Did my ERP for HOCD and it spiked me way up worse, obviously the goal but there was something else. Instead of making me feel better, it made me “feel” gay. Obviously you can’t feel gay and gay people don’t feel gay like we don’t wake up feeling straight but when I tell myself I’m straight I feel like I’m lying and I’m actually believing the OCD thoughts that say I’m bi/gay and thoughts about women that wasn’t there before is coming. I told my therapist and she said “it gets worse before it gets better” and I have to go through it to become better. Did ERP make anyone feel like this afterwards? Am I on the right track with this? Is this really part of the process? I don’t fully feel comfortable with my therapist yet to tell her everything but I do tell her enough and I don’t think she understood when I told her this. This feeling of it feeling like it confirmed my worse fear of doing ERP and realizing it was the truth but obviously I know it’s not but I doubt what I even really want. I have two more ERP sessions to do today but I really don’t want to do it again if I feel this low. It takes me several hours to bounce back after ERP. Any resources about ERP would be great.

Ending up being gay when I’m married is so hard!! How are you fighting that? I just read something on that that triggered it so bad.

Yes, I immediately feel bad for hours after doing ERP.

@graybae Oh it’s awful because I have ROCD and HOCD at the same time and today’s erp made me feel AWFUL

@Anonymous Yes I’m still feeling awful

Thank you, after reading this and re-examining I do the exposure but not so good to the response prevention. I was so focused on the theme but not the fact of OCD. This was a great reminder.

Thanks so much for the advice. I am working with a therapist but it seems like she’s missed what you see. I feel like I still get triggered and haven’t reached habituation levels, so I’ll do an exposure to a picture for an hour. Then afterwards have urges later to do it again. It’s like a compulsion to keep doing the exposures as much as possible to get rid of the ocd. Should I just decide to do the exposure at a specific time of the day, then avoid doing it again as RP?

@evkrey I feel this too. It’s like I’m not doing enough to beat it

@takingmylifeback This is the OCD guys... ERP needs to be disciplined. 1) setup a hierarchy of exposures and measure you anxiety from 0-10 as you do them, when your anxiety reaches a 2/3 you move on to the next one until you reach the top. 2) ring fence a specific time in the day to do it and do it everyday, same time, same routine 3) Also do mindfulness everyday to help break the cycle of non stop thinking. 4) this takes time, months and to some people longer. So yes avoid doing it as RP. Have you identified your compulsions yet? Get to know them, identify them and when you start doing them catch yourself and stop doing it... let the horrible thoughts come in, I for example double down on the thoughts. I literally imagine myself having sex with men, initially it sucks, it’s horrific, scary and everything else you already feel x 1000 but over time they become just thoughts, when you reach habituation 2 things happen, the thoughts lessen and they do come you have little to no emotional reaction... when this happens you literally taught your brain that these thoughts are not a threat to your existence and slowly they will start lessening and eventually stop. You can do this girls!!! Millions go through what you are going through.

I know. I’m trying to be strong and keep going at it.

Me either. Partially because I’m getting to know her and the other is I don’t want her to tell me it’s not common to experience this.

I know, I’m opening up but I still feel worse. I’m holding onto hope and the practice.

Yes I sometimes get this problem you have to try your hardest to stop your compulsions. I usually watch YouTube videos of people coming out late in life