- Date posted
- 6y
- Date posted
- 6y
Ok so with checking your heart rate this is a type of reasurance seeking. So as we know this is what ocd needs to drive. So you have to resist the pressure to check. When this thought comes in that's when you do response prevention. Focus your attention on something else. So maybe don't check for five minutes then check and then increase the time you dont check each day. And once again researching makes your brain believe it is real. You need to stop. Trust that this is ocd and focus on something else for as long as you can. Put a timer on if you need.
- Date posted
- 6y
Exposure response prevention. You absolutely do it on your own. Expose yourself to the fear and then cope with the anxiety without doing your compulsions
- Date posted
- 6y
How would someone with health anxiety and a fear of cardiovascular disease do ERP?
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- 6y
What if your concerns with health??
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- 6y
I get confused on what to do with ERP as I mostly have mental compulsions
- Date posted
- 6y
When you have mental compulsions this is where you do ERP.
- Date posted
- 6y
Okay. My compulsion is checking my heart rate and seeking reassurance from someone or researching google
- Date posted
- 6y
@Wes thank you so much!! I’m going to try to start now.
- Date posted
- 6y
I hope I get my life back
- Date posted
- 6y
This sounds terrifying omg.
- Date posted
- 6y
ERP sounds terrifying?
- Date posted
- 6y
Just the idea of exposing myself and letting myself just dwell on the thoughts purposely
- Date posted
- 6y
The trick is to do what ever triggers your anxiety and push the anxiety as high as you can stand. Then experience the anxiety without doing your ritual, whatever that is that you do to try to reassure yourself. Before you start, write sown how anxious you expect to feel. Afterwords write sown how anxious you actually were (a On a 1 to 10 scale). You should do this each time you do an ERP to track your progress.
- Date posted
- 6y
Make a hierarchy of triggers from least to worst. Start with easy ones first so you gain the skill and some success. Then move onto harder ones. In the beginning, it is a good idea to have a coach (preferably someone who knows about ERPs).
Related posts
- User type
- Therapist
- Date posted
- 25w
Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is one of the hardest but most effective treatments for OCD. If you’ve started ERP, what has been the biggest challenge in resisting compulsions?
- User type
- Therapist
- Date posted
- 23w
Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) isn't always easy, but as one of the most effective treatments for OCD, it's worth it. If you've started ERP, what has been the biggest surprise you've experienced in learning to resist compulsions? If you haven't started ERP yet, what is holding you back from starting?
- Date posted
- 16w
I had just posted a summary of ERP for a group member, and I thought it might be useful for everybody. Here it is below (with a little extra added)…. ERP therapy is researched-based. Most other therapies don’t work. There have been people who have been literally stuck in their houses (from their OCD) who gained their lives back through ERP therapy. NOCD does ERP therapy exclusively. You can find it in other places too, but you have to ask around. There are two tenants of ERP therapy: The first one has to do with the repetitive thoughts inside our heads. These thoughts are actually defined as “obsessions”. You are not supposed to do anything with the obsessions. You are supposed to let them run through your head freely, without trying to fix them or stop them. Imagine a tree planted by a river. The leaves fall off and float down the river. You can see the leaves falling, but you don’t try to stop them or pick them up. You don’t try to fix them. You just let them float away. This is really important to do with your obsessive thoughts. The more you try to fight them off, the worse they get. I used to have blasphemous sentences running in my head 24/7. I felt like I had to put a “not” next to each sentence in order to “fix” it. But this just took hours of my time every day, and it was very scary, because I was worried that if I messed up, that I would go to hell. It was very freeing to learn later that I could just let those sentences run freely through my head without trying to fix them. The second part of ERP therapy is all about “denying your compulsions.” Every time OCD tells you that if you don’t do things a certain way that something really bad will happen, that is a compulsion. Once you recognize what your compulsions are, ERP therapy will have you practice stopping doing all of those things. For some people, that will mean stopping washing their hands or touching lights switches or, in my case, putting “fixing” words in their head. Compulsions are safety behaviors. During ERP therapy, you will practice stopping engaging with safety behaviors. All this is very hard to do and scary, so during therapy you will be given tools to help you deal with the fear. Often ERP therapy will take people from being non-functional to functional. I highly recommend it. ————————————————- PITFALL #1: After you have been doing ERP for a while and become somewhat successful, the OCD will try subtle little tricks to bring you down again. The first one is to tell you that your thoughts are REAL and not OCD, and therefore you can’t apply ERP therapy. Don’t fall for this trick! All thoughts are just thoughts. They are all meaningless. Don’t try to figure out what is real and what is OCD. Just treat all thoughts with ERP therapy. PITFALL #2: The second pitfall is that OCD will tell you that you can’t move forward unless you have absolute certainty that you will be safe. Hate to tell you this, folks, but there is no certainty in life. You will never know for SURE that you or your loved ones will be “safe” from the OCD rules. Therefore, you have to move forward in the uncertainty. It’s hard, but it gets easier with time and practice. We got this, guys !!!!!!
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