How often do you guys do exposures? (ps if it’s not as often as you’d like, don’t feel bad! Exposures aren’t easy to do and any time you do one you should celebrate.😊)

Awesome!

@NOCD Advocate - Casie David Im not sure what to do for exposures ??

@Ihateocd83 It depends on what your triggers are! I wasn’t sure what to do for exposures either until I met with my NOCD therapist. She helped me plan what to do for them! The best thing I can say is if you feel like the voice of your ocd is telling you to do something, spend some time during the day NOT doing it. It isn’t fun at first but it does help you gain control again!

What else do you do mate ?. Whats loop tapes ?

Where do you find these loop tapes? Sounds interesting

@RJ So a loop tape is recording yourself saying your worst fears so for example. My ocd is around me being evil and losing control. So a loop tape that I have is ' I'm probably a monster thats so full of evil that im going to lose control and murder my family in the middle of the night and I won't even care and that will prove that I am a monster' I set this to play on repeat on the app I use and listen to for for about 20 min everyday. The more detail you have the better so I have some that have more detail. It allows your brain to get use to the thoughts so it gets bored and anxiety dies off (pun intended lol). This is one of the things me and my therapist made when I first started

@Dre83 I have harm ocd. When my ocd tries to give me a new obsession I immediately make a loop tape to beat it.

@Dre83 Holy s***! This is GENIUS! I’m totally going to do this! Do you mind me asking what app you use to record and play over? This is so exciting!

@RJ Haha yeah man it works believe me. The app I use is called voice recorder

@Dre83 Right on! Thank you so much for the great info and good luck to you in your journey!

@RJ No problem glad I could help. Same to you and beating the bully in our brain.

@RJ If you use the exercise part of this app to work on exposures, there’s a recording tool there too! Whatever helps you work on conquering this 🙏

@NOCD Advocate - Casie David Oh great! Thanks so much Cassie!!

@Dre83 My OCD ERP experience...recording a script is the best tool to help with OCD

@Clouds What do you do for that mate ?

@Ihateocd83 15 years ago a physician recorded a tape of my harmful thoughts/fears. I listened to the tape over, over, over...it really worked. I recently recorded a similar script on my iPhone recorder and listened. Now NOCD has an option for a loop recording on this app. Honestly, if you have Harm OCD consider , with the guidance of a trained professional, the loop recorder/script option. My experience...it really works.

@Clouds Did it lessen the thoughts for you or just the sting of them? Maybe I'm not listening to them enough. I want them to lessen lol

@Dre83 Yes. Def lessened. I’m not an expert in designing particular scripts for loop recording but my recording was very detailed. I found the loop recording really helped and not performing compulsions.

@Clouds Did it take a while of listening to these loop tapes before you saw significant improvement?

@Dre83 It took time to slowly decrease. Currently I am trying to listen daily. I would def recommend reaching out to an NOCD specificialist for guidance. They are great!! My advisor, Caryn G, is awesome!!!

@Clouds Yeah, they are. I currently have one. I was just curious how long it took to lessen these thoughts once u start loop tapes. I've only been doing it for about a month now

@Dre83 Best of luck!!

@Clouds You too!

Hmm woh that’s interesting. How do you go about that? Like what does that look like in your head? (Ik taht might be a hard question to answer)

@RJ Well anytime I sat down to do an exposure it really never worked, i got more triggered if I got caught off gaurd than intentionally so for POCD, I had to work thd kids department for my retail job and basically resist compulsions

@Iwashere2 So I'd be cahfht off gaurd if a kid ran at me and I couldn't avoid them. I also babysit

@Iwashere2 Ok this makes a lot of sense. I feel like a lot of the anxiety comes from the thoughts’ intrusive nature, so to deal with it when you know it’s coming may bot be as effective.