I’m currently in recovery and my compulsions have gone down significantly, I honestly can’t even think of times when I do them anymore! But I have this weird feeling with myself that if I’m having a good day I’m doing something wrong. It’s so weird it’s like I’m aware that I’m constantly practicing response prevention, doing all the of things I can to help myself recover, but I’m almost suspicious when I have less thoughts or I go about my day not even worried about my thoughts. Does anyone else feel this way? 😭

Glad you are in recovery too!!❤️

Yup!! When I assess what i’m feeling and where it’s coming from I was able to be like oh okay ocd is trying to obsessed about recovery now, moving on! Hahaha

I actually did sessions through NOCD! It’s all ERP, you go through all of your ocd fears and set up a hierarchy of working on doing erp exercises for each one, going from smaller fears to bigger ones. The main goal of therapy is to accept uncertainty with your thoughts, and although that sounds scary, it’s what really helps and takes back control from ocd symptoms. Hope that helps!

@Ty Thanks so much. I have been much better at not performing physical compulsions. But it is hard for me to not ruminate. My ruminations just happen automatically when a bad thought comes. Any tips on cutting down on ruminations? I want to do therapy through nocd but they don't offer it in my State. 😐

@Sunflower 1234 When I find myself ruminating I will combat with a erp thought. So for example if I have a thought about hurting someone in the past and I can’t remember the details so I start to ruminate and think about i’ll stop myself and sort of sarcastically say “Yup totally! I am the worst person ever yup, that’s me! All I do is hurt people!” As a way of telling my brain i’m not taking the thought seriously and not giving it power. I only really suffer from mental compulsions and that’s really helped me!

@Ty Amazing. Thanks for the tip.

@Sunflower 1234 Happy to help!!

@Ty Another question since you are so kind and willing to help 😊 Sometimes I would ruminate for 15 minutes until I realize I have ruminated. Any tips on how to detect ruminations right away and stop it right then?

@Sunflower 1234 I think this is something that comes with time and understanding how your ocd works a bit more. Before I would ruminate for quite a bit before realizing what’s going on and then stop myself. But now i’ve gotten to a point where I don’t even let myself get into the details of any thought or fear because it’s all a form of engaging with the thought. So it’s very personal case by case, but I would say if you see yourself engaging and validating the thought in anyway, you’re performing some compulsive behavior.

@Ty Hi can you advise how to do exposure with pure o. I have recorded myself saying to obsessive thoughts and then listened to them on repeat for half an hour at a time. Does that sound right?

@Ty I unfortunately have to do erp on my own because I can't find a OCD therapist where I live.

@Sunflower 1234 It sounds like good exposure to me, but I’m unfortunately not a professional so I can’t say for sure for your case. But as a general rule as long as while you do exposures you’re not engaging in compulsions you should be on the right track.

@Ty Would you mind giving examples of how you do exposure for pure o if the details are not too personal? My obsessions contain mainly of bad negative thought about myself. Thanks so much for all your help so far.

@Sunflower 1234 The looptape is a good one i’ve used! While I do an exposure I just say things to trigger the thoughts even more, like I said above. I would suggest getting the book “Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder” by Jonathan Grayson. The book is essentially a how-to guide on doing erp on your own if you can’t afford/have access to therapy!

@Ty Thanks so much. You are so kind to give me all these advices.

Yup, me too! I try to make it part of response prevention by saying something like okay maybe I will maybe I won’t! Accepting that as a possibility and moving forward anyways.