If the brain develops neural connections when we think of stuff repeatedly, wouldn’t ERP be counter intuitive and make people believe our thoughts? can someone explain how that works?

We can't erase thoughts. The brain doesn't "unlearn" anything. The neural connections for the unwanted thought are already there. Remember, the point of exposure is to create opportunities for response prevention. The idea is to create strengthen pathways that bypass the emotional response and let us behave normally so that they are bigger and more available than the pathways from the thoughts to distress and compulsions

You don't actually think of it to the point that you believe it. You repeat the words, phrase, scene, imagine whatever, without attaching anything to it. If you are internalizing it you are doing it wrong. And if you are internalizing it, yes, you would believe it. But right now the way our brain is working we think of something, get intensely scared, and do something to calm it. So our brain believes that it's actually scary. With ERP you trigger the scary sensation (which would come anyway) but instead of reacting to decrease the fear you just confront it head on. Then all of a sudden it looses its fear and becomes just a thought, just a word, just a phrase, just a picture, ect. So it retrains our brain to ignore it, ie. It isn't important.

You're internalizing something when you believe it. For me this manifests in a switch from intense anxiety to intense sadness and depression or suicidal thinking. If you're scared you want to kill your family it's going to put you in panic mode, if you actually think you want to you are going to want to die (kill yourself before you kill them kind of thing). You'll stop searching for evidence for and against it and just be really insanely depressed. So with ERP it's the same, the rush of emotions the words bring you may be anger, guilt, shame, sadness, whatever but it comes on strong, peaks and diminishes. If you are internalizing your whole demeaner will change, you will look heart broken and you won't have a peak and recovery, you will just be increasingly depressed.

This is something I think about all of the time

How do you know if you are internalizing it?

During ERP or in general?

Even the thought process of, "do I really believe this? Is this really true? Or trying to actually feel it to see if it's true is a compulsion. These things have to be avoided. When you do Erp you're focusing on the words and the emotions that the words bring. If you take the time to stop and actually try to feel what you're saying that's a compulsion and you'll notice because you're in your head instead of saying the words.

And dang it, now I want to recreate yesterday's session and try to "feel" everything to see if it resonates. ?

Gotcha. Thanks!

I internalised an OCD a couple of times. Once from the intensity of the thoughts/suggestibility, and once later after ERP. I'm gonna use a different example as I don't need to accidentally go into a confession compulsion. So, imagine if I had an OCD that last night I got belligerent while I was drunk and badly hurt someone in a bar fight. I had woken up the next morning with a bad hangover not remembering the entire night perfectly, some blurry bits, and I had the OCD thought appear. I was able to soothe the worry quickly by my friends saying I didn't, but the worry still came up sometimes, for a few months and I would dismiss it. One day someone brought up the fact I'd had an argument with someone that night, and said they heard there had been a fight at that bar that night, and said they thought it was me. So for a moment I believed it and an entire plausible chain of reasoning for why that could've been me. I even had feelings that I must've done it very much on purpose and over some very petty reason, in order to be feeling so guilty. Boom, internalised. But then quickly realised that for various reasons it still didn't make sense- I had no sore hands, my friends knew I hadn't, I didn't have any actual memories of any part of that etc. I spent 5 years fighting with that OCD at times and usually not believing it because no consequences happened, no other reports of a bar fight etc, and I was able to take my mind off it over the years, so less ruminating meant less belief. I'd even seen the guy I thought I had attacked and he was cool with me. But the OCD sense of ignoring something important/the guilt never really went away, I just learned to repress it and get on with my life. Then I did ERP for the niggling feelings of guilt about the topic which were left that. I ended up being very sure I never killed anyone in a bar fight but I still had some remaining belief that I'd done something wrong that night. I no longer felt guilty, I was able to look back and remember a few things I did wrong that night, like butting in the queue for the bar and having a brief conflict with a guy (where he spilled his drink on me and I went "for fucks sake mate" and walked off). I can see I was in a bad mood that night. And in gradually able to develop self compassion for it. But because those things don't seem to account for the amount of guilt and worry I felt, I start feeling like there must have been more. So I settle on the idea that I probably shoved the guy and I can live with that idea. I apologise to the guy, who says he can't remember that but accepts the apology. Actually this analogy is way off for what actually happened to me, but it's functional. With the first internalisation I just ignored my own memory and logic and took all circumstantial stuff plus my worry and made a plausible reality based on the idea that my feelings were accurate. The second time was after doing ERP because I didn't know I had OCD so I was still looking for reasons for my guilt and settled on something which seemed more plausible. I still regret being short with the dude and not acting my best. But I have learned to live with it instead of using it as "evidence". Look, don't worry, ERP doesn't make you believe something just by getting used to the anxiety caused by the idea of it being real. It just takes away the strong feelings. Once that's gone you can freely decide how probable your concern is (via getting input from others or just your own wisdom) without your feelings getting in the way. Just don't do what I did and try to find a reason based in reality for an experience of OCD. I felt I'd done something NOT because I really had but because I had a core belief that I was dangerous, backed up by stuff from my past which I was also viewing in a way that was too harsh and non-understanding (like, memories of fights but it wasn't me who started them).