What if I’m not as anxious about my theme but I still feel concerned and very uncertain and doubtful? It feels very real still? Even though I’m in the stay better phase of therapy on here. I’m not sure if it’s just my depression or hormones making it worse, or the fact that I can’t get myself to do the higher exposures. Please help.

My ocd is very cyclic so its themes change monthly, and they can feel so so inappropriate and scary to discuss. I’d love to start therapy and feel ready but my only concern is because my intrusive thoughts come in waves, I can have periods where I feel amazing and don’t experience what I’m experiencing now so what if that’s the case when I start? Any advice would be appreciated. It makes me feel like I’m a fake or that It isn’t bad enough to receive help.

So my therapist told me to start telling myself every time I have an intrusive thought just say oh there’s that thought again, and don’t try to figure it out or do mental compulsions. Well our usual tactic of “there’s that thought/feeling again” is not working at all this morning. This morning I was having really bad anxiety, it hits hardest in the morning when I am lying in bed with my son and I know the thoughts could come at any minute. Well they did, and I immediately was like no please just think of anything else. Well in pushing away the thoughts, I had this really weird feeling like I couldn’t decipher between reality and images. I was just getting flashes of images that felt so real. Even though I could physically feel my body and know I wasnt engaging in the thought or acting on it. It was like a flash of anxiety that hit and I couldn’t tell what was real and wasn’t. So of course my mind starts trying to figure that feeling out and if what I was thinking about just happened. And no matter how many times I’ve tried to say there’s that thought/feeling again, I can’t let it go. I was physically conscious and could feel my body but mentally I couldn’t. It’s so weird and hard to explain. But I’ve been doubting and second guessing that moment all morning and I’m in a bad spiral, again. 😭 it’s like every time I think I’m moving forward I get sucked back in and feel like I can’t practice my tools anymore. I don’t know what I should do 😩

I’m not making this post to gain any reassurance (my therapist would kill me lol) but I just need some support here as I feel so alone and lost. I’ve been in ERP for a few years now and it’s been a journey thus far. I’ve experienced many different themes but currently it’s on sexual themes and I’m being drowned by it. I have to do exposures with videos of girls making out or being sexual with each other and then basically sit with the discomfort after. My brain literally jumps all over the place all day long. It’s throwing every thing at me from shows that I watch where women who were once with men get with girls, family members that I have who are gay, it’s having me question if I love my husband or feel anything toward him anymore, I have these thoughts that I can’t get close to God because “I like women” while also having it tell me that’s it okay because gay people still follow God. The other thing that gets me is the guilt I feel with my kids. It’ll throw images of my kids at me and I cry instantly. My brain is constantly talking to itself if that makes any sense? Constantly battling itself throwing thoughts and feelings at me to prove that I’m supposedly gay and then the other part is firing back showing why none of it is true. It’s just a lot of noise all damn day ! Anyone get this?. I try to sit with it and let it just go at itself but now I’m being told that’s not what I’m supposed to do, that I’m supposed to interrupt it?. I really feel like there’s something wrong with me that this can’t just be OCD. Can anyone here share there experiences with these theme? Anyone experience my type of story? I feel like no matter what I do I can’t get out of this.