Hey all, I was wondering on what it looks like to you to accept your anxiety and let the intrusive thoughts flow? I’ve heard this a lot but to me this prolongs my anxiety. For context I’m struggling with intrusive thoughts of beastiality and wanting to go watch it and it’s giving me high anxiety, I’m trying to accept it but I feel like it’s prolonging the anxiety.

I've been told a lot that in order to get better, we need to tolerate uncertainty, which yea I get that and I'm trying every day more and more to reach that point!! But I've also been told that we need to tolerate uncertainty AND "our worst fears becoming true". Like how does that work, especially with POCD, OCD about a///ault, SA and all of that? Like that is really difficult for me and I don't really understand how I'm supposed to just shrug stuff like that off

So my therapist told me to start telling myself every time I have an intrusive thought just say oh there’s that thought again, and don’t try to figure it out or do mental compulsions. Well our usual tactic of “there’s that thought/feeling again” is not working at all this morning. This morning I was having really bad anxiety, it hits hardest in the morning when I am lying in bed with my son and I know the thoughts could come at any minute. Well they did, and I immediately was like no please just think of anything else. Well in pushing away the thoughts, I had this really weird feeling like I couldn’t decipher between reality and images. I was just getting flashes of images that felt so real. Even though I could physically feel my body and know I wasnt engaging in the thought or acting on it. It was like a flash of anxiety that hit and I couldn’t tell what was real and wasn’t. So of course my mind starts trying to figure that feeling out and if what I was thinking about just happened. And no matter how many times I’ve tried to say there’s that thought/feeling again, I can’t let it go. I was physically conscious and could feel my body but mentally I couldn’t. It’s so weird and hard to explain. But I’ve been doubting and second guessing that moment all morning and I’m in a bad spiral, again. 😭 it’s like every time I think I’m moving forward I get sucked back in and feel like I can’t practice my tools anymore. I don’t know what I should do 😩

Does anyone have advice on how to better manage this? I know we're not supposed to engage with intrusive thoughts, but it's hard not to when they feel so real. Sometimes, I get the most disturbing images (won't go into specifics obviously, but just super wrong, disturbing and gross stuff) relating to POCD that trigger physical arousal (like erections), even though I feel disgusted and scared by them. The arousal feels the same to normal sexual arousal, and a lot of the times even stronger than normal arousal, which makes it more confusing and upsetting. It feels like it's gotten worse lately, and that it use to feel more dull and less real in the past, but now it feels so much more intense even super real. I’ve also had a history of excessive porn use, including weird or taboo content (nothing illegal), which makes me worry I’ve somehow conditioned my brain to respond to anything taboo. That thought really scares me and makes me question my morality, especially since I sometimes felt bad about it even while watching. Sometimes my brain somehow manages to convince me that I actually like the thoughts, too. I hate the thoughts and don't WANT to engage with them, but the physical sensations make everything feel more "real," and that terrifies me. I also feel guilty trying to ignore it, like I'm avoiding the truth or letting myself off the hook. The anxiety is constant and overwhelming, and I feel so lost. If anyone has advice on how to cope with this and learn to be able to better ignore it/not assign any meaning to it, I'd greatly appreciate it.