I have the hardest time figuring out how to do ERP treatment because I'm confused about how I'm supposed to know what's OCD & what's just personality quirks or interests that are different from other people. Like for example therapists ask patients to make a picture on the wall crooked for an exposure & habituate to that. Me, I like pictures hanging straight. It's a preference of mine. I could list alot of other examples. This gets confusing alot of the time. Anyone else experience this?

Maybe as ERP, do the opposite of what your ‘supposed’ to do?

You only have to do the ERP exercises that apply to your theme. If you aren’t obsessed with neatness, if having crooked pictures doesn’t make you anxious but is just a preference, you DON’T need to do those kind of exposures and they won’t help your OCD. Find exposures specific to your themes, not everybody else’s.

When you have those obsessions, when you fear if you don’t habituate to certain things, do you do a compulsion to get rid of that fear? Then that’s the compulsion you need to stop. Not your thoughts. The reason why you’re having a hard time is because you’re fighting your thoughts, questioning and correcting them. That will never work. It’s irrational. If this purely just an obsession then you say “I’ll have OCD forever”. Remember obsessions are your thoughts. Compulsions are your physical/mental act in which you do to get rid of your obsessions and anxiety.

I understand. I have that worry if I’m not doing the ERP correctly. But that alone is an obsession. You have to learn to be okay with the uncertainty that you’re not doing the ERP right. OCD is the doubting disease and throws things that you crave certainty for. You have to be okay with that uncertainty, the uneasiness. That’s the ERP. If you can learn to sit with the discomfort of knowing you might do it wrong is a successful ERP.

The therapists ask patients to make a picture frame crooked to show that nothing bad will happen. Often times we do rituals to stop anxiety that we don’t allow ourselves to sit and stay with the uncertainty. But if you don’t have this fear don’t worry. What are some of your rituals? Your obsessive thoughts? What makes you anxious? Give us an example and maybe we can give you an idea of how to do your exposures. It’ll make more sense if we can apply directly to your particular symptoms. Everyone has different fears.

One of my biggest fears is that if I don't make a picture crooked on purpose, I haven't habituated correctly & I'm going to have OCD forever/I'm not doing my best to get better. This is the obsession.

Another fear is that if I don't habituate to having my hand in a toilet, I'm going to have OCD forever & I'm a bad person because I didn't fully habituate to having my hand in a toilet. I don't even have contamination OCD, but my mind is telling me that because ERP asks you to habituate to having your hand in a toilet & because I find that gross, that I've failed the therapy. Again, I don't even have compulsions around contamination, I just think it's nasty to put my hand in a toilet.

Where everything falls apart for me around this recovery obsession, is the practice of exposure itself. A lot of exposure practices therapists have patients do, I wouldn't habituate to, yet, people with OCD are expected to. I have OCD. I had it around many things,checking for dropped money, aligning chairs correctly, having to have the "right pillow", etc. But this recovery obsession is something different. Something more sinister than the other obsessions. It's hard to describe, but basically, if I haven't habituated correctly like ERP asks you to do, then I haven't done therapy correctly.

Which is the goal of ERP, right? So if I don't meet that goal, then I wouldn't be doing therapy correctly.

I get confused because the practice of exposure doesn't line up with logic. The rationale behind exposure isn't logical. I was told by medical professionals to sit with a crooked picture & habituate. I was told to do things backwards on purpose and habituate, like putting my hand in a toilet, or making things off center on purpose. Because I don't want to do these exposures anymore, then that would be going against the therapy, would it not?

I was supposed to habituate.

And so now, when a picture is straight, I freak out. When something is lined up correctly, I freak out. Anytime something is the way I like it, I feel like I need to mess it up for an exposure. It's hell.

Who were these medical professionals? ERP specialists? Wrong type of guidance can make things worse. Did you explain that you’re obsessing from these thoughts and not the content of your thoughts? From what you’ve explained your obsessions are “if you don’t habituate to crooked pictures and your hand in the toilet, then you haven’t done the ERP right and will have OCD forever. “ this is the content of your obsessions, your intrusive thoughts. You can’t do anything about that. You need to stop focusing on the content. Now if you have pure o and only obsess about this thought, you can do the ERP (which is to cut out the compulsion) by telling yourself “I’m not doing this right. I’m going to have OVD forever” and habituate to THAT thought. You’re not habituate go to putting your hand in the toilet or a crooked picture. If you do a physical or mental compulsions like reassuring yourself that you won’t or maybe clean to neutralize the thoughts then you need to cut that out. I have a feeling your doctor thinks your actual compulsion is to fix the picture frame with some kind of fear attached if you don’t or that you have a contamination fear and so suggested you to do the toilet thing. But you HAVE to realize that is just the content and OCD has many different contents for intrusive thoughts. It’s like if you see a pink carpet and if your mind tells you if you don’t change it to yellow you’ll have OCD forever. This is your thought. Now if you do change the carpet then that’s the compulsion you need to do the ERP for. You need to habituate to your discomfort of your thought of not doing it right and you’ll have it forever.