For one specific obsession & compulsion there seems to be so many different ways of doing ERP for it. It's excruciatingly difficult to know what the correct ERP would be & what I should be habituating to. 😞

I agree I need to drop it. My mind quickly shifts to that would be wrong. I think I'm afraid if I'm not habituating to certain exposures (for example rubbing soap all over my body/on the TV) then I'd be avoiding high level exposures that I potentially need to be doing. I compare to people eating off toilets, touching a toilet & then touching body/hair. It's like when I think I need to be addressing what's in front of me, nope, there's a higher level exposure you need to be doing. These thoughts intrude my mind all the time. And the problem is there is TRUTH to them. People do high level exposures all the time to get better. There's a lot of guilt, self-loathing, shame, fear & even feeling that I'm not allowed to ever be bothered by anything. It's a whole new territory for the OCD & things are really scary. I don't know how to explain to a therapist because each one suggests that I AM avoiding, when really I just want to get on with my life. It's super difficult letting this go. The worst OCD "theme" I've ever dealt with.

And it seems straightforward, yet at the same time extremely complicated when I transfer my problems over to a heirarchy.

It's not even wondering at this point, but I know I'm doing it wrong & so it causes a lot of fear that I'm not going to get better until I do "above and beyond" exposures correctly.

@canigetawitness I hear what you're saying. I'm still really confused about what doing ERP properly means.

@canigetawitness ERP is simple: you experience a trigger, and then don’t try to solve the problem. So let’s say I get a thought: “what if I’m gay?” The response prevention would be to not solve the problem or answer the question. All mental compulsions are geared around trying to solve mental problems

@Anonymous That's what I think too, but then it seems like there's much more to do on the heirarchy. For example, one of my cycles looks like this: I was cleaning noticeable fingerprints off my TV when I got the initial obsession "What if you just ran and purposefully pumped a moderate/high amount of soap and smeared it on your TV screen?" As a compulsion, I checked to make sure I hadn't done that. The above has triggered me and now I get caught in a loop of figuring out to properly overcome it with therapy. The OCD cycle is now as follows & the initial obsession/compulsion is no longer present. 1. "Since I had the initial thought above ^ , that means you need to smear soap on your TV and habituate to that for exposure therapy." 2. "Now there might be soap smeared on the TV because you might have listened to those instructions & done the above for 'exposure' ." (#1 leads into #2 and they're conjoined thoughts now) 3. "You need to be just as comfortable with soap smeared on the TV if there wasn't soap smeared on the TV." 4. "Letting myself experience the original obsession & not perform the compulsion is not enough therapy. You need to do an exposure to overcorrect the initial obsession/compulsion or else you'd be avoiding an exposure task."

@canigetawitness And it's repeating this way for many things in my life.

@canigetawitness Like sitting with what originally triggered me and not doing the compulsion isn't enough, there's more that you should be doing for "overcorrection"/high level exposures, etc. to address the OCD. Or at least that's what I understand ERP therapists do.

@canigetawitness You did a nice job explaining your secondary OCD cycle. That's an improvement from a couple months ago. You say that you're certain that you're doing ERP incorrectly. I agree with you. But I'm not sure you have an accurate understanding of where your erp is going off the rails. Can you explain in your own words what part of ERP you're doing incorrectly and give an example?

@NOCD Advocate - Katie I can try to. One example is that I had the thought in the shower "What if you haven't rinsed all the soap off?" And then I double rinsed. This happened maybe two or three times. Then my mind quickly went to "Now for an exposure, you need to rub a lot of soap on your body & never rinse it off, to overcorrect the experience you just had". Now I'm really conflicted about what to do, because the first obsession "what if you've forgotten to rinse soap" isn't what's happening anymore. Instead it's "Since I had the initial thought above ^ , that means you need to pump & rub a moderate/high amount of soap on your body after you shower, don't rinse it off & habituate to it for exposure therapy." 2. "Now there might be a moderate/high amount of soap rubbed on your body because you might have followed through with those unwanted instructions/urges & done the above for 'exposure' It's confusing. It's like when and if I ever get hit by an intrusive thought, there's always going to be a need to overcorrect the initial obsession/compulsion or else I'd be avoiding exposure and won't get better.

@canigetawitness Or another, simplied version might look like "If it bothers you at all, you need to exposure yourself to it & become comfortable with it for therapy or else you won't get better."

I understand the cycle. I'm asking you to identify where your ERP is going wrong. The fact that you keep reexolaining the cycle suggests to me that you haven't yet mastered the concept of how to do response prevention for the secondary "I need to do an over-correction exposure to habituate" obsession. Response Prevention in your situation requires an acceptance statement combined with NOT DOING THE OVER-CORRECTION EXPOSURE and getting on with your life. "yup, maybe I'm not doing ERP the best way possible way. I'm going to get out of the shower, get dressed, and drive to work anyways. I care about doing meaningful and enjoyable activities more than trying to escape discomfort"

@NOCD Advocate - Katie I'm sorry. Yes, I try to disregard those thoughts that I need to do overcorrection & those thoughts are what are throwing me off & getting in the way of my life. The fear is so intense & throwing so much evidence my way that I need to "overcorrect" that it's extremely difficult to dismiss the secondary obsession.

@canigetawitness I think because when I went through intensive ERP, this is what I was taught to do whenever an obsession/compulsion would hit, to DO an exposure, not just sit with the original one. I ultimately know im going to have to dismiss the secondary obsession. What makes is so hard is that I genuinely believe I'd be jeopardizing my therapy by saying "no, I'm going to not do this & get on with my life." It may sound ridiculous, but it's really hard to dismiss

@canigetawitness That's how all OCD works. We are highly motivated to try to eliminate intense emotions that we perceive as intolerable. The other compulsions you need to eliminate are posting here again and again about whether or not you're doing therapy correctly. And if you're researching how to do ERP online, that's something that's likely serving as a compulsion too. I'd boil your recovery plan down to three simple (though not easy) steps: 1)notice your thoughts as thoughts 2) identify your emotions 3)get on with life. ACT NORMAL.

@canigetawitness You are using ERP as a compulsion. Eliminating that compulsion means stopping doing ERP as you were trained to do it. My guess is that this whole symptom grew out of originally doing the actions of ERP correctly but for the wrong purpose. You approached ERP as a "get rid of anxiety" tool instead of "be able to do the things I care about despite anxiety" tool.

@NOCD Advocate - Katie I'll bookmark this & really work hard to implement the plan of getting on with my life & being myself. I believe you're right, the OCD started coming at a new angle of needing to habituate to anything that'd bother me instead of it being a tool that I could use to get on with my life despite anxiety being there. Thanks for your support & I'll keep pushing forward the best I can. And I won't post here about it anymore. I know it's just become a compulsion, as is all the researching online.

@canigetawitness Let's brainstorm some things you CAN post instead that aren't reassurance seeking. You deserve support. We just need it to be helpful support, not unhelpful discussions

Great ideas 💡 those are definitely good things to do. Another possibility is to post when you have a success to share-whenever you have a doubt about whether you're doing therapy correctly and then move in with your day. Also, here's a post you might be interested in on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/CDj9r3LjWHp/?igshid=xkfxmwssd69j

@NOCD Advocate - Katie I haven't thought about sharing a success when I'm able to let go & move on. That's a good idea. Thanks for the Instagram post, I can definitely relate to feeling like I need to do "much more" than needed.