I feel like I don’t have ocd anymore. I used to be anxious all the time and cry a lot and so many things would trigger me and it all felt irrational but my mind kept worrying but now i just feel nothing and don’t cry anymore and I feel like nothing triggers me anymore, so how could ERP work? Was I in denial this whole time?

So I’ve noticed that my OCD has calmed down, I’m getting less intrusive thoughts but I feel more uncertain than ever. Is this normal for recovery?

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!

Hi everyone! For those of you who have overcome OCD, did you find the initial feelings, emotions, and thoughts kind of become less and less consuming as it got better? In the beginning, I feel like I was crying, sick to my stomach, had a nervous/scared “blah” feeling, etc.. now, Im not crying like that, i still get a blah nervous belly feeling which kinda scares me into thinking its because the thoughts are true and maybe I was just in denial? Idk.. help lol