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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