I need examples

@djflorio I understand, but our actions have consequences and can hurt people/the environment/etc. That’s what I can’t come to terms with. It’s not just hypothetical thought exercises and script writing (at least in my case). I know that I’m supposed to sit with the discomfort and uncertainty.

@sick&tired - I understand it's difficult to come to terms with certain things. I'd be curious to know what exposures you're being asked to do that are truly hurting other people or the environment, though. My guess is that the reaction you're having to them is likely disproportionate to the impact they really have. I mean, if it weren't, you probably wouldn't be talking to an OCD therapist and asking for help here. At the end of the day, it's impossible to do 100% good in all aspects of your life. It's impossible to never make mistakes and to not hurt people in one way or another. It's going to happen. And I'm sure you know that logically, but the goal is to fully accept that at an emotional level. That's what this is about. If we set impossible standards for ourselves or for others, we'll only continue to suffer.

@djflorio Thank you for your support and congrats on being a conqueror. I really appreciate you taking the time to write all this out for me. I’ve done a lot of ERP, from touching toilets and shower drains and garbage then touching shared surfaces and foods. To having to come up with my own exposures because being prescribed exposures was inherently reassurance seeking for me. So my therapist would make me just go out in the world and do my own “bad things”. I’d just try to come up with things that I thought my therapist would be “proud of” and stuff that the average person would probably be okay with even if they would not go out of their way to do it. Makes me sick and still I wonder if I ever crossed the line even if I was just doing it as part of my treatment. I feel like I have no other choice because I have no other actionable ways to combat my OCD after spending thousands of dollars and several years on various treatments. None of these exposures aligned with my values and I would never have done any of it otherwise — how is this treating OCD? Scrupulosity may be a part of my disorder but I also have values and standards. I’ve essentially been told: go out in the world, try to mess things up, and there you go that’s how you’ll fight OCD. Is that all? Shouldn’t I be taught to maintain and enforce my values? Yeah I want a life worth living but I also want to live a life that I’m proud of. If you’ve read into ACT and I-CBT I get more of that in these approaches. But in my experience ERP has just been “go do reckless things and don’t dwell on them.” I can see how ERP would work for contamination themes or POCD, driving, etc. in fact I have also had these themes and ERP worked okay. But morality? That’s what I’m looking for. Someone with experience in this theme who can share what actually helped them overcome while not losing themselves in the process.

@sick&tired Not to discourage anyone from trying ERP. Just sharing my personal experiences. Everyone’s journey is different.

@sick&tired - @sick&tired - I totally hear you, and thanks for sharing more details about your story. You've clearly put a lot of work into this and have learned a lot along the way, so congrats for that! Yes, exposures that revolve around morality can be extremely tricky because they do technically involve people and things other than ourselves. What I find interesting is that when it comes to morality, you're saying that ERP is just "do bad things and don't sweat it," which isn't exactly the case. It should be doing things outside of your comfort zone and noticing how it makes you feel and what stories pop up in your mind. There's a big difference. Personally, I've done some exposures like not saying sorry when accidentally stepping on a stranger's foot in the subway, and choosing words that are a little bit harsher and less "people-pleasing" in conversations or internet comments than I normally would. Normally if something like that happened, I would be flooded with intrusive thoughts about how the other person thinks I'm an asshole, and I'd repeat the event over-and-over again in my head as if I'm trying to "fix" it after-the-fact. After years of practicing mindfulness and ERP for various themes, when I'd do these exposures (which took a while to build up to), I started to be able to understand that the physical feelings were survivable, and to not get lost in the stories in my mind. Does that mean that I'm totally okay with not apologizing and speaking harshly all the time? Absolutely not. But I've noticed that when those kinds of things happen, I'm much less caught up on the dis-regulated self-referential torture afterwards. I'm less afraid to speak my mind in conversations where I may not agree with someone, which used to utterly terrify me. In my experience, what I thought were my "values" were actually just me being afraid of what people thought about me; of not having control of what people think of me. It's the same with suicidal OCD, where I thought I valued life so much that anything even remotely close to the idea of suicide was irresponsible to even think about. It made it logical for me to avoid living in apartments with high balconies, or hikes with tall cliffs. But really I was just afraid of the inherit uncertainty of life and death. Like you said, everyone's journey is different. My advice may be to take a step back and really take a look at what is happening, and why you're seeking help in the first place. If you really truly feel like the things you're doing are doing NOTHING but go against your actual, true values, then so be it. Maybe there's a different path you can take. But the question I'd ask is, are you avoiding doing certain things strictly because of your values, or because you're afraid of what other people, or you, are going to think about yourself afterwards?