I did an exposure today. Made me nauseous. My heart started to beat fast so I tried to tell myself, my body is just excited to try something new. Here’s my problem, I know there are many ways to do the ERP but my question is, when I do certain exposures, I do them standing up which makes me lighthearted and nauseous. I could do much better if I were sitting down. Is that okay or should I be standing to get the full experience? I think if I was standing up doing the exposures, I could do for a couple of minutes as opposed to sitting down maybe three times longer. Has anyone had a residential level care? Curious to find out what the differences were from weekly erp sessions.

I was in residential treatment for three months last summer. The biggest difference was probably having the 24 hour staff support, groups, and a lot more exposures. Having staff available to help thought challenge as issues came up was incredibly helpful. Also it was harder to undo exposures I was doing because I couldn’t go home and neutralize them.

You said you have contamination fear, my biggest is hantavirus carried by rodents. It’s common in the city but I highly doubt there would be mouse droppings in the facility. Do you know how they would help you do exposures around that?

I feel like I’m constantly seeing mouse dropping all around me. And that one night it’ll end up getting in my mouth and I’d swallow it.

I’m also afraid that the level of anxiety may not be the same when I go there because different environment. Like for example losing things. Since I know I’m limited to what I can take with me, my fear of losing things over there may not be as high as where I am.

I read a new ocd treatment. I forgot the name. But what if that was a better solution than having to go through the brutality of ERP?

For the mouse droppings fear they’d probably have you write an imaginal exposure about coming in contact with it, read stories about people getting hantavirus, read symptoms of hantavirus, write “I might get hantavirus,” look at pictures of mice/mouse droppings, hang pictures of mouse dropping in your room, maybe make you touch spots on the ground in areas where there could at once point have been a mouse etc. They would probably have a lot of ideas for the losing things fear as that’s pretty common. They understand fears may not be as strong as at home. For example most of my contamination fears center around my home and family so they gave me the tools to work on those fears on my own and had me bring items from my home to work on. They are very experienced so they’d know what to do to replicate the feeling of being at home as much as possible. There are also lots of opportunities to go into public to simulate real life experiences that bring up obsessions.

I’ve tried the imaginal but just sounds so ridiculous that I can’t take it seriously. I don’t know why. I felt silly doing some exposures. Like at one point I was afraid of lint for it may be mouse poop. My therapist told me to rub it all over my face. I know that if it was a real mouse poop she wouldn’t have me rub it all over my face, so it didn’t make me anxious. Maybe a little anxious. If my mouse poop fear is at 100 then the lint exposure was like a 5 or a 10. As for losing things, I’m okay if I lose like hair pin but if I lose my sd cards with embarrassing pictures of me doing my rituals, it’s a whole another story. Do you get your own bedroom? Do you have a private bathroom? We’re you able to bring your phone? Do we have to buy our own meals? I’m excited to go if given the opportunity but the fear of having to get there all by myself is extremely scary.

Was it a one on one? I was told I need that level care but when I called Rogers, they said 30k a month. And I don’t know how long I’ll be there for. If it’s not too personal, how were you able to afford it? I have Medicaid and so they don’t cover out of state, I tried through a health advocate but not much progress.

The exposures are one on one and by yourself. There was always staff available for one on one help. I was there for three months but most people were there for less time then that. I went to Rogers and originally my insurance wasn’t going to cover it but working with an advocate we found that because of the Mental Health Parity law my particular insurance couldn’t refuse to pay for it so they ended up covering it. I know Rogers also has some grants through their foundation for treatment.

You must have had private insurance then? I did call Rogers to discuss that but they said I need to apply for it after I receive the services and that I’m still responsible for the first month. I really don’t know what to do. How is your OCD now compared to before you went to Rogers? I’m at a point where if I stand up for a while I get nauseous. Heck, I’m laying down and feeling anxious. I did a little exposure today but that was all I could do. Did you go to the one in Wisconsin? If I somehow get accepted that’s probably where I’d go since it’s the closest. Well the one in philly is closer but they do outpatient.

Yes, I have private insurance. I went to the Rogers in Wisconsin and definitely saw improvement. I’m not going to lie, I still struggle with severe OCD but it’s not as extreme and I function a lot better in my daily life. My issues are pretty deeply rooted but the people around me saw significant improvement some say it was completely life changing.

Do you think it was worth it? How much better do you think you got? I’m scared that if I go and not get better all of it would cause even more anxiety. I would feel anxious and guilty that I couldn’t do the compulsions because at the end of the day I didn’t get better. I don’t know if that makes sense? I guess it’s my all or nothing, black or white mentality.

That definitely makes sense. I think it was worth it for sure. I am a black and white thinker too so when I first got out I was disappointed with my progress. I was scared that I hadn’t improved enough but looking back there are a lot of areas I made significant progress in. Before going, I wasn’t able to go outside at all because of my obsessions related to bugs and now I can even walk in the grass. I was picking at my skin hundreds of times a day and now I only pick about 40 times. School work took me about 6 hours per night and I wasn’t sleeping or eating because of it and now my redoing only takes a few hours. I was knocking on wood 60x per day and now I only knock about 10 times. My checking and reassurance seeking was out of control and now it’s a lot better. I was having daily panic attacks and now I only have them about once per week. I couldn’t go downstairs in my home or in my car because of contamination fears and now I can mostly do both. I couldn’t go into stores by myself and now I can. I also spent hours per day reviewing thoughts/ruminating and now that’s better. Those are just a few of my many problems but hopefully that gives you an idea of what can be accomplished.

That really shed some light, thank you. Were you scared that when you got there, you’d forget a lot or some of your compulsions just because you’re in a different environment? I’m scared that I’ll forget and when I come back home it’ll be activated again. And because it wasn’t addressed at the treatment facility, I wouldn’t know how to deal with it.

I was definitely scared of that! They go through a lot of assessments with you to help you remember your specific issues, have people monitoring you for unknown compulsions, and you have a lot of time to remember your problems. I was terrified I wouldn’t communicate well and they would think nothing was wrong and send me home. Trust me, they know what they are doing. They also give you the tools to manage any compulsions so if new or old ones come up when you get home you know how to deal with them.

You have to share a bedroom with one other person and bathrooms are not private (that way people with contamination fears can be monitored). You could bring a phone as long as it didn’t have a camera. Meals are included in the price of treatment. If you could go I think it would definitely be worth it.

Reading that was a trigger of its own. Sigh the ocd bully. As if we don’t already have bullying in this world. :(