- Date posted
- 1y
This is my OCD and I choose not to engage with it at this time. Also that OCD is a liar, a bully, a leech and a thief! And I can handle each one!
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 1y
You can TOTALLY handle all of those things. You're stronger than OCD - thank you for sharing this encouragement!!
- Date posted
- 1y
The concept of “ride the wave” and face my feelings and embrace uncertainty. “Live uncertain.”
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 1y
“Live uncertain.” >>> such a great reminder.
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 1y
That I can handle feeling anxious, that the anxiety might never go away- but I can still choose for myself and live my life regardless.
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 1y
Knowing you can handle anxiety makes OCD lose its power!!! Keep it up!!
- Date posted
- 1y
Learned the tool of treating my unwanted thoughts like junk mail. It's like when you scroll through your emails and see a message saying you've won a free iPhone. You know it's not true, so you acknowledge it, mark it as junk, and move on without letting it affect you. Then you look back and find it kind of funny how ridiculous it sounds because of how untrue the “junk mail” (ocd thoughts) are. This approach has been a game changer for me!
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 1y
Love this!
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 1y
The realization that there is no “solution” and life’s questions will always remain unanswerable. Life = ambiguity
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 1y
Uncertainty is HUGE in OCD recovery!!
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 1y
Definitely the fact that ERP pays off! It can be so so hard, but when your OCD is bothering you, do ERP, and get ahead of its games! You’ve got this!!
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 1y
It definitely takes time and hard work, but we agree that ERP can totally pay off!!
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 1y
Sassing my OCD right back - no, I don’t have to spend my precious time engaging these thoughts. They are not protecting me. I can cope. OCD is a liar and a trickster.
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 1y
"They are not protecting me" YES
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 1y
@Brenna - NOCD Team Member It’s still very hard to remind myself that my anxiety and rumination isn’t protecting or preparing me. It feels so engrained - but I just have to keep listening to my own voice, not OCD’s!
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 1y
Let the thoughts be there. Resist engaging in them. Accept uncertainty.
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 1y
Keep it up!!!
- Date posted
- 1y
@Anonymous66 Engaging with the thoughts is one of my main compulsions and not engaging with them feels almost impossible
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 1y
don’t get discouraged if it feels hard right now. Our brains are used to a certain way of responding, so when we challenge our usual response, it takes time to retrain our brain. What we once saw as a threat, we are now showing our brain it actually isn’t. And that takes time. Show plenty of compassion and love towards yourself in this time. But also know that you can do hard things and see changes when you stick to it. Like working out a muscle at the gym, hard at first but over time you see muscle definition.
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 1y
Yesss, this is awesome!
- Date posted
- 1y
I needed that! I have a hard time being kind to myself, thinking I should "be better" at resisting compulsions. This is hard work.
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 1y
To approach my fears - never run from them
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 1y
Yes!!!
- Date posted
- 1y
@dirholly Yes I did the same thing!!
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 1y
Learning to distinguish the “ocd voice” from my own inner monologue
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 1y
Be scared and do the thing anyway!
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 1y
Yes, live the life you want to live!!
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 1y
Leaning into the fearful thoughts and feelings. Don’t try to make them go away, allow them to be there and even hoping for those negative thoughts and feelings to arise so I can practice feeling anxious without pushing it away. This is so important for OCD management. It’s probably the hardest thing I have ever done but the most effective by far.
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 1y
100% agree with you on this. Trying to push away thoughts never works in the long run!
- Date posted
- 1y
Never stop doing exposures 🙌
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 1y
Great reminder!
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 1y
Do the response prevention and do it often. Never slack on the response prevention.
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 1y
Love this!
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 1y
ERP helped me rediscover my strength-to tolerate uncertainty, work through my fears, and live a life according to my values.
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 1y
YES!! Great encouragement!!
- Date posted
- 1y
I did ERP therapy at home not knowing even what it was. I deal with harm ocd, existential ocd, suicidal ocd and I brought myself to get a blade and stick it to my arm and showed myself I didn’t want to harm myself and now I am no longer scared of these thoughts !!! I’m 16 years old.
- Date posted
- 1y
@ysabelleveloz1 that takes a huge amount of bravery 😭 im proud of you 💗
- Date posted
- 1y
Sit through your uncertainty. It’s part of life and you’ll always need to. ERP is about handling the uncertainty instead of fixing/acting. I think ERP lets us stop acting on our impulses and compulsions so that we can act on our goals instead.
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 1y
LOVE! "ERP is about handling the uncertainty instead of fixing/acting." This is great!
- Date posted
- 1y
That thoughts themselves can be compulsions, and that I fit the pattern of someone with OCD even though I don’t act these out physically.
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 1y
Spreading awareness!!! This is great.
- Date posted
- 1y
@Anonymous Yes!
- Date posted
- 1y
My OCD tries to protect me from being hurt emotionally by making sure I don’t reach out for help and making sure I feel insecure or unworthy. It’s hard to remember that these aren’t good either, I guess because OCD feels so reliable.
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 1y
OCD's a liar. You're stronger than it!
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 1y
Thoughts are not facts!
- Date posted
- 1y
Being able to catch negative/intrusive thoughts and work through them by checking their cognitive distortions
- Date posted
- 1y
I have my first ERP appointment tomorrow and im scared 😭😭
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 1y
There's so much hope for recovery!
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 1y
@weregonnabeokay Rooting for you!!
- Date posted
- 1y
@weregonnabeokay Same
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 1y
Honestly just learning more about what OCD really is! Coming to terms with my diagnosis & finding more compassion for myself 🩷
- Date posted
- 1y
Can ROCD make you think you don't like your boyfriend anymore and like someone else. It's really distressing:(
Related posts
- Date posted
- 20w
I had just posted a summary of ERP for a group member, and I thought it might be useful for everybody. Here it is below (with a little extra added)…. ERP therapy is researched-based. Most other therapies don’t work. There have been people who have been literally stuck in their houses (from their OCD) who gained their lives back through ERP therapy. NOCD does ERP therapy exclusively. You can find it in other places too, but you have to ask around. There are two tenants of ERP therapy: The first one has to do with the repetitive thoughts inside our heads. These thoughts are actually defined as “obsessions”. You are not supposed to do anything with the obsessions. You are supposed to let them run through your head freely, without trying to fix them or stop them. Imagine a tree planted by a river. The leaves fall off and float down the river. You can see the leaves falling, but you don’t try to stop them or pick them up. You don’t try to fix them. You just let them float away. This is really important to do with your obsessive thoughts. The more you try to fight them off, the worse they get. I used to have blasphemous sentences running in my head 24/7. I felt like I had to put a “not” next to each sentence in order to “fix” it. But this just took hours of my time every day, and it was very scary, because I was worried that if I messed up, that I would go to hell. It was very freeing to learn later that I could just let those sentences run freely through my head without trying to fix them. The second part of ERP therapy is all about “denying your compulsions.” Every time OCD tells you that if you don’t do things a certain way that something really bad will happen, that is a compulsion. Once you recognize what your compulsions are, ERP therapy will have you practice stopping doing all of those things. For some people, that will mean stopping washing their hands or touching lights switches or, in my case, putting “fixing” words in their head. Compulsions are safety behaviors. During ERP therapy, you will practice stopping engaging with safety behaviors. All this is very hard to do and scary, so during therapy you will be given tools to help you deal with the fear. Often ERP therapy will take people from being non-functional to functional. I highly recommend it. ————————————————- PITFALL #1: After you have been doing ERP for a while and become somewhat successful, the OCD will try subtle little tricks to bring you down again. The first one is to tell you that your thoughts are REAL and not OCD, and therefore you can’t apply ERP therapy. Don’t fall for this trick! All thoughts are just thoughts. They are all meaningless. Don’t try to figure out what is real and what is OCD. Just treat all thoughts with ERP therapy. PITFALL #2: The second pitfall is that OCD will tell you that you can’t move forward unless you have absolute certainty that you will be safe. Hate to tell you this, folks, but there is no certainty in life. You will never know for SURE that you or your loved ones will be “safe” from the OCD rules. Therefore, you have to move forward in the uncertainty. It’s hard, but it gets easier with time and practice. We got this, guys !!!!!!
- Date posted
- 18w
I read about ERP and have seen information about it on here. One of the goals is to say, "maybe I am this or that...ect." That terrified me. The thoughts and images that go in my head are disturbing and upsetting. I don't want to even think about saying, "maybe this or that." It's devasting to have these thoughts and question why you're having these thoughts. Doesn't the "maybe" make it worse? The one thing that helps me is that is to remind myself that these are just thoughts and I know I'm not a monster, even if I feel like one. Is ERP not for everyone? Has anyone else had a problem with the techniques used in this kind of therapy? I had cognitive therapy for years with an OCD specialist and that seemed to help a lot. Writing out the worst case scenarios would make me suicidal. Im having a difficult time not obsessing over the "maybe" after intrusive thoughts now. It doesn't make it better.
- Date posted
- 15w
Anyone else feel like they just sit there during sessions? Like I can’t wait for it to be over so I don’t have to do this twice a week anymore. I think I’m putting in effort but sometimes feels like a huge waste of time and I’m not making progress but maybe that’s just my ocd?
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