Hello everyone, I've always been coping with my ocd with avoidance, to the point where I avoid expressing emotions about it when I'm alone. I actually do this when I deeply care about something, I don't show emotions because if I do I'd make it valid and I always chose to escape. But today I actually cried for the first time about my ocd, Even got it on camera! I was having so much anxiety that I could've just dumped as always but I felt the pain and acknowledged it.

Today I over came something that had been consistently bothering me with my contamination OCD and I'm over the moon I never thought I could do it yesterday the anxiety was there but I sat with and it faded I'm so happy thank you for all your support guys and I recently started working out and I feel much better To anyone out there struggling it gets better trust me a few months ago I was at the Lowest point in my life I couldn't even leave my house I failed really badly at school but now I can even go outside I try to socialize some days are harder than others and I've had a few hiccups along the way but it has gotten much better And I'm starting a recovery course for school to make up for my grades I'm so happy guys 😭then I can finally get into uni

I think my ocd started with me being oversensitive like the fear and thoughts a lot of them have started with that I really hope I have control on emotions and triumph over ocd!!!

Just noticed something that helped me today. I was having the realization a lot of my issues stem from me not taking responsibility for my own life, and also not recognizing my own self-limiting beliefs (SLBs) and automatic negative thoughts (ANTs.) In doing this, I learned that the only way forward is confronting my deepest darkest fears head on and associated irrational/self limiting beliefs- and that for years and years, I have simply retreated and run away. One of my deepest darkest fears (one of my obsessions) is rooted in the understandable fear of the worst of humanity, and the 'what if' I was that (like many of us.) I actually can have compassion for myself because it is perfectly okay to be scared of the worst of people, and if something like that is perpetuated throughout pop culture-media- it would make sense to have associated thoughts about it. The fear is that I am a serial killer or have motives of one. And the OCD has caused me to constantly question my motives and actions to no end (how OCD latches on- makes you look for evidence where there is none.) For the longest time, I have been convinced I am one, and need to hide myself from the world, avoid people more than just because of social anxiety, what my main anxiety was back then. I look for signs everywhere- and the OCD latches on to any perceived (not real) evidence that I am one, that people think I am one. When I decided to confront this fear rather than run away like I have for years, it made me realize it is just a fear- it has nothing to do about who I am as a person, despite how strong the OCD tries to convince you otherwise. It is so sad how strong OCD can be, to make so many of us good intending people be convinced that they are something horrible. Anyway, I hope this can help people realize the best way forward is to confront it head on. It's akin to shining a light on the monster and seeing it for what it is - a goofy thing with fake prosthetics for a movie that isn't a monster after all- a sheep in wolfs clothing. It's just you have been running from it so long, your imagination has gotten so detailed about how horrible it is, hearing its fake growls, instead of turning around and blasting it with a spotlight. This is I guess what ERP is about. For me, one of the struggles with ERP and a specific exposure is that the OCD will jump to a different obsession , which then tells me ERP is a waste because Im not confronting the 'most recent' fear. This is faulty thinking though- because the solution is to confront the fear, not the specific thought. By doing that, you learn to not run away and do all the compulsions in your mind. Tl;dr- long winded post about me realizing how I have actually been avoiding the solutions (ERP) and making up reasons to not confront my fears this whole time. I have been running instead of shining a light on the sheep in wolfs clothing.