You know how when people are afraid of something they know they should try to do it still. Afraid of talking to your bf: just do it! Afraid to make a phone call: do it! My problem is that it's often not anything in particular I'm afraid of so I get stuck on figuring out what I should do. And when there's nothing I should do, I try to figure what I want to do. All free time is spent figuring out what to do, and I don't know how to do exposures for this. Would it be to just do anything? And then my problem is how do I figure out what this anything should be!? Don't know if this makes sense, but I truly need some help with exposures and ways to deal with this. I just want to do something but keep compulsing instead because I don't know whats the right thing, or how to decide.

To answer your question. I think you should just do SOMETHING. How hard can it be, right 🤣🤦‍♀️

@Maybe My instant response right now was: yeah, but WHAT!?! 😆

@asdfghj And yes, I do feel overwhelmed by options. But in a way I don't think it is about the options. Because for instance: I need to people. Its pretty obvious that I should go pee. But I still compulse over it. Figuring out if its right or wrong. But during my free time I can never do any of the things I enjoy and in stead I do compulsions. Even now as I realise an exposure is to do ANYTHING. I just caaaaant because I don't know what. 😔

@asdfghj Go and play the piano, now! 😋

@asdfghj Also, sometimes I'm wondering whether we don't do the things we want to because we feel like we don't deserve it. E.g. when I'm at work and I'm hungry, thirsty, need to go to the bathroom, etc. I sometimes don't allow myself to do it because I feel like I have to finish a task. An idea: how about we write down some things we could do in our free time on a piece of paper, randomly pick one and do it?

Thanks for the reminder, I hadnt seen your last reply. Boundaries around basic needs like drinking water or using the bathroom is an issue for me as well. I followed a minicourse on boundaries and realised that part of the problem was about boundaries and not OCD, and it really helped. Both my upbringing and OCD has made me deny my own needs and please others or the demands of OCD. I don't think this is the reason for not being able to chose what to do, but I'm betting it doesn't really help either. I do think I deserve having fun with my free time, but I'm still compulsing about it. And you definitely deserve to take breaks to meet your basic needs! 💙 I LOVE your idea. That way we can't be stopped by "but WHAT am I gonna do!?", and reading this I noticed my heart beat rise, even just writing down things imagining just doing them sounds like an exposure to me! So sound like I definitely should try it out!