It never ends

Unfortunately my children are my triggers since my harm focuses mainly on them. However lately my intrusive thoughts have moved on to my other family such as my father. What I do to cope which is usually just ruminating on what I've done before staying to myself reassuring things over and over again in a compulsive way and all of these things yes continue it to go and I've only done two weeks of erp so we're just beginning with me exposing myself to my triggers in certain situations such as bath time or changing and the last thing that she said to me is that it's a very serious commitment to make with this type of therapy and I have just been spiraling since I have started. I repeat the same thing to myself over and over again such as I love my children I would never love anything happen to them I love my children I would never let anything happen to that on repeat and then I'll use words that have scared me harm words such as suffocated or hurt and put it in kind of a loop in my head saying I would suffocate my children with love and affection using that word diffuses me in some way especially by using a positive spin on it. It's awful and I am in hell and not making the situation better. I'm trying. I have mediation on and my baby is all happy but I am in mental hell. Thank you so much for posting.

@libramama88 - Oh my, I feel for you so hard. This sounds so incredibly difficult. 1. I want to remind you that OCD tends to latch onto things that you really care about, and you clearly really really care about and love your family. And you KNOW you love your family. 2. There are a lot of compulsions in there, and it seems like a lot of them are mental, which is really difficult to spot and also stop. I think ERP can be really overwhelming at first, especially when you're trying to identify all of your triggers, all of your compulsions, etc. So you have to really start small. That's where creating your "hierarchy" can come into handy, but honestly even talking about your triggers I know can be triggering. Starting with neutral non-engagement responses really helped me. The next time you have an intrusive thought, try to separate yourself from the thought: "I notice that I am having the thought of x. This makes me feel x." And let yourself feel it. Try *really hard* not not do anything to make that anxiety go away, and it will go away on its own. Also, remember that your thoughts are not facts. I tried to count the number of weird, horrifying intrusive thoughts I had one day, and I lost count. And that's not abnormal - everyone has tons of thoughts every day, and none of them need to have any more meaning than any of the other ones. I hope this helped a little bit, and I hope that the farther along you get with your ERP journey, you start to see improvement. It took me over a year before I saw noticeable improvement. Life stressors can also increase OCD. If you just had another child, then that's a big life change that likely made your OCD spike up, along with physical changes to your body and hormones, which can also impact your mood and mental state. You're not alone. <3

@Anonymous Also perhaps don’t pray that the thoughts go away or stop but pray that you get stronger at tolerating the discomfort of ocd that you resist compulsions with ease and confronting your fears makes you stronger and healthier than you were before ERP/OCD diagnosis.