i told my therapist about erps i could try and do (like her bringing a knife or scissors or a lighter next time i see her) and she thinks it’s a good idea, but now i’m having anxiety about when she actually brings them 😭 i’m scared i might act out on intrusive thoughts and hurt her. is this normal? like is it normal to feel anxious when you know you’re going to do an erp 😭
💯 normal, you can do it 💪
I can relate as I do most of the cooking at home. In defiance of my ocd thoughts I had to handle knives and other sharp utensils. I used the same defiance when driving. I live according to my values that I would not harm myself or anyone around me. I don’t know how long it took to overcome it but I did it and so can you.
The anticipation is a killer. I had ocd where I feared knife's. I ended accidentally getting a job in a kitchen with huge knives. It was very hard but eventually the anxiety started depleting. It took about 3 full days of work to be kind of OK with it
I am sorry that you are having anxiety but it is to be expected. You are going ti face a fear that has crippled you and you should be proud of yourself. This is not easy work and you are willing to do it. You will find the more you do the exposures the easier it will become. That is not to say it will disappear but the anxiety lessens. Having said that you can always feel free to share your anxiety with your therapist so that the therapist can make a judgment if perhaps it is too high level an exposure at the moment. Be gentle with yourself and know that we have all been there - and you are doing good work. Wishing you all the best success.
I Threw Every Single Knife I Own in the Garbage, it makes Me Feel much more Comfortable…
It's very scary to think about confronting a fear like that! I experienced Harm OCD and I understand the weight of that. You can do this!
That was a great conversation to have with your therapist! You are brave! You can do this. Try to sit with your fears you are having. One helpful thing I did in ERP was writing down all my intrusive thoughts, for a day, then you can look at them and understand what I’m doing, like if I know I don’t want to do something bad, why was I believing the doubt and not myself? ERP is scary to do! It’s ok to feel nervous.
So I’m starting therapy this week but I’ve been trying to use ERP myself, my main compulsion is rumination which I wasn’t even aware was a compulsion. I’m trying to do ERP but when I focus on observing the thought it goes, I dunno if I’m focusing too much on actually how to follow ERP or is this normal? I feel like I might be subconsciously blocking thoughts because I know how bad it is when I go down the rabbit hole, but then I also worry that the anxiety goes too quickly and that I’m finding it too easy to ignore the thought?
I’m not sure if anyone has had this fear, but i’m worried that if i actually get better with erp and face my harm ocd that one day the thought of hurting others won’t scare me anymore. Has anyone else had this fear?
I’ve officially given my therapist some of the thoughts I get from POCD and I don’t really know where to start with how im “supposed” to expose myself to them?? There’s also something I didn’t mention to her that I didn’t feel comfortable sharing and I should I have but it was already late in the session so I didn’t. Should I just wait til she assigns me the exposures and then do them?
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