Is it normal to feel anxious about upcoming exposure response prevention (ERP) tasks?

💯 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.