Hey everyone. My ocd is revolving around who my "inner self" is. I get anxiety thinking my inner self is not "me". Like it's someone different or something. I believe my core fear is being someone I'm not. I've experienced ROCD, Schizophrenia OCD, SO OCD, and many more. I just want to stop avoiding my fears and start my road to recovering from OCD but I honestly don't know how to do a proper exposure for my current theme.

Write out a scenario about how you are someone else. How you lied to everyone and yourself, and write in detail who this other person is. Keep reading it in a loop, and focus on not giving in to compulsions and bringing your stud levels down.

I'm assuming it's normal to feel immense amount of anxiety just reading that lol?

@HJW1015 Oh 100 percent. That’s the point. It’s supposed to trigger you, so that you can work to get used to that discomfort without giving in to your usual compulsions of rumination, and self analysis, and self assurance. But it really depends how much anxiety it gives you. If it’s a 10/10, you shouldn’t start with that exercise. But if it’s a 5 or 6 out of ten I would recommend doing it. If you need to then do something that doesn’t make you as anxious. There is also exercises like looking in the mirror in between your eyes for two minutes and getting used to that feeling of derealization.

I’m in the same boat about the inner self but I use feelings to thoughts to try and beat the thoughts but this one feels so real and deep within me, and I feel like I will never beat it

Then don’t beat it. You are trying to fight against something that you can’t beat. You can only accept. When you accept the thoughts and the feelings, and accept defeat, you essentially are free from the fear and the torture. But when you try to fight, it means you give the monster more power. When you try to resist, you give it more power. But when you surrender and accept, the power is no more

It's crazy how real it feels. I've started trying to just let it be, because it's something i dont think I'll ever figure out. I've been stuck onto this for about a month now.