Has anyone ever had a compulsion in the middle of erp? As I’ve said before adult sites are a form of erp for my taboo sexual ocd. Tonight while doing erp I got an intrusive thought and followed through with a compulsion before I even realized it. The site had opened side sites, like those clickbait add things, but it was for adult stuff. The people it showed definitely didn’t look old enough to be doing anything of the sort. It can be so hard to tell these days but I’m really freaking out because what if they were underage? Or am I just letting my ocd control my thoughts?

I understand that thought process to be honest. I have it too and it's gotten so bad to the point where I'll avoid adult sites all together.

The gosl of ERP is to practice response prevention. So if you find yourself doing compulsions during or right after, then its probably a good idea to pick an exposure a little lower on your hiarachy, or reduce the amount of time with the trigger. Its all a learning process and sometimes we go to big to fast. Whats imlortant is to recgonize it and adjust. Try different, not harder. Build small wins, they become the foundation to create more.

Sometimes we mess up and a compulsion slips by almost without us realizing. Once you realize though, you have a choice: you can reexpose yourself to the trigger and try again to resist, or let it go for now and try again later. I usually go for trying again right then. ERP isn’t erp without the RP part. You have to resist the compulsion for it to actually be helpful. Otherwise you’re just exposing yourself for no reason.