- User type
- Therapist
- Date posted
- 5y
Hi OCDLatter-daySaint. I feel the longer appt times are helpful, especially in the beginning when you are learning the basics of ERP. I have to say, the homework is very important. Learning how to do the ERP at home is paramount to you staying successful. If a certain part of the homework is difficult or you keep finding yourself shying away from certain parts or even all of it, talk to your therapist about ways to navigate around these roadblocks. There is almost akaways a reason we put things off or shy away from certain things. I would work on increasing my awareness of any negative thoughts and triggers. Problem solve those away and then get right back to your ERP. Good luck!
Thank you Terrie! We talked a little bit about once and he hasn’t put too much pressure on me since I have adhd and depression and am really hard on myself. So it makes sense now...if I were doing things outside my appointments I’d be progressing a lot faster. Good to know. Thank you!
@OCDLatter-daySaint Your are welcome! I wish you lots of success. In my experience, My clients who know how to do ERP on their own, practice more and almost becomes a new habit. As soon as they get triggered, they recognize the obsessive thought pattern that follows and they go right to Exposure Response Prevention. Also, something to note that may be helpful - the trigger or thought pattern can change all of a sudden. You may start having a new theme of obsessive thoughts and that’s not unusual. Go back to your training, as long as you are recognizing the pattern you can go right into your ERP training and stop the toxic cycle! I know I make it sound easy and everyone here knows it’s not! But your consistency will make it much easier! Good luck to you, keep rolling along and you will be on this site telling your success stories. ?
Hi j420. I’m sorry you are struggling. It sounds quite severe. I have worked with many OCD clients that suffer from Harm thoughts - HOCD. The harm thoughts can be about you or others, either way it’s a difficult form of OCD. The ERP works the same way. You will be triggered to think the suicidal thoughts. It could be a physical trigger, it could be an emotion like loneliness. As soon as the thought enters your mind, don’t go to the compulsion of checking. Checking in with yourself, going online, seeking reassurance from family and friends. Instead, stay with the actual thought, question it - because it’s not a fact, it is a thought. Stay with the uncertainty, maybe I feel this way, maybe I won’t feel this way. Maybe I can feel better. Once the anxiety starts to lessen and you start to calm down, stay present. Do your grateful list. Turn your thoughts to a positive if that’s possible. Did you know that it is a proven fact, much research has be done to prove if you even try to do a grateful list, you increase endorphins and feel better for a second. Stuck with your thought, prevent the compulsion by doing your response prevention and stay present. I hope that is helpful to you today!
I've got a therapist but it's becoming so expensive!! I got let go from work mainly because I've been having such a hard time functioning with all this. That's why I'm asking for things to try on my own. My work I thought was pretty good but now because I got let go I really think they just didn't want the headache of me. It's hard to prove that
I hear that story often. It’s difficult to function daily like normal when your mind is so busy thinking these negative thoughts. I know therapy can be costly when your insurance doesn’t cover the sessions. I’m glad you are here and hopefully get something positive from others sharing similar stories. Thank you for your honesty and sharing your story!
Any updates on NOCD premium in other states?
We’ll be in 17 states by March 1st and many more soon after!
Can you do self monitoring without worksheets? What would you suggest? Thanks
Yes you can do self monitoring without the worksheets but I find it’s easy to forget and that the worksheet really helps to separate the trigger from the obsessive unwanted thoughts and from the following compulsion. Does that help?
Terrie123. I got a notification that you commented to me but when I try to open it to read it, it says the post is gone
Maybe it was me replying above or she replied to a different post?
Let me check it out when i get back to my office and I will get back to you. Thanks for letting me know.
?
I checked it out and I’m still not certain if it was someone else posting to that conversation or not. I will watch for this to happen again. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
I’ve been working with my therapist for years. We recently started doing ERP and are having success now. But I read Steve’s thing about being over OCD in weeks and couldn’t believe it. Am I doing something wrong? I mean I have adhd and don’t ever do homework...so to really only focus on therapy during aooointments. Is that why others have progressed faster than me? Could it be my ocd is worse than these other people?
How come your therapist didn’t start doing erp till recently?
I'm LDS too
@ocdmaybe Sorry my reply didn’t go under your post
@OCDLatter-daySaint No worries!
Well we did some before. But I’m not sure why we didn’t do more. I’m quite the talker so I think I would come in and just talk a ton about what I was dealing with and what to do when it happened. So we did a lot of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). We started doing ERP a bit but then my insurance wasn’t paying for my appointments so he is letting me work with him at his home (the hospital lets him do that with patients who’s insurance won’t cover it) at a cheaper rate. I told him I wanted to do more and he said we could get a lot more done with 2 hour appointments and we started doing ERP again and that’s when things have really picked up. But I wonder if it could be even better?
I'm so depressed. It scares me how bad I'm depressed but at times I feel I don't care anymore. Has anyone had suicidal themed OCD here?. I've been told and listened to the OCD stories podcast and they say it is a real form of OCD. How do you practise erp with this or loose the anxiety that comes with it.??? PLEASE
Suppose to say Stick with your thought! Good luck ?
Terrie. How would you suggest response prevention again? It's hard to understand because it feels so real. Depression.... Let me ask you this.... So except the uncertainty that I might do it or might not? Maybe hold a dangerous tool? What exactly do you mean about staying present?
The uncertainty of this feeling is very uncomfortable.
So Terrie are you saying part of the compulsion with this is asking friends, family for assurance that I'm ok or even just telling them I'm depressed. Please respond to this. Thanks
Hi j420. I would not suggest doing anything dangerous. Just trying to give examples of ERP to someone who is not a client is a challenge. That’s why it’s so important to do ERP with a professional. If you read some of the posts in the community, many users have commented about trying ERP on their own and it not working. I hope that you will be able to find a therapist that can work with you. To answer your other question about seeking reassurance. Having support people in your life is a blessing. We are so lucky to be able to talk to others when we are feeling sad, hopeless, frustrated. It’s a positive thing to be able to share your feelings with others. That’s different from a compulsion. Seeking reassurance, asking over and over and over the same theme of thought. Thats a compulsion. I hope that is helpful.
Thanks
Hi everyone, I’m Andrea and I am a member of the Intake Team here at NOCD. In junior high, I was known as the “aneurysm girl” because I was convinced any small headache meant I was dying. At just 12 years old, I read something that triggered my OCD, and from that moment on, my brain latched onto catastrophic health fears. Any strange sensation in my body felt like proof that something was seriously wrong. I constantly sought reassurance, avoided being alone, and felt trapped in an endless cycle of fear. Over time, my OCD shifted themes, but health anxiety was always there, lurking in the background. I turned to drinking to numb my mind, trying to escape the fear that never let up. Then, in 2016, everything spiraled. I was sitting at work, feeling completely fine, when suddenly my vision felt strange—something was “off.” My mind convinced me I was having a stroke. I called an ambulance, launching myself into one of the darkest periods of my life. I visited doctors multiple times a week, terrified I was dying, yet every test came back normal. The fear never loosened its grip. For years, I cycled in and out of therapy, desperately trying to find answers, but no one recognized what was really happening. I was always told I had anxiety or depression, but OCD was never mentioned. I was suicidal, believing I would never escape the torment of my mind. It wasn’t until 2022—after years of struggling, hitting rock bottom, and finally seeking specialized OCD treatment—that I got the right diagnosis. ERP therapy at NOCD was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it saved my life. Today, I’m 34, sober, and living a life I never thought was possible. Do I still have hard days? Absolutely. But I am no longer a prisoner to my fears. The thoughts still come, but they don’t control me anymore. They don’t dictate my every move. Life isn’t perfect, but it no longer knocks me off my feet. If you’re struggling with health OCD or somatic OCD, I see you. I know how terrifying and isolating it can be. But I also know that it can get better. If you have any questions about health & somatic OCD, ERP, and breaking the OCD cycle, I’d love to tell you what I’ve learned first hand. Drop your questions below, and I’ll answer all of them!
December 14, 2024, marked two years since my first ERP therapy session with my NOCD therapist, Mixi. And October 2024 marked a year of being free from OCD. It was not an easy journey, confronting my fears face to face. Exposing myself to the images and thoughts my brain kept throwing at me, accepting that I might be the worst mother, that my daughter wouldn’t love me, and that I deserved to be considered a bad person. It was challenging having to say, “Yes, I am those things,” feeling the desire to run, but realizing the thoughts followed me. At the start of my therapy, I remember feeling like I couldn’t do this anymore. Life felt unbearable, and I felt so weak. I longed for a time before the OCD, before the flare-ups, before the anxiety, the daily panic attacks. I thought I’d never be myself again. But I now know that ERP saved my life. The first couple of sessions were tough. I wasn’t fully present. I lied to my therapist about what my actual thoughts were, fearing judgment. I pretended that the exposures were working, but when the sessions ended, I went back to not sleeping, constantly overwhelmed by fear and anxiety. But my therapist never judged me. She made me feel safe to be honest with her. She understood OCD and never faltered in supporting me, even when I admitted I had been lying and still continued my compulsions. My biggest milestone in therapy was being 100% transparent with my therapist. That was when real change began. At first, I started small—simply reading the words that terrified me: "bad mom," "hated," "unloved." Then, I worked on listening to those words while doing dishes—not completely stopping my rumination, but noticing it. Just 15 minutes, my therapist said. It wasn’t easy. At one point, I found myself thinking, “Will I ever feel like myself again?” But I kept pushing through. Slowly, I built tolerance and moved to face-to-face exposures—sitting alone with my daughter, leaning into the thought that my siblings might die, reading articles about my worst fears, and calling myself the things I feared. Each session was challenging, but with time, the thoughts started to lose their grip. By my eleventh session, I started to realize: OCD was here, and it wasn’t going away, but I could keep living my life despite it. I didn’t need to wait for it to be quiet or go away to move on. Slowly, it began to quiet down, and I started to feel like myself again. In fact, I am not my old self anymore—I’m a better version. OCD hasn’t completely disappeared, but it’s quieter now. Most of the time, it doesn’t speak, and when it does, I know how to handle it. The last session with my therapist was emotional. I cried because I was finishing therapy. I remember how, in the beginning, I cried because I thought it was just starting—because I was overwhelmed and terrified. But at the end, I cried because I was sad it was ending. It felt like I had come so far, and part of me wasn’t ready to say goodbye, even though I had already learned so much. It was a bittersweet moment, but I knew I was walking away stronger, equipped with the tools to handle OCD on my own. If I could change anything about my journey, it would be being open and honest from the beginning. It was the key to finding true healing. The transparency, the honesty—it opened the door to lasting change. I’m no longer that person who was stuck in constant panic. I’m someone who has fought and survived, and while OCD still appears from time to time, I know it doesn’t define me. I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments. Have you started therapy, is something holding you back? Is there something you want to know about ERP therapy? I'll be live in the app answering each and every one today from 6-7pm EST. Please drop them below!
Hi everyone! My name is Tara, I’m a therapist here at NOCD. Before becoming a therapist, I worked various jobs in arts, textiles, prop styling, I worked in restaurants... I basically did what I could do with an undergrad in art living in Brooklyn, with a secret hope that I might someday pursue a career in mental health. Fun fact, I held onto that hope for 10 whole years before I decided to take a risk and apply to grad school! I wanted to become a therapist because I just knew that this was a field where my mind could work at its best and do the most good. Anyone else here with ADHD may understand. I simply cannot retain long term focus on something if I don’t absolutely love it, and I absolutely love this work. Having a job where my sole purpose is to connect with others and help them tap into their inner strength is an actual dream come true. I specifically love working with Exposure and Response Prevention and treating OCD, since the whole point of ERP is to show you you’re braver than you think you are. And it works so, so well. If you have a fear, and you think you “can’t” approach it, know that you most likely can. It might take some time to prove that to yourself, but with time and a steady dose of discomfort, you’ll get there. I’m sure that “discomfort” part didn’t sound appealing but let me ask you this - does OCD make you feel uncomfortable? Why not put some of that discomfort to work, in your favor? If you’re struggling with OCD, or you think you might be, know that you probably already have what it takes to thrive in ERP. You’re here. You recognized that you were struggling, you decided to find help, you downloaded the app, and you started reading through posts. I’m sure somewhere along the line, you felt at least a little uncomfortable, and you decided to take the next step anyway. That’s ERP in a nutshell :) Please ask me anything about OCD, your current symptoms or ERP. I’ll be responding over the next 2 days to questions.
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