What are the goals really for ERP and recovery? I’ve been reflecting on this as I finally feel that I’m making some progress. For me personally, my goals are less anxiety when exposed to triggers, and less frequency and intensity of intrusive thoughts. I know they’ll never truly go away, but I’d love to get to a point where they don’t bother me as much or I hardly notice them anymore. Is this realistic? What are your guys goals?

I think those are great and realistic goals! It takes effort, but personally I find I’m devoting less of my time ruminating and worrying and analyzing, and more time using my ERP tools to combat these compulsions. It’s resulting in more free space in my head and more motivation to leave my house and just live my life. I’m not 100% yet, maybe I never will be, but I try to keep a sliver of faith that I’ll get there eventually.

@Anonymous Yes that's amazing! Just in the past few days I challenged myself to do at least one thing a day that is a form of exposure, and to not ruminate afterwards, and the difference it's already made in my ability to just enjoy things I always used to enjoy... you have a good mindset! It's a work in progress :)

@Whatabtme Yep the rumination is what would get me when I’d do my exposures. Now I realize that when I do them and not ruminate on them and go about my day, I kind of forget their content anyway. Goes to show how important it actually was, lol.

We’ll get there someday! Always a continual WIP.

@Anonymous I really hope so! I wanna talk to someone in full recovery to know what day to day is like . I always here it’s a constant fight and working to not relapse but like what does that entail

@Justmesadly I hear that too and it’s a bit discouraging to me tbh. But I’ve also read stories of people who do their ERP sessions and after a while they get to the point of recovery where I want to be. It’s just different for everyone, just like any other physical or mental illness.

@Anonymous Oh it’s extremely discouraging to me too! Like how do I even find motivation to try and get better if it’s not gonna actually get better it’s just gonna be in hiding?! I agree it’s different for everyone and as someone told me I’ll never know the result until I try ERP which I start Tuesday and I’m so terrified

@Justmesadly Yeah that’s what I get caught up in. Like ok you’re basically telling me I’ll be in perpetual ERP?? But again, it’s diff for everyone. I’m to the point now in my sessions where I don’t need to focus as much on doing structured exposure and I’m focusing a lot more on response prevention for my mental compulsions. ERP may be really difficult when you first start. For me it was so hard and triggering and I felt awful the first few weeks. But not after 8 weeks I’m starting to see the benefit.

@Anonymous I’m worried I’m gonna be going backwards bc I have had A LOT of improvement on my own by not allowing myself to avoid , trying not to do compulsions or mental complusions, etc... so I feel like ERP is gonna be like in my face super bad again... and 8 weeks of hell is a long time! Are you with NOCD ?

@Justmesadly I also had a lot of improvement on my own, but a breakup triggered a huge relapse, so that’s why I seeked out actual ERP. I think I’m getting back to a point tho of self managing. Some people say it opened a can of worms that they didn’t expect. But IMO, despite that, it’s given me a great understanding of how my brain works, how to identify OCD’s tricks, and how to combat them. And it wasn’t necessarily 8 weeks of hell. Just highs and lows that eventually evened out and got better (gradually).

@Anonymous Okay that’s good to know. I’m fully expecting the first week to be pretty bad. But I hope that maybe I’ll understand more bc I’m still kind of confused why OCD and how it works

@Justmesadly My advice to you (from someone better but not “recovered”) is to listen to your therapist, stay in your own recovery lane, and recognize when things are helpful until they’re not (ie turning into compulsions). After starting ERP I found many wonderful resources like Insta support pages and therapist pages, and podcasts and even this forum. But then it gets to a point of information overload that threatens progress. So just be wary of that and look out and resist any type of reassurance (which is what I was doing w these resources). I’m at the point where I’m like ok, I have OCD, I’m making slow progress, and I just gotta keep at it and live my life.

@Anonymous That’s how I feel at this point prior to starting ERP so hopefully once I start that I’ll still feel that way...

@Justmesadly If anything, you’ll at least learn some valuable tools to help when things get rough. That’s what I’ve gotten out of it. I don’t think ERP was the God send for me as it was for others, but valuable nonetheless.

@Justmesadly Oh also yes I’m with NOCD