Ideas for ERP exercises?

Hi thank you so much for sharing. Yeah, my experience is similar. I have rules like this too! But most of the time I don't feel very anxious about these thoughts. As you said imagining romantic scenarios can be fun. The thing is that I almost can't think of anything else. And how do you stop yourself from questioning if you have feelings for them? Sometimes I even catch myself flirting with them and seeking physical nearness to test myself. And to test them because of course my brain would be pissed to know that not everyone is in love with me

I have this happen a LOT. When I was young, with friends, when I was older with relationships and often I feel like someone - who is often the person I’m obsessed about - is “watching” me and I have to prove myself to them… I do things like look at pictures of them or their name and situations that are upsetting and let myself get really triggered. (If it’s a memory, I replay the memory a billion times; if it’s a phrase, I wrote it down a million times to desensitize; if it’s a possible scenario, I write a worst case scenario and then read that a bunch). I keep a “triggered scale” (starting at whatever number I feel I am at anxiety wise) and when I get to half that number, I put it away and try to start doing something else. Get on with my day even though I sometimes feel kinda shitty. I also set boundaries for myself with that person. Like “no text after 11pm”, “wait X min to text back” or “do not talk to them about X” so I keep some space between myself and the person. And if I have a lot of thoughts about them, I try to tell myself “okay that’s just a thought” and move on. Try to not give that thought the momentum to become something important in my head where it knows I’ll be a good trigger. Plus, your brain can think about whatever! No biggie. I found out when I’m not super busy, I think about romance and such as a “for fun” thing sometimes. So it’s not actually always an OCD thing till you assign worth to the thought. So I just accept the thought as a thought. I’m NOT got at this stuff, but this is what I’m doing!! I hope it helps!:)

Well, if you keep telling yourself that those thoughts and the amount is “bad” and start ruminating on how much you want those thoughts to go away, your brain will say “oooo that’s important!!” and latch on. The more you tell yourself to NOT think of the giant pink elephant in the room, … well, now what are you thinking of? The more you think of it! So I’ll try to tell my brain “ok I need to do something else” and as I’m doing the other things, as those thoughts come up, I say “okay those are thoughts” and then redirect myself back to what I’m doing. It’s hard and it sometimes feels futile, but you keep telling the crying toddler in your head “okay, thank you” and redirecting your attention to what you WANT (or need!) to do!