How do you do exposures when doing them creates more compulsions and more anxiety?

The purpose is to do the exposure and feel the anxiety without doing the compulsion. It gets uncomfortable for a bit but slowly the anxiety will decrease over time so your are not as triggered by the exposures.

Now I know I can also make myself touch the jar and then sit with the anxiety and set a time until I can wash my hands, but I don’t feel I actually accomplish anything because I will wait if the time and not do anything or touch anything even if it was hours

But my exposures create more compulsions so I can tackle one but gain like 5 more

It will in the beginning. Hold yourself back from doing the compulsions. Do you mind if I ask what the compulsions are?

So basically I have this made up germ/contaminate. That I know when spreads. I’m not afraid of getting sick I’m afraid of it spreading and getting me “dirty” making be responsible for spreading it. So say I know this jar is “dirty” and I don’t clean it to try to challenge myself. Then someone comes along and touches it now that person and every they touch becomes “dirty”. So everything I see them touch or think they would have touched becomes dirty. Now I have to deal with not only the jar but the person and all of the other things. If that makes any sense.

Wow.. that must be really hard to go through. I wish I could give you some tips but I don't want to steer you in the wrong direction. Have you spoken to a professional with OCD... they start doing small exposures and eventually to bigger one that gives more anxiety until it eventually fades so for you.. I'm not sure what your small step would be.. good luck.

@jessel38 have you ever gotten any treatment that helped? Man I wish we were friends in real life so I had someone to went to who’d understand

jesse.limones@yahoo.com locustmoon shoot me an email and I’ll give u my contact info. Yea I know, you’re the first one I’ve seen on here that struggles with the same type of ocd as me.

Everything* me*

It is. I’ve spent most of my life being scared of my parents because they’re “dirty”. Haven’t genuinely hugged them in over ten years. It’s difficult to even be in the same room as a lot of the people I love. I’ve been in therapy since I was 14. I’m 21 now

Locustmoon I feel your pain buddy. I have the exact type of ocd as u. I haven’t and won’t touch my mom because she doesn’t have a sink in her bathroom and used sanitizer instead of washing and thinks it’s the.l same as washing. I won’t go to her house or touch anything she or anyone that’s been to her house has touched. If she touched something and it touches something and it touched something and some how I touch it i feel disgusted and my anxiety shoots up. It’s a horrible feeling and I need help ASAP as it’s getting to where I won’t let my son touch anything she’s touched or won’t let him go around her. Life has been like this for me since 2012. I walk on egg shells everyday all day.