I'm not sure how to get my obsessions and compulsions to line up with ERP therapy. It's all really confusing & I'm in a lot of distress figuring out how to manage my OCD.

Hi, I'm currently struggling with a reoccurring "Recovery OCD" theme. It revolves around feeling like I need to expose myself and habituate or else I won't get better. As an example, if I first get the obsession of "What if dropped some money over there?" And my compulsion is to check to make sure I didn't, my mind quickly jumps to this new thought of "Now go drop $50 and habituate to that. Make it your new reality. Get 100% comfortable with it, or else you're doing treatment incorrectly." It's like the OCD has switched from the initial trigger/obsession/compulsion to this new fear about how to expose and habituate. Basically feeling like I need to prove to myself that I'm 100% comfortable with dropping moderate amounts of money on the go. There's a lot of anxiety, guilt and shame around this new fear.

@canigetawitness1992 So I guess my question is how would ERP address this OCD scenario?

@canigetawitness1992 Thanks ahead of time :)

Thanks, that makes sense. I'll try that. I haven't actually dropped $50 yet, because that'd make me uncomfortable just to throw money away on a whim. Of course OCD is playing with that though. "Because it bothers you, do it & habituate to it" seems to be the twisted tagline of OCD right now. And this can be attached to anything in my life really.

@canigetawitness1992 OCD is hanging onto the belief that feeling uncomfortable is a problem to be solved. Luckily, we know better. Doing behaviors that interfere with functioning when we feel uncomfortable is the actual problem

@NOCD Advocate - ocdillustrated Sooo true

No, the opposite. You need to habituate to feeling uncomfortable and not trying to make that feeling go away. Dropping fifty bucks would definitely count as an anxiety driven behavior that negatively impactz your life

@NOCD Advocate - ocdillustrated Oh, okay. I got it now I think. Thank you.

@NOCD Advocate - ocdillustrated Now my mind is doing the same thing, but in the shower. Initially my thought was "What if I didn't rinse all the shampoo/soap off" and then I went back to rinse once to make sure. THEN my mind jumped to "Now Everytime you get out the shower, put pumps of soap/shampoo on yourself, leave it to dry, and never rinse it off. Habituate to it. This is your new reality." I hate this, I don't understand what my mind is doing. Now I'm trying to figure out if I have alot of soap on my body dried because my mind demanded me to do that. This feels like it's never going to stop.

@canigetawitness1992 It really is frustrating how OCD can twist things