I'm trying to understand why a therapist would recommend dropping my wallet and debit card/cash if my intrusive thought was "What if I've lost my wallet?" I thought you exposed yourself to the thought itself, not the content. I'm very anxious, confused & scared, because ERP really confuses me. I know it's the primary treatment for OCD. But I thought it was about embracing your intrusive thoughts & not doing the compulsions.

I'm only wanting to target my obsessions & compulsions. Losing valuables is different than having a thought about having potentially losing them & moving on. I'm also confused about what to do about intrusive thoughts. There is some perfectionism, but it's mainly confusion for me. I've been told that therapy remains the same no matter the content, but that isn't true because an exposure like actually leaving the stove on and having a thought about leaving the stove on is different. This is where I'm getting tripped up and I'm in a lot of distress over it. I appreciate your response & support and will keep in mind not to try to perfect it. At the same time, I also have no clue what I'm supposed to do. Maybe that's the answer. To be confused and move forward with my life anyway. I don't know.

@canigetawitness It remains true for the wallet too. What I'm supposed to be sitting with is confusing.

@canigetawitness The therapy is the same. Which is that you expose yourself to a trigger and sit with the distress. If leaving the stove on literally is more distressing to someone in treatment than just thinking about, I would consider that to be an exposure higher on their hierarchy and would possibly move them to that exposure over time. What’s the same is exposure to a trigger and resisting compulsions while being with the distress. That’s what they mean by it being the same. They’re not comparing every single type of exposure.

@canigetawitness You’re sitting with the uncertainty and distress. You’re not trying to answer, solve, analyze, avoid, check, compare, or understand.

@NOCD Advocate - Carl Cornett Okay, thanks. I'll try to keep this in mind. Maybe I haven't found what triggers me yet, or what my obsession even is. That could be the problem on my part. But I'll try to sit with the distress. It's pretty much constant all day anyway.

@canigetawitness The thing I would ask is what are your compulsions and focusing on not doing those. That’s what you control. Not your thoughts, sensations, urges, images, etc.

That's what I want to think too. I don't know though. The thing is I had a problem with this in the past & then my therapist mentioned they might have someone actually drop their wallet & cards. But when I overcame it in the past, I just let the thought be there. So now I'm worrying that if I'm not out dropping my wallet I'm doing something incorrect or that I didn't really overcome it the first time. I can wrap my head around intrusive thoughts & compulsions. What i can't wrap my head around is the treatment for it. People say it's simple really. Sitting with uncertainty. I've found it to be much more confusing when I'm actually practicing it and in a way I feel traumatized by planned exposures. They are so confusing.

So that’s good, you can identify what you’re doing. Focus on resisting that urge to ruminate or analyze. The urge will persist.

@NOCD Advocate - Carl Cornett Alright, I'll keep trying. Thanks for your help

@canigetawitness Any time!

@NOCD Advocate - Carl Cornett If you were to get the thought "What if I've dropped my wallet/debit card/cash over there?" And your compulsion was to check, wouldn't the best route to take be sitting with that? Where I get confused on this in particular is actually throwing the wallet/debit card/cash away seems really far end & extreme. I guess I'm asking what'd be the goal of intentionally dropping it?

@canigetawitness To your first question about “what if I’ve dropped” it, you’re right. You’d just notice that thought appeared, acknowledge that maybe you did or didn’t, and move on with your day. Literally dropping it MIGHT seem extreme to someone not suffering from OCD. I mean, I held a knife to my therapist’s throat while listening to a script about how I wanted to murder her. In that context, what constitutes extreme? You aren’t required to actually drop or throw the wallet away, and perhaps that exposure might not be effective for you, but the claim of what is extreme seems to be beside the point. Exposures are already outside the spectrum of usual activity that I don’t think it matters. It also seems that you’re just hung up on this particular example and it’s causing you to cycle over and over rather than just engaging with exposures and learning as you go.

@NOCD Advocate - Carl Cornett I see your point. I am hung up on it. I think because being uncertain that I've thrown my valuables away is different than actually throwing them away & habituating to that. I don't think I want my end goal to be fine with throwing my belongings away to the point where I'm completely okay with that, so maybe it's not an exposure I'm willing to do. But I understand sometimes we have to push far to get the results we want.

@canigetawitness Well, the intent of exposure wouldn’t necessarily be that you start tossing belongings away left and right. The reason you’d perhaps physically discard your belongings as an exposure is because it would trigger you intensely so you could practice being with the highest level of distress. The object of it isn’t to be fine with losing stuff per se, more so about how do you trigger your obsessional thinking.

@NOCD Advocate - Carl Cornett I think walking down the street, touching my pockets, deliberately thinking I've lost my valuables could be a good exposure. Before this theme happened, if I was to literally see that is dropped something valuable, I would pick it up, because that would be in line with me. This is where I have a time seeing the therapy. Aside from an anxiety disorder, dropping valuables and throwing them away would bother me & I worry what that means about me. I'm probably overthinking it and maybe the goal isnt to lose things on purpose. Perhaps I set a time limit for how long I keep my valuables in the trash. I don't know. Haha.