. Also I know Clomipramine is the most studied ocd medication and some have said it worked wonders for them, but I know it comes with the most side effects for some too. Maybe you could talk to your doctor about that one too. Just some ideas!
- Date posted
- 6y
Bob999- any tips for situations where you actually got exposed to a major contaminant? I struggle with that.
- Date posted
- 6y
The most important part of ERP is obviously the “response PREVENTION”. Which also includes stopping ‘avoidance’ of certain situations (which is a compulsion).
- Date posted
- 6y
@Bob999 thank you for that, i’ve attempted but i can never do it i guess because of the fact that it scares me and no one is telling me too. but i’m going to try harder now so thank you for that!
- Date posted
- 6y
@Lark thank you, we will both get through it i know it just takes some people a long time sadly):
- Date posted
- 6y
@leah25 oh yes the mindfulness and ERP we did and it did help for some situations, but as some of my issues would go away, more would appear and id still be left with bad ocd if that makes sense. but I can’t remember Acceptance and commitment therapy. what is that?
- Date posted
- 6y
Prozac worked well for me I know everyone is different
Related posts
- Date posted
- 19w
I had OCD earlier in life, but it came and gone. For the last 4.5 it's been one thing after another, though. Today I felt especially grossed out by my POCD and I feellike I'm losing last hope that I had. I hate to sound awfully dramatic, but I want to clarify things a little bit and ask for advice. So I've been taking antidepressants up until some point, had a break and then started taking them again. In the beginning of this month, I finally finished that second course. This time it lasted 1.5 years. It's important to note that for the last half year I was pretty proactive in finding solutions to my ocd, finding new methods and reading articles. It probably did help, but mostly in short-term. Today I felt like my symptoms (it's mainly groinal response) were scaringly prominent and it made me really depressed. Do I have to start all over? It never got good enough in the first place, so I'm not even sure if it's possible to cure. I admit I might've not been pushing myself enough to do the scariest possible things, but that doesn't mean I didn't do ERP. Now, to the venting part. I'm not sure if anything really helped: if I'm relaxed it's probably just a matter of good mood. I'm anxious when going outside. I feel like I don't deserve friends because of my "dirty" secret -- I feel incredibly ashamed for groinal sensations. There were times when I'm sure it wasn't a phantom feeling, but a real one I caused. But I can't undo anything, so it has to stay with me. My family really loves me, so of course killing myself was never an option. But I still hate myself. I'm too tired to keep on fighting with OCD and bearing the burden of those very shameful events is too hard. What do I do? Maybe I'm just not adapted to living without antidepressants, so I'm being too emotional and all I should do is continue doing ERP. But my point is that I'm too exhausted. Thank you for reading. I see many here have a similar problem, I hope you're staying strong. I'd love to help you all, but I'm afraid that right now I'm not suit for giving out good life advice
- Date posted
- 19w
My theme is suicidal OCD. I’ve been doing ERP since last year November and the overall intensity of my thoughts have not reduced at all. I have these thoughts 24/7 and my life feels like a living hell. Not two minutes goes by throughout the day where I’m not suffering from relentless thoughts. I don’t want to take meds because of the side effects and my insurance is coming to an end so it’d be difficult to ween off them by myself. I’m starting to feel so hopeless because I’ve done the toughest of the toughest exposures and I’m not getting better at all. My life is a living hell and I don’t see my condition with OCD getting better anytime sooner.
- Date posted
- 18w
So I just started Zoloft 25mg almost a month ago and I’m still experiencing extreme panic and intrusive thoughts. It’s not fun, I genuinely just always think there’s no way I’ll “make it through life” living like this. And I’ve felt like this for four years straight I feel like recently it’s gotten a lot worse. Even when I feel like my brain is alittle quieter I was so obsessed w ocd that I just go right back to thinking abt it and scaring myself. Also I did ERP hated it I just started ICBT and I kinda like it. But when anyone else gets thought spirals and freaks out and has extreme panic do they have thoughts like they need to be admitted to a mental hospital and smth is seriously wrong with them? Bc the panic that comes with the ocd makes it feel soooo real and debilitating
Be a part of the largest OCD Community
Share your thoughts so the Community can respond