- Date posted
- 4y
- Date posted
- 4y
ERP is definitely challenging and not easy. For me it really intensifies the thoughts and spikes my anxiety. It also really urges me to do compulsions to quickly calm my fear. The beauty of it is that, in doing ERP, you are intentionally facing your fears and anxieties and not running from them. This results in an overall decrease in anxiety and OCD over time. It’s like if your scared of going on an elevator, the first 10 times on one will be really scary, but by the 100th time on an elevator, the fears won’t even matter anymore. Just be patient with it and allow the anxiety to spike, knowing that, eventually, it will come down for good.
- Date posted
- 4y
^^^ this. Don’t rush feeling less and less anxious. It will happen naturally
- Date posted
- 4y
That makes a lot of sense. I’m on week two and it’s been getting pretty difficult. The OCD dreams and disturbing thoughts and urges have come back. This motivates me a lot, thank you
- Date posted
- 4y
I’ve been doing ERP for about 8 months through NOCD. In the beginning it was pretty heightened and tears were involved at one point, but wow the results that come afterward is incredibly worth it. I would consider my OCD severe last year, it was the same severity for months until I started therapy/ERP and that’s when I finally started seeing progress. In the beginning I’ve heard it’s common for it to get worse before it gets better, I slightly dealt with this but it barely lasted and you have to keep pushing yourself. Now I’m a lot better than I was last year. I still have the OCD symptoms for sure, but the intensity and frequency of it are less. There are days where I really feel like myself again. You learn what to do when you’re having an off day or even an off moment. Overall it’s the best course of action I have ever taken.
- Date posted
- 4y
Hey Sheri! So - ditto to above actually. I'm on week 4 of NOCD and it's tough! I'm having more OCD and more anxiety - but before I was just forcibly pushing it away. I'm learning to deal with it now instead of trying to force myself to ignore it. That way I can do it naturally. It's totally reprogramming the brain and so hard. But - that being said - I am noticing a little difference and know at the end of this I'll be so much better. Just stick with it and don't give up. :)
- Date posted
- 4y
Thank you! I wish you luck as well. It’s getting tough but I’m tougher!
Related posts
- User type
- Therapist
- Date posted
- 23w
Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) isn't always easy, but as one of the most effective treatments for OCD, it's worth it. If you've started ERP, what has been the biggest surprise you've experienced in learning to resist compulsions? If you haven't started ERP yet, what is holding you back from starting?
- Date posted
- 16w
I had just posted a summary of ERP for a group member, and I thought it might be useful for everybody. Here it is below (with a little extra added)…. ERP therapy is researched-based. Most other therapies don’t work. There have been people who have been literally stuck in their houses (from their OCD) who gained their lives back through ERP therapy. NOCD does ERP therapy exclusively. You can find it in other places too, but you have to ask around. There are two tenants of ERP therapy: The first one has to do with the repetitive thoughts inside our heads. These thoughts are actually defined as “obsessions”. You are not supposed to do anything with the obsessions. You are supposed to let them run through your head freely, without trying to fix them or stop them. Imagine a tree planted by a river. The leaves fall off and float down the river. You can see the leaves falling, but you don’t try to stop them or pick them up. You don’t try to fix them. You just let them float away. This is really important to do with your obsessive thoughts. The more you try to fight them off, the worse they get. I used to have blasphemous sentences running in my head 24/7. I felt like I had to put a “not” next to each sentence in order to “fix” it. But this just took hours of my time every day, and it was very scary, because I was worried that if I messed up, that I would go to hell. It was very freeing to learn later that I could just let those sentences run freely through my head without trying to fix them. The second part of ERP therapy is all about “denying your compulsions.” Every time OCD tells you that if you don’t do things a certain way that something really bad will happen, that is a compulsion. Once you recognize what your compulsions are, ERP therapy will have you practice stopping doing all of those things. For some people, that will mean stopping washing their hands or touching lights switches or, in my case, putting “fixing” words in their head. Compulsions are safety behaviors. During ERP therapy, you will practice stopping engaging with safety behaviors. All this is very hard to do and scary, so during therapy you will be given tools to help you deal with the fear. Often ERP therapy will take people from being non-functional to functional. I highly recommend it. ————————————————- PITFALL #1: After you have been doing ERP for a while and become somewhat successful, the OCD will try subtle little tricks to bring you down again. The first one is to tell you that your thoughts are REAL and not OCD, and therefore you can’t apply ERP therapy. Don’t fall for this trick! All thoughts are just thoughts. They are all meaningless. Don’t try to figure out what is real and what is OCD. Just treat all thoughts with ERP therapy. PITFALL #2: The second pitfall is that OCD will tell you that you can’t move forward unless you have absolute certainty that you will be safe. Hate to tell you this, folks, but there is no certainty in life. You will never know for SURE that you or your loved ones will be “safe” from the OCD rules. Therefore, you have to move forward in the uncertainty. It’s hard, but it gets easier with time and practice. We got this, guys !!!!!!
- Date posted
- 14w
I read about ERP and have seen information about it on here. One of the goals is to say, "maybe I am this or that...ect." That terrified me. The thoughts and images that go in my head are disturbing and upsetting. I don't want to even think about saying, "maybe this or that." It's devasting to have these thoughts and question why you're having these thoughts. Doesn't the "maybe" make it worse? The one thing that helps me is that is to remind myself that these are just thoughts and I know I'm not a monster, even if I feel like one. Is ERP not for everyone? Has anyone else had a problem with the techniques used in this kind of therapy? I had cognitive therapy for years with an OCD specialist and that seemed to help a lot. Writing out the worst case scenarios would make me suicidal. Im having a difficult time not obsessing over the "maybe" after intrusive thoughts now. It doesn't make it better.
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