ERP??

Cant agreeing with your intrusive thoughts make them worse? Or make you believe it?? Like if my ROCD questions whether I love my bf, and I answer with “well maybe I don’t”, won’t I start believing it??? Or if I have negative self talk like “you’re so lazy”, and I agree, isn’t that harming my mental health? How can agreeing with intrusive thoughts actually be better? Or am I doing something wrong? Cause now I’m panicking that I’m doing it all wrong and getting worse.

JB1020

Date posted: 2y

Take a step back, take a few deep breaths. You're going to get through this! With ERP we don't "agree" with the thoughts. What we do is we learn to tolerate & dismiss them, let them pass us by without stoking anxiety. For that to happen, we need to become comfortable with uncertainty. Intrusive thoughts that really freak us out make us crave certainty - "proof" that those thoughts aren't really us, or that we don't believe them or would never act on them. But it's *impossible* to have 100% proof for such an intangible concept for the rest of our lives. So they continue to torment us. An analogy: I think of the intrusive thoughts as like a maze. It feels like we have to go through that maze to get to our more "normal"/stable mental states. My thought tells me I want to harm people and that freaks me out so I go off on this never-ending maze looking for definitive proof. It's a fool's errand. Instead, ERP teaches us to skip the maze by getting to the point where the thoughts don't bother us. I don't "agree" with them and say yes I want to murder people. I say things like "thoughts are just thoughts", "maybe, maybe not", "seems awfully unlikely", "actions are more important than thoughts", "I can tolerate intrusive thoughts", "well I haven't hurt anyone yet, and I don't have time for this". We aren't agreeing with the thoughts, we are agreeing that uncertainty exists. Rather than leading us to believe the thoughts, this method allows us to dismiss them b/c they bother us much less - we skip the maze!

User type: Therapist

Date posted: 2y

You said this so well! Have you ever considered writing an article about it, or participating in peer support? Or even becoming an OCD therapist?

Anonymous

User type: Staff

Date posted: 2y

I know that it may sound counterintuitive, but when you allow the thoughts, feelings, etc. to be present and don't engage with them (interact/try to solve) you are teaching your brain that these are just thoughts, feelings, etc. and that they don't have to "mean" anything. I really like this article about this:https://www.sheppardpratt.org/news-views/story/how-to-respond-to-unwanted-obsessive-thoughts/ I personally prefer the idea of agreeing with the "uncertain potential". This basically means that for anything that certainty is a myth, it is reasonable to say that if we can think it, imagine it, and picture it, the likelihood of it also being true about reality is something greater than 0%. It may not be much greater (for example, a herd of wild buffalo could come traipsing through my home at any given moment but probably won’t), but it is nonetheless something other than an impossibility. In other words, the possibility doesn't equal probability. Now it is also important that "doing ERP correctly or responding correctly" doesn't become a compulsion. The anxiety and distress should get worse before it gets better when you are doing ERP- but remember we are working towards long-term relief and management of OCD versus the short-term relief we feel when we complete a compulsion.

rhyanmich

Date posted: 24w

My compulsions don’t bring me relief

Does anyone else find that their compulsions actually make their OCD/obsession worse? I don’t mean in the obvious way, like that it strengthens the OCD cycle, I mean in the way that when I perform my compulsions, they make my anxiety so much worse in the moment. My main compulsions are ruminating, arguing with my thoughts, and memory reviewing, but they all just end up giving me more intrusive thoughts/questions, making my anxiety more intense, and making me think my intrusive thoughts are real. I’ve always read that you perform compulsions because they bring you relief, and I suppose for me, they more make me feel like I’m working towards “solving the issue” or “answering my question”, so then is that my version of “relief”? In reality, it just makes my anxiety worse because the more I ruminate/memory review, the more jumbled together and foggy my thoughts/memories become, which in turn makes me think that if I ruminate/memory review just a little more, I’ll be able to “push through that fog” and find my answer, which then also causes me anxiety because my brain feels foggy and hence makes completing my compulsions/figuring out my obsession impossible (which I guess is good because I’m not supposed to complete my compulsions). All of this is making me believe that I don’t have OCD and that my intrusive thoughts are true and that’s why I can’t shake them and that’s why I feel the need to figure them out and why I feel so foggy… Or is this just meta OCD playing it’s devious tricks on me? Has anyone else experienced this or is this not OCD and I should be concerned that my obsession is true?

TrustGod24

Date posted: 15w

ERP

I’m thinking about doing erp but my ocd is so severe the thought of accepting my fears happening to me makes me sick to my stomach. I also believe in the power of my words and saying I accept this Bad thing will attract it into my life. I’m not sure what I should do🥲

hbocd

Date posted: 14w

ERP Therapy

I read about ERP and have seen information about it on here. One of the goals is to say, "maybe I am this or that...ect." That terrified me. The thoughts and images that go in my head are disturbing and upsetting. I don't want to even think about saying, "maybe this or that." It's devasting to have these thoughts and question why you're having these thoughts. Doesn't the "maybe" make it worse? The one thing that helps me is that is to remind myself that these are just thoughts and I know I'm not a monster, even if I feel like one. Is ERP not for everyone? Has anyone else had a problem with the techniques used in this kind of therapy? I had cognitive therapy for years with an OCD specialist and that seemed to help a lot. Writing out the worst case scenarios would make me suicidal. Im having a difficult time not obsessing over the "maybe" after intrusive thoughts now. It doesn't make it better.

Be a part of the largest OCD Community

Share your thoughts so the Community can respond

ERP??

Related posts

Be a part of the largest OCD Community

Be a part of the largest OCD Community