I’ve done 4 days in a row with 0 reassurance!! ZERO. I’m kicking butt. It hurts so bad and it’s so hard but it’s worth it. I’m gonna beat this and continue to not give into reassurance because it feeds it. I’m gonna win eventually

I gotcha! Sounds like it was a good idea at that time, it's just the number of posts you make which are saying the same thing of the number of times you sought reassurance, it just has this quality to it that seems like a rumination/reassurance compulsion itself. The counting how many days you've done it in particular. Maybe it could be an idea to keep track in a more vague way, or even via looking at how other parts of your life are going? It shouldn't be super hard to tell the difference between "lots" "a bit" and "none", and at the end of a week you might be able to see "good week" "bad week" or "ok week but not great". It still keeps track, but it has a lot less potential to become a compulsion, even if the idea of doing so is scary because it involved uncertainty, as you don't know the exact amount or for how many days. Another part of it is that trying to keep it at 0 can be kinda a perfectionism element, which is super common in OCD. It's definitely a good goal to strive to quit a compulsion as much as possible, but keeping count of a "streak" can be a compulsion as well as creating its own pressures. A lot of us compulsively write things down and keep track, it's great that you don't do it on paper, but doing it mentally is in essence the same thing as writing it down. You don't need to have streaks of 0 in order to recover, you just need to keep doing your best to keep it and rumination as little as possible. It doesn't all have to be perfect. A week of most days doing no reassurance seeking but a couple of days in it where you asked a few times isn't perfect, but it's good you should be able to have a feel for whether it's more or less than it was previously without tallying numbers. But really it's something to talk to your therapist about I suppose. Charting it may have been great to give both you and her more awareness of the extent of the compulsions, and could even be valuable for her to see whether you're making progress, but it truly is the kind of thing which can become maladaptive. There are special medical surveys that your therapist could give you every few sessions which do the same job of keeping track of your symptoms, but they don't require you to keep a tally, they do the standard 5-option format of "none "very little" "some" "quite a bit" or "lots". That might be more appropriate at this point so I'd just encourage you to talk to your therapist about how you still count every day and be open about any times that you might be using that information as a way to soothe your anxieties about not getting better. If we really want to get better, we have to be super vigilant about quitting all comforting behaviours which we turn to when we feel anxious. It genuinely is important. Anyway well done again on reducing your asking for reassurance, I'm sure that's making a positive difference in your relationships and self esteem and you should feel proud!

@Scoggy Thank you! That makes sense for sure.

@jakemen20 What type of chart did your Therapist tell you to make? Is it a tally chart per reassurance / compulsion daily? Also congrats on all of your progress!!!! I know how hard it is not to ask for reassurance it’s my main compulsion too. And it’s so painful. Keep going!! ??✌?you got this!!!!

A lot better

@jakemen20 Thanks for asking

@jakemen20 Great to hear! Katie posted a while ago about how in studies people with OCD only experienced significant improvements when they quit enough compulsions at once, enough of the time. Rumination can be a really sneaky and automatic one, and also really constant and persistent, it can make a lot of work on other compulsions pretty useless. So as soon as we notice we're doing it, we need to redirect our attention.

@jakemen20 I do still worry a little though that the way you keep track of not reassurance seeking from others could be part of a self-reassurance cycle where you're trying to have a rock to hold onto in the storm which you can use to assure yourself that you're making progress. If self reassurance that you're doing well is replacing seeking reassurance about that from others, it can throw just as much of a spanner in the works. We really have to go "look ma no hands" style and give it all up.

It kind of does work that way when it comes to rumination, it's a fine line between noticing that you've had a good day, and checking it in order to feel better. You've talked before about having an obsession with doing ERP and treatment right and about whether it's working, so if tallying streaks is providing you with reassurance when you feel anxious about it, it can be compulsive. I genuinely don't believe that a need exists for counting daily incidences of compulsions. I can completely understand how it may have been useful at the start of therapy to give you a bit of a wake up call and to clue in your therapist about how bad things are, but continuing to do it after months and keeping tally of streaks of 0 isn't of benefit to your treatment. Being able to reflect, while in therapy, on whether you have had a week of lots of reassurance seeking or of less reassurance seeking, is almost certainly enough at this point. If you had a day of doing it all the time, you'd notice. All you need to do is to be consistent, and to be able to bring it up with your therapist if you've been struggling. She doesn't need to know the number of times you sought reassurance every day, and neither do you.