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@Anonymous The trick is to do our best to never question it. The truth is we all get caught from time to time, but as you get more skilled with ERP, you will find OCD is quieter. Always stay aware as best you can. There are times that catch everyone - for me it is when I am stressed or very tired or angry. That is when I know I need to be on the lookout for OCD.

@Anonymous You’re welcome. OCD sucks and it can be very difficult to cope with, but with perseverance and commitment to ERP things can and do get much more manageable.

@Anonymous I don’t mind at all. Non engagement responses are appropriate and although anything can become compulsive this is something I learned in therapy. We try not to engage the thought at all - just let it be there and do nothing - but sometimes it takes more effort to manage the OCD so that is when non-engagement responses are helpful for me. Be careful however because you do not want to say something like - oh this is just ocd - no need to worry - that is reassurance. By saying whatever, I don’t care, sure we are leaving it open that the thought is a possibility but we don’t care that it is. Ik these cases we are not trying to solve the problem, we are just taking an uncaring attitude toward it. Thats the difference. Does that make sense?

@Anonymous Of course. Happy to help. We are in this together.

@Jeffrey - Hi Jeffrey! I don’t know if you can see my response that I just posted above, but I was wondering if you might have any thoughts on that as well? I am new to this and haven’t exactly nailed down what my exact issues are that are troubling me, but I think in large part it stems from feeling like I am a bad person. The problem is that I think in part this happened to me from trauma from my family growing up and a friend group, so it’s hard to “work on” these issues with the people who have hurt you to gain confidence in yourself. Do you know what I mean? Like I think one exposure might be for me to practice expressing a need to another person and not to feel like a horrible person for doing that, because growing up my need might be totally ignored or a group of female friends I grew up might gang up on me if I said something that set me apart from the “pack”. I think that I relied a lot on this “pack” too because of some family issues. Or, for example, if I defended myself from a very angry and often violent older brother, I would get hit or completely put down, so I learned to say nothing. Even to this day. I avoid family get togethers now because even though I am older, if he is there he often puts other people down or acts like he is better than everyone, so I don’t know a good exposure for that. I can’t exactly defend myself well without fear of what he could do or say, so I am thinking it might be better to not go to some of these and to not “expose” myself to them. I also have issues with my parents not defending me better in that situation or pretending that nothing happened, so now my anxiety is sort of around my whole immediate family (but many of them have it too since my parents divorced). So it’s a tricky thing between exposing myself to some issues and it not being really safe maybe exposing myself to others. Does this make any sense? I hope that I haven’t upset anyone by writing this. I am seeing a trauma-informed therapist now at NOCD to try to differentiate the trauma from the OCD. I think for me it’s the compulsive apologizing or feeling that I am wrong for defending myself or getting bullied if I do. Thank you very much Jeffrey for any help or insight you may be able to give! 🙏🙏