I realized something tonight while doing an erp exercise that I wanted to share in case anyone else resonates with it. This might be geared more towards pure ocd but as I was doing my may/may not statements for my erp exercise I started thinking about what is really causing the spike in discomfort. I think for a lot of people, including me, the fear of the statement being true is definitely a huge contributor. However, I began to realize that my guilt for PURPOSEFULLY thinking and saying the thoughts to turn them into may/may not statements produced an equivalent amount of discomfort. I suppose my thought process is that if it is an intrusive thought in the moment, then that is bad and I worry that it might mean it’s true. However, purposely thinking about this bad thing really seems to be a trigger in itself. I already feel like a terrible person when I get an intrusive thought but when I purposely bring the thought back for erp I become full of doubt that it could possibly be the right thing to do. This is especially true for me when the statement is very specific and about a person I know and/or care about. This causes me to get stuck on thoughts such as “how can it possibly be ok to think something so horrible about someone?” and “why would I want to habituate myself to something so horrifying ?”. I suppose I put this up here because I believe (this is just my opinion) that it’s important to understand your personal erp process in order to improve upon it and because (again in my opinion) gaining as much knowledge about your ocd treatment (what is working and what isn’t) is a huge step towards success. Finally, sometimes sharing this kind of information might spark a conversation and even a possible solution to the problem. 🙂🤷🏼‍♀️

I was struggling with the same thing with my ocd intrusive thoughts in my NOCD therapy because I didn’t understand the accepting uncertainty. My therapist wanted me to say maybe, maybe not and in my mind that was 50/50 chance. Now some of my intrusive thoughts were so abhorrent and terrifying I couldn’t possibly imagine saying that. Then I read online that accepting uncertainty can be 1 out of any number. And this has helped tremendously. So for example I would say sure there’s a 1% chance this intrusive thought could be true out of a million, billion, trillion. They way I now do it is I say: sure there is a 0.000000000000000000001% that what my ocd is saying is true, but there is also a 99.99999999999999999999% chance it’s not true, sure there’s a smidge of a chance but I can accept that uncertainty. I’m more likely to have a multi car accident on the motorway, and a plane fall out of the sky into the wreckage of my car which then gets ploughed into by a coach and a nearby train de-rails and smashes into this pile of cars, coaches and airplanes and causes an enormous explosion killing hundreds of people! It’s has really helped me begin to recover because it puts into perspective how ridiculous my ocd is. It takes the wind right out of its sails. I’m not there yet but I feel this has helped me make big strides in my recovery. Maybe it could help you too?

Yes! This is very helpful information. Thank you for sharing! Now I just need to work on the second part of the problem…purposely thinking the thoughts which to me is just as bad as doing it in real life.

Yes, this has been huge for me too. I have nothing Harm OCD and Pure O as well as a few others. I think people with OCD get confused about the difference between possible and likely. For example I like kinda close to an airport. So I see planes flying over a lot. Its possible one could fall out of the sky, burst into flames and kill me as I sit out on my patio. Is it possible yes. Is it likely? No. Anything is possible. We are never going to get a 100% guarantee that it won't happen. But as you said realizing that there is a 99.99% chance it won't happen makes it much easier to sit with the uncertainty. Its not like we are being asked to walk off a 200 ft cliff. We are being asked to step off a curb.

I love this way of looking at it. It is very amusing! Thank you!