This week for exposures I have been looking at photos of women in lingerie/bathing suits. I am using my tools of naming thoughts, feels and sensations that come up during the exercise. I don't know if the sensations I have are actually anxiety or attraction. How can I know? How can I continue to do these exposures without having that worry or questioning what it means?? Any feedback or advice is appreciated.
Sometimes we are so scared of something being true that we even took our "emotions" as a confirmation of that being true "oh I feel anxiety omg It means that i like him" and we became scared to feeling it, causing more bad emotions... and more spiraling :( For me, it was "maybe I don't love my bf", and I was super scared by that. I started ocd compulsion (mine were mostly mentals) and I kept analysing and searching proof that I liked him. I started analysing every feeling that I felt, and having intrusive thoughts. Thoose lead to anxiety, that lead to even more intrusive toughts, guilty feelings, urges, more anxiety, more toughts more compulsion. It went even worse when I started to feel only anxiety and sad feelings all day. I know I loved him, but "what if"... Starting healing process, it was hard and a rollercoaster, but things started to get better too! I learned that to make anxiety go away (in order to feel anything else) I didn't had to accept it neither to fight it, but simply feel it. Same with toughts, I had to let them be there, without accepting nor fighting them. I did a lot of therapy and erp uh, but after some months I was able to manage the majority of them!
This erp is going great! 😁 A crucial point of healing ocd is embracing the unknown!
@Saraa How do you embrace the unknow? Is that still part of the the narrating? Like "maybe it is maybe it's not"? And then will the sensations or anxiety go away or it just won't be as loud? Still new to all of this!
@Fiona980 In the hard way, feeling it😅 Erp is usefull, because it will make you "feel the discomfort" that you "fear" in a way that is constructive for you! A problem of us with ocd is accepting the possibility of something being true, so we end up spiraling searching for confirmations! But thoose proof aren't 100% sure and we keep find proof for both the options, so we keep searching and spiraling even worse! We need to learn to "sit with the discomfort of doesn't knowing" without following any ocd compulsion (phisical and mental)! Answering yourself "maybe it is, maybe not" it's a good way of doing it, yes!
Anxiety will go away when you will be not scared anymore to feel it. (Don't worry if you can't do it right now, it takes time and efforts!) Thoughts will stay, but they will not bother you anymore as they are doing now
@Saraa Thank you so much for your replies!! I had similar thoughts with my BF that started 2 years ago and lead to analyzing if I found him attracted and if I was aroused by him. This lead to checking attraction and arousal to women and lead to a spiral! I read about ROCD and SOOCD and realized it was a thing. I've been in therapy since March and hoping to cut back soon. :)
@Fiona980 Good luck!😁😁
I have just recently realized that I had SO OCD. This began whenever I was watching porn and had an intrusive thought about the guy in the porn. It was more minor at first, it was a majority of what I was thinking about throughout the day but it didn’t feel as distressing at first. If I had downtime to think about it, it would affect me but if I was just going about my day I wouldn’t notice it. I began going through the compulsions of checking myself. This lasted for a while until another obsession occurred. Then it seemed as if my SO OCD took a step back. I would have flare ups but they would seem to pass. Recently, I had a very bad night of constant compulsions and looking at pictures and imagining things to check myself. After that night it was very distressing, it affected me to the point where people around me began to notice and ask me if I was okay. One of the big reasons I was so upset was my girlfriend, we have been together for over 3 years and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I was thinking “Oh my god, if I am gay I can never be with her.” I would sit and cry about it thinking I would lose her and that might life would change because I was gay. I finally had enough and talked to her and my parents. We did some research and I was so shocked to find out that I had a form of OCD, it was like a weight being lifted off my shoulders just knowing that other people have been where I am and that I’m not gay. However, I may have naively expected the compulsions and obsessive thoughts to go away now that I knew I had an actual problem. But I found that the compulsions and thoughts were still there and I was going to put some effort into getting better. I have researched and now know what to do when experiencing intrusive thoughts, yet I still have been performing the compulsions which is just feeding into the OCD. I find myself having intrusive thoughts and then start performing compulsions to see if they are true. What really bothers me is when I have an intrusive thought that tells me that I do like something. But when I think about it I have no desire to pursue those thoughts. However when I feed into the compulsions they just seem to feed into each other. It is like my OCD ignores all the things that I know I like and goes straight to panic mode. I am also trying to do ERP and am going to start doing my best to get better. Does anyone have any tips for not performing the compulsions no matter how anxious you are feeling and no matter how real the intrusive thoughts seem to feel?
How long should I do ERP, so that my brain gets used to it, not to say tired?! I've been working for about three months, but everything still seems vivid in my head, there are even vulgar words in detail... since the sexual topic is both a groinal and a feeling that I want to touch myself. It's mostly related to faces and genitals, so how exactly can that go, if it's emphasized that sex pictures in themselves give that feeling, whoever is in them?
I am doing ERP by my own because I can’t afford therapy. I exposed myself to babies photos online, changing diapers videos, baby genitalia . All was done with google . I honestly feel like I am predator by viewing these photos even though they are just babies. I seen also a picture on research article of a female patient she is a minor and they have done sexual abuse check on her . The image was so triggering, it was literally a vagina. ℹ developed lots if obsessions with increased groinal responses. And now I fear that I enjoyed all what I have seen.
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