Hey guys, I tried "vague nurves" exercises... they are so effective for ocd. As ocd causes so much emotional stress and anxiety... anyone else try this?

So I've been working to address my OCD for about a month now. So far, I haven't been working on it with a therapist and have instead been trying to create my own exposure exercises. The primary obsession I'm working on is the fear that I'm somehow flawed or invalid on a fundamental level. The best way I can describe it it is that its similar to the feeling you get when you have germ OCD and you feel contaminated, except my whole existence and being feels contaminated, so to speak. I've identified a list of triggers, and a list of compulsions (pretty much all mental) that I've noticed myself performing. I started out by doing imaginal exposures and scripts where I'd write out triggering fictional scenarios and read them over and over, combined with mindfulness techniques to focus on my breath and bring myself back to the present when I noticed myself performing compulsions mentally. At first it worked to some extent, but eventually I started to feel like the stories I was writing about this obsession weren't triggering any anxiety anymore or a very low level. So I stopped reading them and focused solely on improving my ability to stay present and identifying compulsions as I perform them, and disengaging. Now, I'm at the point where it seems like my general anxiety levels throughout the day are lower, and the triggers I've identified are producing noticeably less anxiety. But that makes me wonder if somehow I'm just secretly doing mental compulsions without knowing it? Is only a month of rather disorganized and unstructured ERP enough to produce this much improvement? To avoid giving me re-assurance, I'd appreciate if you guys don't directly answer those questions, maybe just provide some possibilities or your own experiences so I can get a better idea of where I'm at. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks!

Hey y’all just wanted to share some stuff I feel has been helping me a lot as of lately. I been thinking a lot about my mental wellness in relation to physical wellness as I tend to have chronic pain and wonder how much of my anxious panicked tension is a factor because I also have a weird hip issue that moslty comes from skateboarding when I was young. A big thing that always drew my attention is my mobility and movement that i feel like can be easily overlooked because i am a bit hypermobile. So I’ve always experimented with different ways of managing the dysfunction because there are good days of feeling a lot more physically capable and slight better range of motion/movement where im reminded that there is definitely pain/discomfort that can be alleviated. Now to also bring up that I’ve been recovering from severe OCD for the last about 2 years(undiagnosed since a child) and facing a lot of things no doubt since than, tons of improvement after being able to identify the cause(want to point out I’m self diagnosed still, I try to implement the gold standard of ERP myself as much as I can along with other therapy practices but obviously understand that professional help ultimately is the best thing I can do, no health insurance/poor). Still in recovery no doubt but yea i really can say I’ve been doing a lot better with my OCD. So now going back to the chronic pain I also want to mention the way I’ve noticed my breathing that also feels as though it can be shallow in relation to the previous mentioned dysfunction that leads for me to have chronic pain. So now getting to the things that have helped me, one is understanding the role the psoas plays into your physical sort of biomechanics and then the way it is connected to our emotional responses, as it is known as the fight flight or freeze muscle. The way we can hold so much stress in our body can really wreak havoc, and the more I learn and understand myself and OCD the more it’s like I unpack to to the extent how much it’s completely taken over so much of me. I just started to notice this year how hypervigilant I am, and having Pure O I sort of end up feelin as though even in my own mind I am hypervigilant just scared of the intrusive thoughts/doubts worries and even when they aren’t present just on edge ready to fight back against it at any given moment. It makes so much sense why I ended up with insane amount of tension in my left psoas muscle and then that causing me to also build tension in surrounding areas of that muscle. Finding some chronic pain relief thru identifying where the heavy tension is around the psoas area and massaging it, hitting the trigger points to release the muscle has had so much relief and it really is also just giving me a sense of mental well being that truly is just great. I’ve always struggled with meditation but I’m also realizing how hard it can be when muscles are constantly in fight/flight/freeze mode. Mindful breathing along with the massage/trigger point relief is the first time I actually felt the air I was breathing pass through my body in a way that just made sense. Like as if some parts of my body haven’t had air pass in ages, and really feeling in tune with my senses and the room I was in. My body really is just used to being fearful, and I’ve tried to find ways of relieving the tension but with time and just kind of listening to my body, trying to learn about different ways of rehabilitating these types of chronic pain, mindfulness, mindful breathing, along with the different therapeutic tools for ocd I actually am starting to really let go of things and not have my body in constant fear/panic mode because speaking for most people whose OCD has gotten so severe, there really is a sort of trauma from having to deal with how bad it can get which your body keeps track of. Still continuing this journey recovering, and I hope y’all are also continuing !!

Ever since starting ERP, my SO-OCD and general OCD has lowered. This has been great. I just wanted to have somewhere to share my thoughts and ask questions. For anyone else, have you realized that the SO-OCD and other forms of OCD are all rooted in what people have said in the past that I hadn’t processed, and up to this point believed hadn’t affected me. It was also odd because to me, I had never had a problem questioning my sexuality, even labeling myself as queer. However, this fear plagued my thoughts whether or not I decided to identity as straight, lesbian, bisexual, etc. It was so weird to me because it felt so foreign to how I’ve always been. I hated the guilt I felt over possibly being in denial or in the closet, over being homophobic, and all of that would just lead to constant stress and spiral. I felt so bad dating or being with my friends, on the off chance I was using them or going to cross lines. Progress isn’t linear, but I definetly feel so much better shedding the random fear I had of expressing affection towards my friends or of “using guys” to prove I was straight. Most of the time, I find that the stress comes from something really real. Like my past experiences with an old friend that I had or just not liking the guy I was dating and not wanting to lead him on. Being able to discern the OCD thoughts and stress from regular stress has been like a breath of fresh air.