Breathe

I was just thinking about how OCD tries to be tricky and switches themes on us!! The amount of times I have said to myself in the past, IF ONLY I HAD THE OLDER THEME I USE TO WORRY ABOUT BECAUSE THIS NEW ONE IS SO MUCH WORSE!!! Has anyone ever experienced this before? Once I started ERP therapy, I began to really start understanding what mental/physical compulsions I was doing to really keep my OCD alive! While I did this, I would also tap into my self-compassion bucket, even when it felt like it was dry at times, because it was SO easy to judge myself for because of the sheer presence of my thoughts. I would also have the most self-compassion for myself for those taboo intrusive thoughts that really felt so strong, ego-dystonic and real!!! My OCD would hop around from theme to theme and just when I thought I figured it out (compulsion) it would hop again and make me discouraged! I noticed for me that once I really understood my compulsions, it didn't matter when the theme switched as I could tackle it at its core. If I was able to stay steadfast and resist compulsions the best I could, I started to notice that my CONFIDENCE increased in the long run! I also noticed that some of the core fears were the same for different OCD subtypes. OCD treatment is hard BUT living with OCD is harder. I have experienced subtypes including Harm OCD, ROCD, Moral Scrupulosity, Sensorimotor, Contamination, Perfectionism/Just Right, Hit and Run, Magical Thinking, Real Event/False Memory. ERP therapy allowed me to really work on stopping these compulsions and switching from theme to theme. I was fed up with what OCD took from me and I needed to do something about it. I talked to an ERP therapist and it was one of the best decisions of my life. If you are struggling, keep pushing and get the help you deserve!! You got this!!!

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 !!!!!!

Ever since starting ERP, my SO-OCD and general OCD has lowered. This has been great. I just wanted to have somewhere to share my thoughts and ask questions. For anyone else, have you realized that the SO-OCD and other forms of OCD are all rooted in what people have said in the past that I hadn’t processed, and up to this point believed hadn’t affected me. It was also odd because to me, I had never had a problem questioning my sexuality, even labeling myself as queer. However, this fear plagued my thoughts whether or not I decided to identity as straight, lesbian, bisexual, etc. It was so weird to me because it felt so foreign to how I’ve always been. I hated the guilt I felt over possibly being in denial or in the closet, over being homophobic, and all of that would just lead to constant stress and spiral. I felt so bad dating or being with my friends, on the off chance I was using them or going to cross lines. Progress isn’t linear, but I definetly feel so much better shedding the random fear I had of expressing affection towards my friends or of “using guys” to prove I was straight. Most of the time, I find that the stress comes from something really real. Like my past experiences with an old friend that I had or just not liking the guy I was dating and not wanting to lead him on. Being able to discern the OCD thoughts and stress from regular stress has been like a breath of fresh air.