Hi! I thought I would share this because I think it’s so important to share experiences through erp and this crappy ocd life we all live! A few weeks ago I wrote a post in reasons to recover. Almost all of my ocd was gone! I was 98% ocd free ...... for a whole month until last week... I relapsed. It was awful and it came in strong. It came in as a visualization that disturbed me so much and brought back my harm ocd and also my ocd where I think i might really be “crazy”. I want to share this because I think it’s important for others to know that when a relapse happens it doesn’t take away from your hard work. It doesn’t mean you are back at square one! You are just at a higher bridge now and it’s time to cross it. About a day after the horrible relapse that made me feel awful all night, I realized that I wasn’t getting to the root fear of my ocd. I managed to do aspects of erp which helped me... I was better at accepting, I let thoughts in, I stopped physical compulsions, i labeled my ocd but what I didn’t do was expose myself to my deepest fears.... and I get it now. It’s so scary to expose yourself to what truly disturbs you. I began with making a hierarchy of my true deep fears and came up with 4 main points that I feared the most, then I made goals.... one was to write harm scripts where the worst fear happens... I read them over to myself 30 times a day, next goal is to be around knives and harm objects... so I have been holding butcher knives while reading my scripts etc.... I also look at myself in the mirror and repeat “ yes you are crazy”...this is the thick of erp. It’s horrifying and it often leaves me crying and upset.... but I know this is the only way... the only way out of this pain is completely through it... you have to expose yourself often and intensely .... I look at the relapse as a sign that I slowly worked my way up to being able to do this erp this intensely. My advice is you can do this. It’s true it really does get easier. Don’t give up even when you relapse. I hope this helps!