What are exposures for harm OCD and isolation

@Hexxi Oh ok that’s awesome thank you so much for sharing with me

@Hexxi Is isolation a compulsion

@Stacey353 Im not a therapist so I could absolutely be wrong, but I would say that isolation is a compulsion yes. An avoidance compulsion to be exact

@Hexxi Ok thanks so much would agree with you

@Stacey353 Im always here to talk if you need someone also💕

@Hexxi Pretty sure you are correct. My therapist calls it a safety behavior… which can become a compulsion for us with OCD really fast. He will tell me not to do an avoidance 😄

@I’m Batman So what do you do just sit with the urge and uncomfortableness

@Hexxi Thank you that means so much to me!

@Stacey353 Correct. Your brain can be reprogrammed for lack of a better term. We are teaching it that it’s ok to be uncomfortable. You don’t have to like the uncomfortable feelings, just learn that we can live with them and handle it.

@I’m Batman Ok! So the more I sit with the uncomfortableness the less uncomfortable I will be??

@Stacey353 That’s the goal !! It can take time so don’t get discouraged if it does not happen right away. As you sit there and allow your self to be uncomfortable, your brain is being rewired. It’s like hey, this thing that should be really scary is not bothering you as much. You don’t seem to be doing any compulsions to relieve the anxiety. Well I guess I was wrong and clearly we don’t care about this as much as I thought we did. As you teach your brain this, in theory it will stop feeding it to you as much. Our brains are super lazy or super efficient depending oh how you look at it. Right now it thinks it’s saving you from a danger. But this danger is usually not as severe as the brain thinks it is. As we teach it that, it will not try to warn us as much because it learns it’s not worth its time ….. kind of . I’m sure there is a better way to explain it, but that’s how I interpreted it. The reverse is kind of how we end up doing compulsions and safety behaviors. It shows us what it thinks is a threat. And the more compulsions we do to relieve that uncomfortable feeling, the more we teach it that the threat is real. So the more it tries to warn us about it. So the obsession/compulsion cycle just gets worse and worse. Like negative feedback loop.

@I’m Batman This is brilliant thank you so much!!

@I’m Batman How do I get that thought about the balcony out of my head it’s awful and torture

@Stacey353 That’s the key. You don’t. We don’t want to push thoughts out or neutralize them. That is a safety behavior. We do the RP of ERP. Response prevention. Sit there and allow your self to feel those uncomfortable feelings. Don’t engage with them. Just allow them to exist. A good trick for me is what would I be doing right this moment if I did not have ocd. I would probably go mow the lawn. So I go mow the lawn. Don’t let the ocd stop you from living your life.

@I’m Batman Ok what about the urges

@Stacey353 A little harder but same idea. Sometimes I get the urge to reassurance seek or checking. It’s a choice. Do we choose to feed OCD or do we choose ourselves? You can choose that compulsion for that short term relief of bad feelings. But we know it won’t last. Or we can choose to sit with being uncomfortable. It sucks in the beginning… but long term it’s better. We learn over time we can handle it. We choose ourselves over that urge. Unfortunately this will take some willpower. But ask yourself , do you want to live for OCD or for you ? That has always helped me.