Anyone know any ERP techniques or specific exposures that help with health anxiety OCD? I’ve heard such great things about ERP for other subtypes but I can’t think of any for health related OCD. I’d appreciate any advice!
Maybe try to purposefully do something triggering for health ocd, like touch a dirty surface in public? Maybe watch a show like House? House shows a bunch of very rare and random diseases and how people get them, it’s also very funny so it can be light hearted and help encourage you to not ruminate. I’m not sure what exactly you have in terms of health OCD that triggers you, but you should think of that
Hi there! Depending on what all your triggers are, interoceptives can be a great place to start to mimic physical symptoms. If it's anything heart related, listening to an abnormal heart rhythm, listening to a code. Maybe walking around a "dirty" floor barefoot. Someome coughing near you without covering their cough. Touching "dirty" surafces and not washing your hands. Really leaning into your specific triggers.
I also deal with health anxiety ocd and I also am dealing with ocd Emetophobia and am in Exposure response prevention therapy currently. A lot of it so far is doing one exposure during the session at the end and planning to put myself in similar exposing situations during the week and then also doing “ban tracking” is what they call it (which is what I fill out during the week) which ban tracking is basically having a google form (made by my therapist) that I had to attach to my lockscreen and this form contains a lot of my main ocd compulsions!! A example of this is: excessive hand washing, then next to it on the form it has: Sumbit, Resist, and then over time we added in, Spoil, and Delay. If I have the urge to handwash in a compulsive / excessive way then I open the app and track if I 1. Submitted to you, 2. Resisted the urge 3. Submitted but then spoiled it by then making my hand “unclean” again, or 4. Delay the compulsion etc. a lot of my exposure therapy so far is having to start with the compulsive behavior and stop the cycle in these moments and also a huge thing in exposure therapy is it’s all about uncertainty. When you have mental compulsive thoughts or have the urge to do a compulsion/ruminate/analyze/search on google (which is a compulsion that most of the time doesn’t make you feel better) when you have those urges to do compulsions whether it’s a physical thing or mental thing use phrases that require you to stay in a state of uncertainty. These phrases are: “Maybe, maybe not” “I could, but I won’t” example: “what if the thing I just touched had rust on it and it got into my skin and I haven’t had my tetanus shot in 10+ years and I get sick etc.” your reply would be: “maybe, maybe not” then you might reply to that statement with, “well maybe I should google online to see if I need to go to the doctor etc” then your reply would be “I could but I won’t”. My advice would be to start to form a list of compulsive behaviors and start tracking the submit/resists etc and track it over time to see your progress!! I’d also recommend the statements of uncertainty! They have changed my life! If you have any questions let me know! And if any of this is confusing please let me know and I can clarify for you!
@madisonhobert This is such good advice!! my health ocd is def more like the last stuff you described, which I think the statements of uncertainty will be really helpful for. I have therapy on Monday so I’m going to talk to her about this and read these comments to her!!
^ Also, if the examples of “health ocd thoughts / compulsions” that I gave don’t feel applicable I promise it was because I was doing my best to not trigger any ocd or anxious thoughts for you! (Because getting triggered happens so easily with health ocd) Just know I really do struggle with health ocd / contamination / all of it, I know how hard and terrifying it is. So let me know if you need any sort of more applicable scenario for you to see if these would be helpful to you! All my love! ❤️
If I understand correctly what you mean by health OCD, I think it’s different from what people are describing here, which seems to be more like contamination OCD. For my health OCD, my therapist assigned homework for ERP. For example, I was afraid of getting an MRI that was suggested by a doctor for fear they would find something, so I had to make the appointment and then go get the MRI. Or when I was concerned with going to the dermatologist for fear of them finding skin cancer or something, I had to make that appointment as well and then actually go. There were a couple of other ones as well, so my ERP was facing the tests or appointments that I was avoiding because of the unknown. Everything turned out OK thank God, but I had to face my fears.
@Anonymous yes ur right I don’t have contamination ocd, except when it is started by a health obsession if that makes sense. My problem is mostly intrusive thoughts and visioning myself d*ing from whatever illness I’m obsessing over that week. And then I feel it physically (like chest pain or headache etc) which makes me more scared and it drains me bc it’s all I think about and I wish I could just turn my brain off
Hi guys! I’m new to the community and I’ve recently received my OCD diagnosis (tho I’ve known about it since childhood). I’ve been somewhat spiraling lately as I wait for my first ERP session (hooray!) I was just wondering if any of you guys have received ERP for existential OCD and if it was successful? My existential OCD compulsions are more so mental and have been affecting me in the sense of dream/memory flashbacks and giving me a sort of “uncanny” feeling about everything around me. Any advice is appreciated! Thank you❤️
What ERP or other techniques do you use to combat fear of cancelation? Especially curious about those with taboo thoughts, false memory ocd and event ocd based off of real events where the fear of cancellation may actually hold some validity. I once did my own ERP not under a therapist but just on my own I decided to create an anonymous account on Twitter and defend a friend who was receiving online criticism. I knew that this would be semi-controversial so I was expecting backlash and when I recieved troll replies it actually seemed to be a really helpful low-stakes exposure activity. Is this something that others have done? Low stakes online posts etc. that you know will recieve negative responses? I have had severe OCD as a kid as pretty much every subtype under the sun, and as an adult I pretty much have all the types under control except for this real event and false memory and taboo thought OCD. It seems like a different beast since it's somewhat realistic in the camcellation culture today, and it's confusing to address. Ive shut down almost all social accounts and it's keeping me from progressing in a career where I need to have an online presence :/
I’m starting NOCD. I had several years of cbt as a child (well over 20 years ago) and I see a trauma therapist. But now I’ll be seeking further help for OCD and just really scared. CBT wasn’t helpful for me. How has ERP been helpful for you? Do you feel like you’ll finally get your life back? I’m consumed by my obsessions 😢 Would love others feedback if ERP helped you ❤️
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