How long do you do them? It just doesn’t feel like I’m doing them right. My level of distress doesn’t seem to change when I do them. It feels like I’m waiting for something to happen, but nothing does. Anyone want to share how you do exposures?
I don’t know my self but if you find out tell me pls
@JohnKit Glad I’m not the only one but sorry you’re also struggling with them!
So, always check with your therapist. It is my understanding the exposure is to raise your anxiety, distress, uncertainty. That is good, that is what you want. Then, the most important part, is the response prevention. Here is where you don't do anything to relieve the anxiety, distress or uncertainty. That includes thinking about it, reassuring yourself, checking in with yourself to see how you feel, etc. ERP is not to reduce anxiety, you are supposed to feel triggered. What you're practicing is learning how to not do your compulsions (any behaviors that make you feel better). With practice, over time, your anxiety will come down on its own. It is my understanding that ERP is not to lower your anxiety about a particular fear or trigger. Rather, you are teaching your brain and new way to respond to distress and uncertainty (fear, guilt, regret etc.). The reason you are choosing a particular trigger is so that you can practice non-engagement. We all have things we know that will trigger us, so ERP is designed around those specific fears so we can practice what will happen in the real world when we are triggered. Hope this helps.
@VGH I don’t know. I’m not able to trigger my anxiety with ERP. It’s like I can’t do it “on demand.” We’ve been trying everything but nothing is working to get it to spike. We’ve literally been bringing up my darkest fears, and the anxiety did not spike. Really frustrating and I guess why ERP is so hard for me…
I wonder if acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)would be good for you? Maybe talk to your therapist about it. It helped me a lot. I used it in combination with ERP. Don’t be discouraged, I felt like ACT was super helpful in my life. A road map for living, so to speak.
@VGH Thank you! This was really helpful!
It may be more about how you are doing them than how long. A good exposure should be one that makes you feel distressed but is doable not overwhelming. It should involve accepting the risk / uncertainty of the situation. For example, holding your hand on the toilet flushing handle AND knowing that you are accepting the risk of being contaminated because you aren’t going to wash or rinse your hands afterwards. With this approach you would hold the handle until your distress level drops by half.
This happens to me sometimes as well. I would usually repeat the exposure a few times and then my anxiety starts increasing, or I move onto a higher level exposure if that doesn’t seem to work.
Could people share the different ways they practice exposure?
I know a lot of people say to face your instructive thought with exposures and then the thought will go away. When I do this the thought does go away, then comes back in about 5 minutes randomly. Any advice on what other exposures to do? I’m really trying not to give in
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