Plz I need ANSWERS GUYS WHAT DOES IT MEAN IF THE THOUGHT DOESNT BOTHER ME ANYMORE I RLLY DONT THINK ITS “RECOVERING” BC U CANT RECOVER JUST IN SECONDS U HAVE TO DO ERP THERAPY IM DO CONFUSED HELP

I keep getting these horrible feelings come back that make me feel down or like my life isn’t the same. It feels almost like someone is holding you over the edge of a cliff and sometimes they pull you back and you feel safe and the next minute they dangle you back over and you feel like there is a big problem again. I feel like I can’t forget how it felt it made me feel like I’m actually evil and I wanted it and enjoyed it and I can’t be normal now. I feel like I don’t even know what I want. I try to forget and be normal but when I do it feels like how do I know I don’t actually want to be evil because it felt like that? And now it feels like what if that’s my true nature and I’m denying it and that makes me feel like well if I’m debating about whether I am or not maybe I actually do want it? I try to live normally but I can’t because I have ‘this’ problem. The thoughts were about stabbing and it felt like it was actually about to happen and I got this weird feeling that felt like I was suddenly really happy about it and discovered why evil people enjoy doing evil things and now I can’t get over that feeling emotion?? Because now I’m thinking how can I forget it felt like that?? And that feeling must still be there I’m jsut not looking for it like maybe if I sat there imagining those thoughts again maybe that feeling would come back ?? I don’t know what to do or who I am I don’t even know if I’m sad or if I’m worried or if I’m good or if I wanted that bad thing but that feeling has really affected me like I don’t know if I want to he evil or not and now I’m worried maybe I was impressed by that feeling what if I want that feeling again because it feels good what if because I felt like I was happy or enjoyed it now I want that again I’m so confused ?? What if evil people enjoy it and I’ve realised why they enjoy it and now I want that feeling again? I don’t know what to do

So I’ve noticed that my OCD has calmed down, I’m getting less intrusive thoughts but I feel more uncertain than ever. Is this normal for recovery?

I had just posted a summary of ERP for a group member, and I thought it might be useful for everybody. Here it is below (with a little extra added)…. ERP therapy is researched-based. Most other therapies don’t work. There have been people who have been literally stuck in their houses (from their OCD) who gained their lives back through ERP therapy. NOCD does ERP therapy exclusively. You can find it in other places too, but you have to ask around. There are two tenants of ERP therapy: The first one has to do with the repetitive thoughts inside our heads. These thoughts are actually defined as “obsessions”. You are not supposed to do anything with the obsessions. You are supposed to let them run through your head freely, without trying to fix them or stop them. Imagine a tree planted by a river. The leaves fall off and float down the river. You can see the leaves falling, but you don’t try to stop them or pick them up. You don’t try to fix them. You just let them float away. This is really important to do with your obsessive thoughts. The more you try to fight them off, the worse they get. I used to have blasphemous sentences running in my head 24/7. I felt like I had to put a “not” next to each sentence in order to “fix” it. But this just took hours of my time every day, and it was very scary, because I was worried that if I messed up, that I would go to hell. It was very freeing to learn later that I could just let those sentences run freely through my head without trying to fix them. The second part of ERP therapy is all about “denying your compulsions.” Every time OCD tells you that if you don’t do things a certain way that something really bad will happen, that is a compulsion. Once you recognize what your compulsions are, ERP therapy will have you practice stopping doing all of those things. For some people, that will mean stopping washing their hands or touching lights switches or, in my case, putting “fixing” words in their head. Compulsions are safety behaviors. During ERP therapy, you will practice stopping engaging with safety behaviors. All this is very hard to do and scary, so during therapy you will be given tools to help you deal with the fear. Often ERP therapy will take people from being non-functional to functional. I highly recommend it. ————————————————- PITFALL #1: After you have been doing ERP for a while and become somewhat successful, the OCD will try subtle little tricks to bring you down again. The first one is to tell you that your thoughts are REAL and not OCD, and therefore you can’t apply ERP therapy. Don’t fall for this trick! All thoughts are just thoughts. They are all meaningless. Don’t try to figure out what is real and what is OCD. Just treat all thoughts with ERP therapy. PITFALL #2: The second pitfall is that OCD will tell you that you can’t move forward unless you have absolute certainty that you will be safe. Hate to tell you this, folks, but there is no certainty in life. You will never know for SURE that you or your loved ones will be “safe” from the OCD rules. Therefore, you have to move forward in the uncertainty. It’s hard, but it gets easier with time and practice. We got this, guys !!!!!!