Stealthhero22
- Date posted
- 5y
kati1kati1
- Date posted
- 5y
Erp at its best ?? learn to sit with your anxiety while facing your fear. Try to avoid rituals that keep you away from your fear. My biggest one is instruisve thoughts and doing rituals to avoid those thoughts. ERP has taught me to allow those thoughts to be there, to not react to them, and let them float away. It produces a lot of anxiety in the beginning, but I give myself points whenever I don’t react to these thoughts! I gets easier with consistency promise ??????
Stealthhero22 Stealthhero22
- Date posted
- 5y
Thanks, but my OCD tells me if a dead or alive bug is on me; it matters.
kati1kati1
- Date posted
- 5y
Of course and if a bug is on me, I’m human, I’m going to remove it. I don’t have to kill the bug, but if I do, I accept that anxiety as I am human. The point is to not be afraid of the bug, it’s harmless. It will get easier especially with therapy. I suggest getting a therapist from this ap or a virtual CBT therapist the specializes in ocd disorder.
Stealthhero22 Stealthhero22
- Date posted
- 5y
@kati1 Thanks, you are right!!!
FathomableFathomable
- Date posted
- 5y
In OCD our feelings don't line up properly with what we know. You know there's nothing bad about being touched by a bug but your feelings haven't caught up with that. The way to make your feelings become more aligned with what you know is to act based on what you know instead of how you feel. When you have the urge to obsess about it or imagine it, deliberately choose to think about something else. When you have the urge to check or avoid, just behave as normal even though it makes you anxious. Eventually your feelings will understand it's not dangerous. You know it's not dangerous, so it's not risky to listen to what you know. This is the only way to beat OCD.
Stealthhero22 Stealthhero22
- Date posted
- 5y
Thanks, I try to rush the checking for bugs. Does that help. I personally know nothing is there.
FathomableFathomable
- Date posted
- 5y
@Stealthhero22 I'm not sure, you should probably check with your therapist about that. There needs to be a shift for you away from checking even though there's probably nothing there, towards NOT checking even though YES there might be something there. It's much better to work on accepting that there might be bugs and that that's okay, than to try to prove to yourself that there aren't bugs. You already know that a bug isn't going to do you any harm and that you'd handle it just like anybody else if you touched one. But your feelings are saying differently, as you've taught the fear-response part of your brain that bugs are important and that making sure they're not there is important. Seeing as we can't eliminate bugs from the world, and seeing as your compulsions and anxiety over bugs are only causing suffering, really the only way to get through this problem you're having is to reduce your fear of bugs. That can only be done through exposure, which means not checking at all when you feel the need to, and eventually working up to deliberately being around and touching bugs without doing compulsions. That's the only way to prove to your brain that it doesn't need to be so hyped up around bugs. I know it's unpleasant but treating OCD is about conquering fears so that your brain stops sending you adrenaline and warnings about the idea, so that your life doesn't revolve around it anymore. It's not about reducing the likelihood of fears happening.
Stealthhero22 Stealthhero22
- Date posted
- 5y
@Scoggy Thanks
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shlud
- Date posted
- 11w
Guilt over insects
potential trigger warning cus insects and stuff (contamination ocd?) . Its summer in the UK, and theres a lot more bugs around. I dont dislike bugs, and if we're outside its whatever, but I realised i have huge fears when bugs are in my house. I keep getting images of fruit flies or other bugs bein at the bottom of my drink whenever i see one, or them flying into my eyes or mouth and how horrible that would feel. Ive realised i constantly feel on edge when theres insects. Its not debilitating and i can push past it pretty easily but I will stay stressed and anxious until i forget about them or go somewhere else. I also sometimes search rooms for bugs kindof subconciously? like when I enter a room - especially the bathroom cus you feel more vulnerable and all that in there - im always looking around, checking walls and the ceilings and looking to see if the window was left open and bugs mightve gotten in. Dead insects also make me feel really guilty. I remember as a kid i used to litterally break into sobbing tears when my dad would kill a fly, and although I dont cry anymore I feel just as bad whenever I see a insect dead in the bathtub or sink (where they often get stuck cus slippery surface + water) Does anyone know how to lessen my fears around bugs and the guilt? Im not scared of the bugs themselves at all. I love bugs, i find moths and ladybugs and spiders really cute but its just the "what if they get in my eye" and "what if i kill them" that repeats in my head whenever im around one.
Anonymous
- Date posted
- 10w
Mold
I came home from a trip today to find mold growing out of every vent in my apartment. This has been an intrusive thought of mine for a long time (i.e. everything is infected, spores in my possessions, spores in the air) and I feel like this has just confirmed everything I thought to be true. I’ve been reading statistics about mold to try to calm down (how common it is to have an issue with mold in vents and how low the chances are of illness from it) but I don’t know how to stop thinking about it being everywhere. Any advice?
spaceartcat
- Date posted
- 8w
Extreme distress about bugs and water damage
Looking for help coping with contamination OCD, bugs, and water damage. Bugs in my home are my number one trigger, and I am living in a historic (75 year old) house for the first time with a shitty landlord who does not carry out repairs in a timely manner. We had a really big leak from a broken toilet in the house recently (inches of standing water both upstairs and downstairs) and maintenance didn't get here for a whole day. Cleaning up the water by myself and dealing with all the accompanying thoughts and worries was incredibly taxing. They cut holes in ceiling downstairs and put in a giant dehumidifier, which for a couple days, made the house (and my brain) feel SO much better. But the dehumidifiers generate so much heat that I think we're honestly worse off now. I have also begun finding smokey brown cockroach nymphs in the house, including two today. Cockroaches are my number one most feared bug. I am really scared to find bugs in my home because that tells me that my home is unsafe and I cannot relax there. I check every room many times in a specific manner to see if there are bugs. I am bound to find something with how excessively I am checking. I do not want to see a bug in my house at all, but in a kind of twisted, subconcious way, I *do* want to see a bug, because it would confirm my fears and anxieties and validate my obsessions and compulsions. I am just so tired, and I feel hopeless. I do not know how to relax. No amount of weed or drinking or sleep can quell the way I feel. I can't afford ERP or anything specific but I am on a few waitlists. I wish I could be someone that understands roaches and bugs are an inevitable part of life, and I wish they did not cause such a visceral reaction for me. It does not help that my roommates are not home often and do not see these things as a very big deal. They are very go with the flow, whatever happens happens kind of people, and it frustrates me. Thank you for reading this.
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