ERP

When I first started doing ERP, it did get more difficult for a small period. The idea of ERP is to sit with the anxiety rather than do something to neutralize it, so by nature, you're going to feel more anxious at first. But I promise, the anxiety you feeo from ERP is so much better than the suffering that happens when OCD is controlling your life

I don’t think I got a lot of real relief from my OCD right when I started ERP. It took consistency, vulnerability, and patience to start getting relief. Over weeks, I started to notice the differences in how I responded to situations, and how I implemented what I learned in ERP into real life situations. Although it was really challenging, especially in the beginning, I’m incredibly grateful I didn’t give up. In regards to my OCD, I have much more mental freedom than I did prior to therapy. I hope this helps!

This may seem obvious, but it took me awhile to catch it. My intrusive thoughts also got worse, but I was actually ruminating. When I did erp it would bring up more anxious thoughts, but instead of allowing and accepting the new thoughts/ anxious feelings, I would tell myself “oh don’t worry this is your ocd”. In other words I was reassuring myself. So yes, the whole point of ERP is to give you practice with doing nothing to alleviate the distress. My anxiety got worse because I would be in my head ruminating. Be careful to do the “response prevention” part of the ERP. Once I stopped the rumination I was shocked how quickly the anxiety abated.

Good advice!

Very common!

It gets worse before better! I’m seeing the most amazing and rewarding results but it took a couple of months