First ERP session today!

I've been in and out of talk therapy for OCD-related issues for years, but it hasn't been effective long-term. I am struggling with body image / eating disorder adjacent obsessions and I am really hopeful that ERP might actually give me some relief. I had my first session with my NOCD therapist a few weeks ago. It felt like a good match and I was ready to unpack my obsessions and compulsions to try ERP for the first time. The day of my second session she canceled due to personal illness. Then this happened a second time. Yesterday all of my future booked sessions were canceled without explanation. I went to schedule with a new therapist and the ones that seemed could be a good fit are filled up until at least early April. I booked a slot and sent the therapist a message letting her know I would be interested in starting sooner if a slot opened up. I am just disappointed. I could just meet with another therapist who has earlier availability, but it's most important to me that the therapist be a good fit since I've been through therapy so many times. I feel like I'm in limbo until I have an ERP plan set up and I'm not sure how to move forward in the meantime. I'm planning try out a support group but I need a personalized exposure plan and I'm not sure if that's something I should just try to set up myself? Anyone have something similar happen to them? Any thoughts or advice would be helpful.

Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) isn't always easy, but as one of the most effective treatments for OCD, it's worth it. If you've started ERP, what has been the biggest surprise you've experienced in learning to resist compulsions? If you haven't started ERP yet, what is holding you back from starting?

I had just posted a summary of ERP for a group member, and I thought it might be useful for everybody. Here it is below (with a little extra added)…. ERP therapy is researched-based. Most other therapies don’t work. There have been people who have been literally stuck in their houses (from their OCD) who gained their lives back through ERP therapy. NOCD does ERP therapy exclusively. You can find it in other places too, but you have to ask around. There are two tenants of ERP therapy: The first one has to do with the repetitive thoughts inside our heads. These thoughts are actually defined as “obsessions”. You are not supposed to do anything with the obsessions. You are supposed to let them run through your head freely, without trying to fix them or stop them. Imagine a tree planted by a river. The leaves fall off and float down the river. You can see the leaves falling, but you don’t try to stop them or pick them up. You don’t try to fix them. You just let them float away. This is really important to do with your obsessive thoughts. The more you try to fight them off, the worse they get. I used to have blasphemous sentences running in my head 24/7. I felt like I had to put a “not” next to each sentence in order to “fix” it. But this just took hours of my time every day, and it was very scary, because I was worried that if I messed up, that I would go to hell. It was very freeing to learn later that I could just let those sentences run freely through my head without trying to fix them. The second part of ERP therapy is all about “denying your compulsions.” Every time OCD tells you that if you don’t do things a certain way that something really bad will happen, that is a compulsion. Once you recognize what your compulsions are, ERP therapy will have you practice stopping doing all of those things. For some people, that will mean stopping washing their hands or touching lights switches or, in my case, putting “fixing” words in their head. Compulsions are safety behaviors. During ERP therapy, you will practice stopping engaging with safety behaviors. All this is very hard to do and scary, so during therapy you will be given tools to help you deal with the fear. Often ERP therapy will take people from being non-functional to functional. I highly recommend it. ————————————————- PITFALL #1: After you have been doing ERP for a while and become somewhat successful, the OCD will try subtle little tricks to bring you down again. The first one is to tell you that your thoughts are REAL and not OCD, and therefore you can’t apply ERP therapy. Don’t fall for this trick! All thoughts are just thoughts. They are all meaningless. Don’t try to figure out what is real and what is OCD. Just treat all thoughts with ERP therapy. PITFALL #2: The second pitfall is that OCD will tell you that you can’t move forward unless you have absolute certainty that you will be safe. Hate to tell you this, folks, but there is no certainty in life. You will never know for SURE that you or your loved ones will be “safe” from the OCD rules. Therefore, you have to move forward in the uncertainty. It’s hard, but it gets easier with time and practice. We got this, guys !!!!!!