Is exposure therapy making me feel worse instead of helping?

disliking ERP

I just started working on my first exposure today with my therapist after screening and creating the lists for several weeks now. We did an exposure together and now I feel 100x worse than I did coming in. I won’t go too into detail but it involved looking at a VERY gory image that had to do with my fear of natural disasters. I called my mom and talked with her and she was shocked and wondered how in the hell that would help me! I agree. Did any of y’all feel this way when you first started or is this just not the right kind of therapy for me?

Username: djfloriodjflorio

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 24d ago

I understand. ERP can be very scary and counter intuitive! It's possible that you just need to start smaller. ERP is supposed to make you feel uncomfortable. Ideally you learn to sit with that discomfort and whatever thoughts arise until it diminishes on its own. If you leave an ERP session feeling extremely triggered then it means that it wasn't don't properly. Have a chat with your therapist about what you may be able to change for the next session.

Username: djfloriodjflorio

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 24d ago

Typo: it wasn't done* properly.

Username: Sunrise22Sunrise22

Date posted: 24d ago

It’s also possible exposure to an image isn’t the best exposure for you. This is up to your therapist’s discretion, but could you script a visual of the same event instead, and expose yourself to that script?

Username: Anon849Anon849

Date posted: 24d ago

Well, if this was too distressing of an exposure, communicate that with your therapist. Did you rank the exposures from 1-10 of how distressing each exposure would be? Yes, exposures are going to make you feel bad. If they didn't then you wouldn't give yourself a chance to practice your OCD fear and learning to not respond to it. The first hump of exposing yourself to your fear and sitting with the fear, discomfort, anxiety, etc and practicing response prevention successfully until you passively calm down is the hardest. But once you get over this first time, you'll realize how ERP works and can further trust the process better.

Username: Paola!

Date posted: 1y ago

ERP

Does it actually get worse when you first start doing exposures? My intrusive thoughts have gotten so much worse, it’s been 3 days since I started but my anxiety has gotten worse.

Username: maddison5

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 1y ago

therapy

I started ERP therapy yesterday and had my second session today. During my session of trying to do an exposure, I started crying, and became very anxious. I know that this type of therapy is hard, but how do you know this is just some thing that you can’t do? I have been anxious all day and my exposure has been the only thing I’ve been able to think of. I want to get better but I don’t know if I’m able to push myself this much.

Username: yaya_zz

Date posted: 28w ago

ERP harm ocd

I just did ERP in my therapy and I felt completely horrible. I was watching a video of a woman harming her husband or where she harm her husband and that’s what I’m dealing with harm OCD towards my husband while I was watching it. I completely didn’t feel nothing like before watching it I did feel a little scared because I thought I was gonna get ideas but honestly, I feel like at this point I thought everything and every possible way of harming my husband. Recently they killed a guy near me and they shot him and I put myself in the position of if that were to be my husband like how would I feel and I felt super heartbroken super sad like really sad that something like that could happen to him, but when I was watching the ERP exposure I did not feel anything like I started crying because I’ve heard they were talking about the guy that was dead and it’s like I wouldn’t want someone talking like that about my husband but then again like I wouldn’t want it, but then my head is telling me I would want it like I didn’t feel completely nothing while I was watching the video like I did not feel anything. Neither concerned neither scared neither happy like I was just neutral. Then again I’m on medication and it makes me feel numb but then again I do feel sometimes and I just I’m worried that I’m just gonna turn into that person.

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Is exposure therapy making me feel worse instead of helping?

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