I’m making some gains battling my ocd and I really feel supported by my therapist Shawn Welty.

@Anonymous Real event, morality, false memory, some harm ocd, sexual, some contamination, honesty lots of mixes between the subsets of ocd. It’s all really just ocd.. but I’m my case every subtype (harm, real event, relationship, contamination, etc) kind of stem from moral ocd. It sucks. But I’m learning whatever it is just keep doing erp. Even if it only causes your suds to go up to a 2, that’s something.

@Rsf Thanks! Very similar to you in terms of the moral OCD causing real event/relationship/sexual OCD. Just having trouble with my therapist in terms of making the ERP feel real when we do it in sessions. Hard to get my suds up in a controlled environment so wanted to see how it’s been for you with your therapist.

@Anonymous Had the same problem with exposures not really triggering the need to do compulsions and staying low suds. Even the low suds exposures do help though. It’s like lifting light weights at the gym. You’re still doing something. But what helped me in particular getting the suds higher and triggering that ocd bubble to latch in erp.. at least a little to start, wasn’t necessary a script. It was focusing on something that triggered me in the past and really focusing on it. Really focusing on seeing the memory in your head..Which would start worrying me that ocd is going to latch on to this fear again and I’m going to have to sit with it.. but that’s the goal.. to light that fuse in erp. From there it started to click a little bit (like my brain was able to get a little triggered now in therapy.. ocd loves that because it’s like”what if I get triggered in therapy by doing this?” So you know it’s probably gonna happen now. Long story short I’m more easily triggered by writing worst case scenarios or scripts of my fear even though the fear is mental, not concrete like someone who has contamination and can physically do something for exposure. Really immerse yourself in those imaginal exposures. Sights, sounds, smells, what happened, what are you seeing, hearing). It’s hard to believe it works but it’s like watching a movie (but in your head). You’ve gotten emotional watching a movie at some point I’m sure. Same thing I think. But if you take anything from this please run it by your therapist first.

@Rsf Btw..the controlled environment issue is extremely valid. I did a php at rogers behavioral and it was hard for a lot of people to get triggered there. Some had an easier time at home. For me though it’s not a location thing.. it’s really trying to be immersed in your imaginal exposures. Read up on best practices on writing exposures. Also maybe you aren’t close enough with your core fear. Really try to dig deep to figure it out. Let me know how it goes!

@Rsf Thank you! Appreciate this all!!

@Anonymous No problem.. I hate this disease.. let me know if it’s helps!