I am about to start doing the ERP, but am trying to practice pushing through even for a minute. But when I push through OR when I end up doing the ritual or compulsion, the thoughts and urges get louder. Do anybody have any resources or advice for this? I want to get better and don't want to get scared or so tired that I become submissive to it again. Thanks, peace and love (שלום ואהבה)
But best of luck on your OCD journey. Know that ur not alone in this—I’m struggling a bunch w it too. Some days are worse than others, the ebb and flow of how loud compulsions can be are really tough. Happy ur pushing through it
You too big dawg! We got this! I'll let you know if I find something so we can both thrive
My therapist told me that the OCD doesn’t want you to get better. So something I figured out that has been helping until my next appointment is you can’t help yourself with the compulsions right now but just remember you don’t have to do anything OCD say. You choose
Thank you!
I’m definitely not licensed in anything but from my own personal experience with OCD I think that’s what naturally happens. The more you deny compulsions the louder they get. Like a toddler you’re denying a toy. I still am working to get there too, but I’d like to hope that with enough exposure you build tolerance to the compulsion. Not sure if it’s a good analogy but when I go on a diet and I want to avoid sweets, I crave them EVEN MORE than before, until suddenly I avoid it enough I build a tolerance to it. Again, I am also actively working to avoid compulsions too, but I assume this is what happens after you avoid them for a while.
I rock with that analogy. It can just be so overwhelming sometimes where I just want to move past but it's like someone is sitting on the remote and won't get off the volume button
@candymanz I feel that. Actually went through that the other day. I wanted to give into my compulsions really badly the other day, but they were so incredibly loud and consistent. I suffer with rOCD (relationship) and I found myself in a loop of re-reading texts, looking at my partners past Instagram posts, checking their status online—and it went on for nearly a whole day. It started to interfere with my life—couldn’t eat or take care of myself because I wanted to be glued to my phone repeating compulsions cause everytime I tried to take myself away from my phone I’d have intrusive thoughts that felt so loud telling me to check again. I gave myself a task (it was to clean my apartment + make food for myself) and I needed to complete those before I gave myself permission to check my phone again. (Again not sure if that’s healthy but just sharing lol). Throughout me completing my task it felt like the thoughts kept getting louder. I had to manually tell myself “it’s okay, we don’t need to do that. Nothing needs to be solved,” every time the urge to do a compulsion came up. Pretty much coaching myself and comforting myself to get through it. It was mad uncomfortable and I cried pretty much the whole time, but my assumption is that the more I do that the more tolerance I’d build to how loud they get. I allowed myself to check my phone after all the tasks were complete but it was a win in my book, even if it was a small couple of hours I didn’t give into compulsions. I think with brains like ours we think of things in such black and white ways—like we need to completely go without compulsions FOREVER, but I think my story shows that maybe smaller steps help lead to the bigger goal of never doing them again. So maybe try an attainable goal of giving into only 4 compulsions for the day, and then have a different goal for the next week? Sorry for the rant haha hope that helps
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