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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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!
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- 6y
Thanks Leah and Bob super helpful!
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- 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
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- 6y
I felt slight nausea at first but that was the only side effect ! Feel better and good luck !
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- 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!
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- 6y
Bob999- any tips for situations where you actually got exposed to a major contaminant? I struggle with that.
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- 6y
The most important part of ERP is obviously the “response PREVENTION”. Which also includes stopping ‘avoidance’ of certain situations (which is a compulsion).
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- 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!
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- 6y
@Lark thank you, we will both get through it i know it just takes some people a long time sadly):
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- 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?
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- 6y
Prozac worked well for me I know everyone is different
Related posts
- Date posted
- 25w
Hi, I don’t know what to do anymore Pocd kills me I had many themes before but this theme is the hardest for me. I’m tired. I’m on therapy and meds but I barely do erp . I don’t have a reason I just don’t want to do it but today I will because I have to. I’m taking meds and they help with the anxiety for sure. But the obsessive part is still here . I’m almost 2 months on it (40 mg on Prozac) but I’m still super obsessed like I can have thoughts 24/7 every second of the day and not leave me alone. I have experienced a thought right now for a month + . It’s a thought to do compulsion/urge. My therapist says to let go and gives me tips how to she also tell me to do more erp. But I have this thought to do compulsion for more then month. Im scared what if I don’t have ocd the thought is 24/7. Do you think I should switch meds im so tired.
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- 25w
I feel like in some ways receiving a diagnosis for OCD has in some ways made things worse. I’ve always had what I called “phases” throughout life, which I now know were ocd episodes, but I didn’t really make too much of them and even if it was over several long difficult months, they’d always seem to kind of just pass. Recently I’ve begun my worse flare up in the last few years and now that I’m older I seemed professional help which led to my diagnosis. This all sounds great of course but I can’t actually afford therapy right now so I kinda just have the diagnosis but not the support so now that I realize these phases are actually this incurable mental illness I just feel like I’ve lost all hope that I’ll ever be happy and I feel like I basically obsess about obsessing at this point and it just sucks. Has anyone else had this or a similar experience?
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- 10w
Hello! What a journey this ocd thing is! After 17 years with one therapist, I knew I was no longer making progress, so I changed to a new therapist. After just 6 months with her, she suggested I might have ocd and to look into getting diagnosed. She was right and I was diagnosed with ocd last summer. Meds are making a big difference but I still have lots of unlearning and re-learning to do. I’ve been struggling with whether or not to switch to a therapist who specializes in ocd. I have no issues with my current therapist, but she doesn’t specialize in ocd and I sometimes think I need someone who does specialize in it. But of course, I have Pure O, so I can think myself in circles til the cows come home. Can anyone share experience about switching to a therapist who specializes in ocd?
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