You all have figured out looptapes are amazing by now, yes? If you have not hopped on the looptape wagon I highly suggest it. This was one of the key points to my recovery. Let me know if you have questions about how to make looptapes.
How do you do it ?
@ashsantana55 Go into the tools section of this app. Add an obsession and then add a looptape to the exercise. What you will want to do is, using the looptape tool, record yourself saying your fear as a “maybe” sentence. For example, if you are obsessing that maybe you cheated on your boyfriend when you were drunk, you would record, “maybe when I was drunk, I cheated on my boyfriend.” If there are more thoughts and fears that are attached to that you could say that first sentence and add something like “and maybe if he knew, he would leave me, and I would be a horrible person, and I wouldn’t deserve love.” Whatever the thoughts are. The looptape feature allows you to listen to it on repeat. I did this for 30 minutes a day for 1-2 weeks for each thought and they ALL went away with this technique. Same thing as any exposure exercise- you are sitting with the “maybe” and not doing any checking or trying to answer the question. Let me know if you have other questions.
@Maybe,MaybeNot Omg thank you sm
Can I get a text to speech voice to read out my script instead? I don't think I'm ready to bare my own voice with what I wrote.
@BigGip09 Sure friend, you don’t have to record it. You could write it down on paper or in this app too you can add scripts, and then you can either read it and over and over again or write it over and over again. I always did 30 minutes a day for 1-2 weeks until the thought would go away if it was a really stuck one.
@Maybe,MaybeNot When I do exposures, I don't feel the anxiety. Whenever I do feel anxiety, I attach facts to the feelings, which is very unhelpful for my well being and self esteem. I just haven't found a way to provoke that anxiety yet.
@BigGip09 Sorry it’s been a couple days- how are you doing? If you’re not getting anxiety, there is a good chance the exposure just isn’t that triggering. If we are truly facing our fears and not doing compulsions, our anxiety should go down.
@Maybe,MaybeNot It's alright. I'm not doing that well right now, though I was doing pretty good earlier tonight. I seem to be okay, but it feels like I can always be better. I've been hyper focused on my breathing lately. Whether I'm breathing the right way, getting enough air, and if my lifestyle is helping my breathing. That's another thing that's been messing me up since this summer I got sick and it affected my breathing by a lot.
@BigGip09 Any exposures around this that have worked for you? Why does it matter what your breathing is like?
@Maybe,MaybeNot Because I think I have an anxiety disorder thanks to OCD. This summer I've gotten bad symptoms of some sort of cold. It was very hard to breathe during that period and it still kind of is because of anxiety.
@BigGip09 Sorry let me clarify- I guess I mean, why is it so important what the quality of your breathing is? Like what is your OCDs worst fear about it?
@Maybe,MaybeNot I don't know if it's tied to OCD, but I just don't want to go through the feeling of an anxiety attack, that's all. I just hate the anxiety that comes up
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 !!!!!!
Hi everyone. <3 was wondering if anyone with experience dealing with excoriation/skin-picking disorder has some tips or tricks that have particularly helped them. Came to NOCD this week for help - first timer that would really like to be able to wear a tank top again 😅🫠 I did join the BFRB support group but unfortunately will be on a night shift this week when it meets . Thank you in advance ❤️
Just a quick question how did you guys who have gotten better learn to accept these thoughts and not fight them ? What tips and tricks did you guys use to truly get better.
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