why do exposures not help me? what does this mean? i will do exposures like looking at pictures and it wont change anything :(

does this mean the thoughts are real? it already feels like that either way :(

What subtype do you have?

in general just sexually intrusive taboo thoughts

The important part is the “response prevention”. Exposures won’t do anything without response prevention. What do you do after exposure? What’s going on in your mind? What do you do to try to decrease anxiety? Try to identify these things and it can help you identify your compulsions. Mental compulsions can be hard to catch so maybe read up on some examples. Then work on avoiding those compulsions.

There is a great post right below this one about response prevention!

I have also fallen into this ocd trap of analyzing my counseling/therapy. Am I doing this right? Am I supposed to feel this way? Us OCDers are wired to find new anxiety outlets even if we aren't aware of it. It is both the simplest thing in the world and the hardest thing in the world to just be with your emotions. As much as you can, just monitor your thoughts and emotions in these exercises. There is no right or wrong or necessary direction. There is just how you feel in that moment and sitting with any given emotion.

Maybe you're doing generalized exposures that you THINK are SUPPOSED to help DECREASE the anxiety. The goal of ERP is to FEEL the anxiety and let it decrease naturally throughout the exposure. I think you might not be picking triggering enough exposures. The purpose is to pick something that causes you distress, so lean into that :)

So an exposure will not work if you do a compulsion during or after. The whole point of an exposure is to trigger your anxiety. Then you just sit with it. Don't fight it, don't analyze it. Just let it wash over you. It will peak, and then gradually start to ebb away. You may have to do an exposure more than once. But your peak anxiety level will decrease every time you do it.

i hope this tags everyone, but thanks for all the answers - gave a lot of information and i think actually i really did it wrong :)