So last night I tried some ERP and tried as hard as I could not to give into the compulsions of my thought, I didnt do well, but I was able to do it for at least a little bit until I fell asleep. Guess what was on my mind as soon as I woke up?! That same obsessive thought. I obviously dont expect things to change overnight, but I feel like I'm never going to catch a break. As much as I try not to give my OCD attention, it always prevails. Has anyone experienced this? Like any "unfinished" thought or obsession always creeps back in? They just seem to always resurface whether I have tried for ten minutes or a day to not give into them. I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts. Thank you!

Think of the OCD like a starving dog that you've been feeding every day for years. It's going to come to you for food as soon as it sees you. The first day after you stop feeding it, it will still come to you because it's hungry. The second day, again it comes. Eventually, it gets tired and comes to you every few days, because you're not feeding it. Then eventually a fe times a month. Then a few times every six months. The key early on is to be persistent and show it that you will never be it's source of food, no matter how often or how early in the day it rears its ugly head. Starve the beast!

I completely understand what you are being through. I wanted to fight an OCD that came up anytime I want to make a gift to someone I care about. Each time I wanna make a gift to someone I like, I fear to think bad things towards the person concerned about the said gift,the moment I touch it. So I wanted not to fear my thoughts, then I materialized them (my thoughts) by saying my bad thoughts at loud while I was touching the gift, in order to fight my fears. But after doing so, I have what I call a backfire, I culpabilise so much that I decide to retake the gift into my hands and make a pray to conjure my bad thoughts. But then even after doing this I culpabilise and feel shameful about it. It is complicated to get rid of our OCD but I'm still certain that the best way to get rid of our fears is to accept them and not see them as enemies. It has to be a message coming from our subconscious.

Yea I get that. Yesterday I had an intrusive thought. I was afraid I was going to hurt my sister. She was asleep and I sat in the bed next to her for about 3seconda to see if I could calm down. Nope. I got more worried, in my head I was like “what if you did want to hurt her and that’s why you sat next to her” I woke up. Came back to the room. I was afraid of myself so I was gonna wake her up. But she had a nightgown on. It was a bit up. So I was gonna pull it down so it can cover all of her legs since I was worried. But then I backed down because I got even more worried. I thought “what if you did that to try to touch her”.......it sucks. And this connects to a false memory/real event OCD thought. And I got even more worried.

Another thing that I do. Is I sometimes get the urge to laugh/smile and it’s always when I’m having a thought. I’m not even sure if do smile but if I do that gets me more worried. And it gets me really worried. It happens after thoughts and it happens when I’m seeing a disturbing video. In my head I also feel horrible and bad about the thoughts. But it’s like my brain is fighting itself. And I’ve never gone through this before. It barely started happening about a week ago. Ughhh help