How do you manage anxiety while practicing ERP without reinforcing doubts?

If ur doing erp u have to sit with uncertainty tell yourself maybe maybe not and when ur barely starting do small triggers then work ur way up

When u find a girl attractive say maybe it’s true maybe it’s not same when u find a boy attractive

Remember it’s not our fault ,ocd is a sickness it makes us obsess over certain things weather the thoughts are true or not it’s not our fault remember remain uncertain it may be hard at first but it gets easier

the thing about OCD is that it’s impossible to know for sure if your thoughts or memories are real or not. in the case of false memory OCD, the more the person fixates on them, the more their brain may fill in these false memories with even more false information, further convincing themselves they are guilty of things they haven’t done. Furthermore, even though behaviours aimed at feeling more certain of one’s memory (e.g., repeated checking) might seem to increase confidence in memory accuracy, research actually shows the opposite: these behaviors actually decrease one’s confidence in their memory (Cuttler & Graf, 2009).  you need to let go of the idea that you know what is true about yourself because unfortunately OCD will never let you have that luxury. the more you fight back against it, the worse it gets. let yourself become comfortable with the idea that you ‘may or may not…’ whilst also understanding that the reason you do not know the answer is because you have OCD; the doubt disorder.

OCD is a disorder of uncertainty. The stress results in a host of behaviors or obsessive thoughts. If we have an internal problem you bet your butt we will be in some other arena going hard. It's mostly always seeking to control. Control is an illusion and therefore the cycle continues.

For me when I would get a thought that would make me uncomfortable I’d say to myself “ok this makes me anxious” I will be mindful that I’m anxious that the thoughts are in my head and they make me feel the way I’m feeling. I do not jump to try to comfort myself and protect myself from these thoughts. I’d used to find explanations for thoughts in an effort to make myself feel better but that was just another form of reassurance and it’s true that that never helps bc it never helped me. Being mindful and sitting with that uncomfortableness is the only thing that helped me started to recover