- Date posted
- 4y ago
- Date posted
- 4y ago
I see where you're getting confused. Let's try to straighten it out :) the obsession is the initial scary thought. It is spontaneous and elicits distress. The thinking about it, googling, and ruminating are compulsions. Those are behaviors that you respond to the obsessions with. As you've now noticed, any relief you used to get from them has vanished. Exposure and Response Prevention has two parts. Exposure is when we intentionally trigger an obsession. Response Prevention is when we choose not to do compulsions. Response Prevention is the more important part. This impact ERP has is to cause distress at first, but that distress isn't the goal. Think of ERP like lifting weights to build muscle. Lifting weights causes muscle a he's and soreness, but that's not the point of it. You wouldn't intentionally injure your muscles to cause that pain. I'd reframe the goal of ERP practice to be "I can have uncomfortable thoughts and all the feelings that come with them and still function effectively"
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Thank you for taking your time to answer this, it means a lot. And that makes a lot of sense! I do always have the initial panic from the thought but I'm getting pretty good at letting it go and not reacting to it. ? I learned all of this through talk therapy though and a mixture of acceptance and response (I think that's what it's called) and CBT. I'm really nervous about ERP because I'm scared I'll mess up the progress I've made and what really threw me for a loop was my couselor asking if I stopped the thinking so I didn't feel the distress. Well yes, but also I stop it because it's an compulsionand does me no good. So I'm worried now that stopping the compulsion is a compulsion in itself. But I don't really think that's true. I'm nervous though that I may be told to not stop the thinking and let myself ruminate and get more panicky. It's amazing how when I focus on the body and just the sensations, my distress may be intense but it's completely manageable and I can handle it. It's when I'm making it worse by being in my head that is really excruciating.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
I do the "remember when I was a kid thing" a lot and always try to find evidence that matches my schema. Brains are silly sometimes. ? I also do scenarios like the one you mentioned but it's normally over the course of 20 minutes and is a product of catastrophizcatastrophizing. But hey, that might be a great idea. Yeah, maybe this is horrible. Maybe my husband will leave me. I'll be all alone and sad for the rest of my life. And then fight the urge to keep thinking about it or telling someone.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
It takes a lot of practice to master, but trust me it’s worth it. And Katie is exactly right, it’s kinda like weight lifting. Think of OCD has a heavy 100 pound weight you carry with you around daily, the more you train though. Eventually that 100 pound weight will feel like it’s 5 pounds, it’s still there mind you but it’s only an annoyance.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Can't wait to give it all I got!
- Date posted
- 4y ago
There's a difference between repeating the thought that scared you until it gets boring and ruminating
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Well dang it, I don't know the difference.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@christinejg94 Ruminating adds to the fear. It's trying to find evidence for or against it. Planning ways to avoid it, waffling over whether it's real, hypothesizing what it means about you and your past and future. Checking for what sensations it brings on. If I remember correctly from our other conversation, your fear is of being a pedophile. I'm going to pull examples of the fear and of ruminating from that thread. Give me a minute
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@NOCD Advocate - Katie Scrap that, I can't find the post I'm looking for. I think I'm getting conversations confused. My bad. I'll just create examples. Here is an example of a fear you could repeat over and over as imaginal exposure. "I'm using a huge sharp knife to chop a watermelon. suddenly, the urge to chip off my hand overwhelms me. WHAM!!!! I just did it. My arm is on fire. It's the worst pain if my life. There's my hand lying dead and bloody on the cutting board. I wrap up my stump and call 911. Just as the paramedics arrive, I pass out from the agony. When I wake up, I'm in a hospital bed. My remaining arm is in restraints. They must think I'm going to harm myself again. I live out the rest of my days in a psychiatric hospital, needing help with basic tasks because big my missing hand. My life is over." Ruminating on the fear if cutting off your hand would sound like "arghh!!! I hate that thought. I'd never do that... Would I? Remember that time as a kid at camp when I burned myself on a snore, maybe that was intentional and I've just tricked myself into believing it was an accident. How can I know for sure? I'd better think some more. I had that dream about my arms falling off, maybe that's a sign. But I hate gory movies... How could I want to chop my hand off if blood disgusts me. That's good, I probably won't do it. NO I WONT do it!.... But maybe I should hide the knives just in case. My therapist says this is OCD. She's really knowledgeable, but I still have a niggling doubt. Better start googling to see if people have similar symptoms. How horrible would it be if I did ERP and then actually DID cut my hand off. Has anyone's OCD fear actually come true? Let's ask people.... I'm going to imagine it again to see if I was really scared. OH GOD!!! MY HEART DIDN'T RACE THIS TIME! that must mean it doesn't scare me. I'm gonna do it, I just know it! But I don't want to! I'll let my husband do all the cooking from now on. And do some more googling to see if the fear comes true...."
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@NOCD Advocate - Katie This is a very good example! Thanks
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Ah, yeah, what I do is definitely ruminating. I look for evidence for a lot of stuff like that. Pedophilia isn't my major fear, I don't feed that one a lot so it normally leaves me alone, lol. The majority of my distress comes from past actions. I have a memory, feel an intense amounamount of guilt or shame or fear and then analyze it a million ways to figure out how bad it is and then fight the urge to confess it to someone so they know.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Thanks for being understanding of my mix up
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@NOCD Advocate - Katie There's so many themes on here, it's no problem. Even if you used an example of that I'm sure I could gain knowledge from it.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
It's like a big "f you" to the anxiety when you imagine the worst case scenario up front.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Exactly. And then let it get boring. Like a radio song you've heard a thousand times
- Date posted
- 4y ago
I'll try that. I like the SOS feature on here and normally I just sit with the thought or say, "it's just a thought." But for the really bad ones I have just sat with the worst case scenario. I'll try that more often.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Thanks for all your input today, it's been really insightful.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 13w ago
I know a few of you saw my posts about my ERP and the googling urges. That didn’t end up going well. My therapist actually decided we needed to halt it for now. The thing is it’s almost like I learned googling is harmless from those few exercises and my brain keeps generating more things to google. Normally I would just spiral and be done but now I can barely hold back from searching for long. I eventually give in. I’m horrified because it feels like I want to find illegal content. I swear on everything I am, I don’t want to find anything even close to it. I’m freaking out because I don’t understand what’s happening. I keep compulsively searching/testing/checking or idk. I keep remembering details and I feel like I need to google again to be sure of something. I feel absolutely insane can someone please help me??? I’m petrified I’m going to get in trouble.
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- Date posted
- 13w ago
I’ve noticed that I’m somewhat happier also ignoring my thoughts than I am instead of doing compulsions (I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired atp) but I’ve heard you’re technically supposed to do erp rather than pushing under the rug. But idk if I have a thought I just refuse to think about it again and im fine even if I want to do compulsions
- Date posted
- 11w ago
Two things are happening: I get thoughts that just keep looping. They almost feel like song stuck in my head. Also, I’ll imagine something and I feel my stomach drop. Then as the seconds go by I keep getting fragments of the this thought but with different details. For example, it’s kinda like how a “vision” is portrayed. I’ll get a glimpse of the thought and then it’ll rapidly expand into something worse every few seconds. I don’t know if I’m causing this or if it’s just an automatic thing like any other intrusive thought. It feels unavoidable, idk if this is a compulsion or if it’s just another manifestation of an intrusive thought. Apart from that remembering an intrusive thought triggers the full thought again and then it just keeps looping or expanding. I don’t know how to stop any of this. Help?
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- Relationship OCD
- OCD newbies
- Mid-life adults with OCD
- "Pure" OCD
- Young adults with OCD
- Older adults with OCD
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