Could use advice

All the time! POCD has made me absolutely guilt-ridden everytime I think that I could possibly enjoy anything like that. It’s maddening. You are not alone and it is truly OCD.

Yes! I was very triggered by social media. I changed my relationship to it. I realized I used it as a distraction or reassurance tool for a long time. Once that wasn’t a possibility I was uninterested in it almost completely. It’s now a tool for business, connection or exposure. You could put this in your fear hierarchy. -log into IG and watch reels for 5 minutes without compulsions … All the way up to rewatching that triggering video, that sounded like a 10/10 for you. But yeah absolutely just the other day I read a comment under a video and it’s triggered me into a crying spell because it was related to my theme.

The best way out of feeling this distress is to (slowly, gradually, building up to the moment) go *through* it. Just as the above commenter suggested, instead of avoiding the video, eventually you want to get to a point to where your brain has become exposed to it to a point of what’s called “habituation”. Avoiding our fear only validates the fear. We try to turn away from distress but that gives its intimidation more power. It’s like how turning our back in something doesn’t actually make the thing itself go away. Maybe you start with even just printing out a picture of the Instagram and Tik Tok logos, and pinning them to your wall or somewhere else in your house.

Also look up “non-engagement responses” .. you can practice saying those to your OCD when you have flashbacks of your fear

I won't at all watch that actual video because it's a video of an animal being tourtred. So I won't ever ever be watching it. It's not something that's just a little uncomfortable it will traumatize me. So expose therapy isn't gonna help me with this one

I want advice on how to know I'm NOT gonna look at it. Not expose myself to something that would traumatize me.......

Not gonna fucking happen. That advise just got me more fucked up. To say I should do, what I'm trying not to do. I never saw the video, the description hurt me enough, these response got me more upset than anything.

Wow, your comments are so rudely written with misguided anger towards us. I not only regret taking time out of my evening to try to type up that whole comment last night, but also to check my NOCD comments first thing in the morning and start my day off with that. You don’t have to agree with someone’s comment, but you also don’t need to be so rude in replying to people who wrote comments that were seeking to do nothing but help, in a way that complete aligns with what NOCD, an app to combat OCD (which means desensitizing ourselves to our fear, instead of being hostage to it constantly by constantly having to avoid it). We didn’t know what the video is about, and as AWFUL and traumatic as I agree that video you describe is, there is a lot to our comments that you can take advice from on now to get back on social media. I have severe PTSD for some really messed up stuff that happened to me, and I can empathize with the fact that you have trauma from the video you saw … But if you come to this NOCD app that emphasizes ERP Exposure and Response Therapy, for advice on how to avoid (which is an OCD compulsion)—don’t expect people to tell you exactly what you’re wanting to hear. This is a therapy app, aimed at healing which doesn’t happen with pretending that the source of our distress doesn’t exist. Look into trauma therapy, acceptance, and maybe have some humility next time people are just trying to brainstorm ways to help you. When you’re ready for the kind of therapy you need, and things aren’t this raw for you, I’m sure you’ll hear advice that isn’t that far off from ours. Best wishes and if you have more rudeness to lash back at out at us with, please don’t waste our time or day.