Constantly facing my exposures, please help

I have my exposure hierarchy. Thing is, I have to face a lot of my high distress exposures daily l. My triggers are seeing any type of mark on my 1yo son’s skin. Ofc I see things everyday (birthmarks, bruises, change in pigmentation (yes I see even the subtlest of changes), etc and then ponder what if this mark represents a serious health condition of which I fear)zz i face these triggers daily when I change his clothes, nappy, bathe him, and have him in shorts/shirts/topless. I look at his skin so much and touch it that now he swats my hands away and says no. He even lifts up our shirts to look at our tummies and points to blemishes we have. I feel terrible! I don’t want to give him some type of insecurity or ocd tendencies about skin too! If I’m not in close inspecting, then I’m ruminating and glancing at it. So I’m faced with my exposures all day every day, despite my hierarchy. What do I do, how do I go about this successfully!? I’m otherwise doing these compulsions for hours on end.

Anoymous

Date posted: 2y

It sounds like you’re exposed to the triggers all the time but what about the “response prevention”?

divyD

Date posted: 2y

@Aaanonymous Yeah that’s exactly what I mean, in a very round about way lol. I’m not doing a very good job of the response prevention. I feel my exposures are too frequent for me to do so in a planned and calm way. I’m giving in to my compulsions, especially ruminating, on an endless loop. And if I cover up his skin or change him in a dim room, then I feel like I’m avoiding. Each time I check, I doubt what I’ve seen, or see something else, and I say I’ll just look one more time, just one more time to be sure.

🚀

Date posted: 2y

@divyD What if you start by telling yourself you will only look for blemishes once a week a specific time on a specific day? And other than that you’re not going to give it any attention until that time

🚀

Date posted: 2y

@🚀 And then focus on enjoying time and playing with your baby

Anoymous

Date posted: 2y

@divyD Gotcha, and I think maybe I now understand what you mean by the exposure being too frequent. When I visit my family and stay with them everything is basically a trigger, it feels like chaos in my mind. I really like the suggestion made above if there is no hierarchy of triggers within your theme. Maybe there is another way to scale back, that maybe you’ll find motivation for that since you’re growing concern about what your baby may be learning from the compulsions. So could you prevent the compulsion touching the spot to inspect further and only observe?

divyD

Date posted: 2y

@🚀 Thank you for this great piece of advice. I’ve been telling myself I will plan a time in a few days to do this… do this an a planned exposure not an excuse to check his skin. Fingers crossed!

divyD

Date posted: 2y

@Aaanonymous That sucks about being triggered by your family. I hope you’re working through this ok. I like that suggestion too and am going to employ it. I really like your idea aswell! Today I had many moments of distress but I only gave in to my compulsion to check his skin 3 times today. This is a vast improvement! My other compulsions related to this weakened as a result too. Indeed I did do some avoidance in the evening but I’m trying to be gentle with myself. When I had an urge to check I said myself to keep doing what I’m doing or just wait, put it off. Wwhen I felt idle and vulnerable, I decided to tickle and make my son laugh. How was your day?

Anoymous

Date posted: 2y

@divyD Admittedly I’m struggling a lot lately, it was better for a couple of years. Thanks for asking, I’m still hopeful for all of us, despite being very tired, and not always seeing a clear/linear path forward.

learningtore...

Date posted: 25w

Multiple Exposure Therapy???

Does anyone else have compulsions that mix in with each other and you have to end up picking what one makes you LESS scared or uncomfortable but it’s still overwhelming? Like rn I used all my hand towels, need to wash and dry them but no clean ones to dry hands with currently, a bath towel makes me feel like whatever was on my hair or body even after a shower is contaminated cause I don’t want it on my HANDS, but there’s one DRY and untouched towel but I think it’s contaminated by something else so I’m too scared to use it…. What do you do in this situation? It happens a lot when they intertwine and I dunno what to do ….. also what one is more or less valid…which one would help me more in the future. Regardless I’m sitting here thinking I have bleach or another chemical on my hands cause at the time I decided to dry my hands with the hair towel…

Young adults with OCD

hulder

Date posted: 23w

Diaper Check

Started therapy recently and I feel like I’ve gone from being triggered every few days to every few hours. It’s like, I can’t even get out of bed for an hour before something new happens. I’m a stay at home dad with a 2 year old. This morning, I hesitated checking his diaper by patting him, just because any sort of touching in his diaper area makes me anxious or causes intrusive thoughts. But, I did it anyway, only for my brain to then go, “His diaper is always wet in the morning, why did you need to check?” I have this huge fear of accidentally doing something inappropriate or harmful, so any kind of touching, that isn’t completely necessary, feels harmful. At this point I’m just trying to survive between therapy sessions, but the risk of sitting with uncertainty with this theme, feels so strong and I feel so irresponsible by not trying to “figure it out”.

Freddy327

Date posted: 23w

Fear of not doing exposure and upsetting therapist

Hi! I was given exposure HW that I chose to do by my therapist but lately I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by it and thinking that maybe I need to start with an easier exposure. However I can only see my therapist every other week due to her schedule and I’m really having a hard time feeling like I’m not following the “rules” of therapy. I feel like she’s not going to help me if I don’t do the exposures and that I’m gonna be all alone again and have no where to turn. So, part of me was gonna just force myself to do the exposure to avoid feeling bad. I don’t want to let OCD run the show also by not doing the exposure…but also feeling like doing the exposure is not quite right either. Please if anyone can relate I could really use some help.

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Constantly facing my exposures, please help

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