I am not sure if listening to Podcasts about Late blooming lesbians is a good exposure or if it works like a compulsion... yesterday I struggled a little more than I used to with SO-OCD and now I wonder if I should resume listening to them again to practice "more" ERP... but I also feel like this would give me more control over the thoughts and feelings and relief to know I did a tough Exposure.. so maybe it would be a better way to just accept and acknowledge the presence of the thoughts without trying to reduce them by listening to an Episode ?

Yes to all of this!! I have done this similarly with a couple other exposures. I just talked with my therapist this week and she helped me recognize I'm becoming even more obsessive with exposures than I thought and I'm like omg! Also I'm very goal oriented and perfectionism shows up in my OCD so I always want to make sure I'm doing therapy right partially to get better and to check this imaginary box in my head. I can be really mean to myself and kind of torture myself with high anxiety by doing the exposures this way. This is all stuff I'm learning more and I can't believe my OCD is even in doing the exposures, but my therapist said it's really common. I've also seen a huge change when I'm not compulsing during the exposures. My therapist said the goal is to gently hold the thoughts and the anxiety it creates without taking it too far. It's not easy but when I do this I feel so much better.

@reg285 Thank you so much for this input! I have not worked with a therapist unfortunately, I was put on a waiting list from one therapist who suggested that I might have light OCD, but I have never heard of her again, it was over a year ago 🙄 I sort of managed to help myself through the roughest time with self help books and podcasts about ocd and ERP though and I feel pretty good now, except for when I am experiencing stress or sometimes PMS makes me have a harder time... I so much relate to perfectionism regarding the right way of treatment!! And the fact that I wasn't in therapy also works as a huge trigger as I sometimes doubt if I can really feel this good without therapy. And then I Google stuff like "can you recover from OCD without therapy " and I realize I am doing a compulsion 🙉😅 this caused me to have a major set back a few months ago that probably could have been prevented with a therapist.. But at least I learned a lot more about ocd and also myself since then and now I just try to not obsess about stuff I cannot know for sure..