I’d love some encouragement from anyone who is willing to send it my way. I’m having a hard time really leaning into uncertainty and my exposures. I know I need to take a leap if I’m going to get better, but I just don’t want to! I struggle to stop myself from ritualizing and I put off doing my exposure tasks too. Any support would be greatly welcomed. Thanks everyone.

I was the same way for months! Have you tried breaking up exposures into baby steps? I find that it's helpful to take things slowly (rather than not doing ERP at all). Example: I have a ritual when I treasure my daily medication that involves washing my hands at 3 separate intervals for 60 seconds each time. My first step is to reduce each time to 40 seconds. Once I can handle that, I'll reduce to 30 seconds, and once I can handheld that, I'll continue to cut back so that eventually I can take my medicine, wash my hands once for a reasonable amount of time, and move on Werth my day. Breaking things down still challenges our OCD, but it's doable and not as scary as just diving in 100%. I have had success doing this, though my progress is slow. Better than staying stuck though! I believe in you and *know* to can do hard things. Best to you. 😊

ERP is never going to be easy. It is hard and uncomfortable. But you get out of it what you put into. So when you do an exposure your anxiety will surge, peak, and decline. You have to do the exposure more than once. The key with ERP is not doing a compulsion during or after the exposure. Doing so will make the exposure ineffective. ERP is the best way to achieve recovery from OCD. But you are going to have to fight for it. You can do this. Its okay to be scared. Better do to the exposure afraid than not at all.

Please read this article on how ERP helps in the treatment of OCD. It explains how exposures help to change the brain and enable sufferes to change behaviours & emotion. https://beyondocd.org/expert-perspectives/articles/self-directed-treatment-for-ocd-the-irony-of-doing-the-opposite