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?
Yes, wait until she assigns exposures and homework. Tell her next session about what you didn’t tell her.
@Nica I created and added some things to the fear and response list so maybe she’ll see it. But thank you for responding and answering so I don’t stress out about it.
@Jay222 Because you are having such a high rate of stress with OCD, I wouldn’t advise you creating your own exposures or anything life that. Sometimes you do have to white knuckle it and just get through to your next appointment. From seeing your posts since you joined, you are not near the level of trying out self exposure.
Exposing yourself would be like if you avoid spending time with someone out of fear of “what if”, you’d expose yourself and hangout with them and sit with the fear of “what if”. It’s scary to sit with the fear but you’ll notice the more you do it the less scary it becomes
If you’re interested, my therapist recommended a podcast and one of the episodes I listened talked a lot about POCD and I think you could find some comfort in it. OCD stories by Stuart Ralph, episode #413 or any or probably any related to POCD which you can see in the descriptions!
Hey! I’m a POCD sufferer and I was wondering if anyone who is doing ERP has any good suggestions for exposure heirarchies that I could take inspiration from? I’m starting CBT soon but I can only get it in a group and I don’t feel super comfortable talking about the details of POCD yet cos it feels really embarrassing. So far I’ve thought of going to the pool/park, or writing down my thoughts and looking at them, but my OCD really goes wild if I try to masturbate or if I feel aroused at all...at the moment I’m avoiding anything like that because it’s so distressing, but is that something I should do exposures for in the future?
I haven’t had my first session with my therapist yet, but after reading up on ERP and everything I can about OCD I started trying to expose myself to my triggers and do the tips I read on how to handle it. I thought I was getting slightly better these last few days but today I kicked it up a notch and now, hours later, feel terrible and feel like I’m back in square one and have made no progress. My POCD thoughts are horrible again and I’m scared ERP isn’t gonna work on me because of it. I want to get better now but I also don’t know if trying to ERP myself is a good idea when I haven’t met with my OCD specialist yet, can that make it worse? Am I not doing it right? What should I do?
Hi guys also another question I’ve been doing ERP for awhile now. And I’m just getting into exposures and when I’m doing them with my therapist like writing out the things that scare me and saying them out loud it doesn’t seem to scare me. It’s more so when I’m alone having these constant thoughts daily is what becomes overwhelming and makes them feel real. Any insight on this?
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