I know I’ve been posting too much. But I have an important message for all my ocd sufferers: do not do ERP before bed. I wanted to do good, but essentially all that anxiety caused a ton of adrenaline so now I’m anxious about never being able to sleep again. I am panicking so bad right now. Does anyone have any advice? No reassurance, just advice. Everytime I lay my head down, I start to panic all over again.

I did. But when you do ERP you still have to let yourself feel anxious. And that’s not really something you wana feel before you sleep

@dmuhnyyy So you did the ERP till your anxiety was at the lowest level?

@Believe I did. But you know how it is after ERP. You get a little shaken up.

@dmuhnyyy Okay. A little thing can go unnoticed while doing your ERP. When you are doing ERP for let's say, contamination OCD, you do the exposure of not washing your hands. But you washed them 10 minutes after for your dinner time. OCD created a feeling that you didn't washed your hands earlier, that means you didn't do the compulsion. But it made you do it when you washed your hands after 10 minutes. So the compulsion was completed. The exposure didn't work and so thus the ERP. You have to make sure you don't do ERP when you can naturally do the activity of a compulsion after some time.

You might haven't done the compulsions knowingly. When you resist doing the compulsions, there's an cycle from your subconscious that connects the function in the brain that is damaged by OCD. This function will send the respone to your concious that you must do the compulsion where you again try to resist the it. This causes anxiety as you try to overcome your subconscious and mental activity telling you to do the compulsion. When you did ERP, you must have done a compulsion afterwards, maybe you didn't noticed it. When you did it, there was a spike between your resistance to stop the compulsions and your subconscious.

Ok. So maybe no television then? It’s getting really bad. I had a panic attack about thinking I was never gona sleep again. So now when I try and sleep, when I feel I’m about to lose consciousness, I panic...

@dmuhnyyy I’m sorry. Sounds like your body trains quickly, so maybe you can change this soon! Try no screens (not even your phone) for an hour before bedtime. Dim the lights an hour before you want to be in bed, and turn down the AC to make it cooler. Also, tell yourself, “It’s ok if you don’t fall asleep. Just lay down and rest.” Give your body permission to “mess up” and stay awake if it needs to. It feels like it has to protect you by staying awake, so if you give it permission to just lay down, maybe it’ll take some of the pressure off.

@Alyosha That’s amazing. I feel like I’m putting so much pressure on myself to fall asleep. I should just sit with the anxiety and allow myself to rest, even if I don’t fall asleep. Are you an insomnia sufferer as well

@dmuhnyyy I have a hard time falling asleep sometimes, especially if I’m anxious about not getting enough sleep. Fortunately, I do manage to sleep every night. Good luck!!