Nikki1373748
- Date posted
- 4y
Lms526Lms526
- Date posted
- 4y
ERP does help. It is terrifying and so uncomfortable. The desire to give in to a compulsion is so strong. You will start to see a familiar pattern. When you first do the exposure, your anxiety will surge and go crazy, but it only lasts a few minutes. Then it peaks and begins to decrease. The key to ERP is not to do a compulsion during or after the exposure. Just sit with you anxiety and let it go crazy. Don't be surprised if you feel physically and emotional drained after your first session. You can do ERP on your own, but I don't recommend it. Definitely do at least a few sessions of ERP with your counselor. The counselor will also help you ensure you aren't trying to do too much too soon. Even the low level exposures are rough. But with ERP you get out what you put in. I have only done about 3 exposures so far, but I have noticed a huge difference. The sense of accomplishment after a successful exposure makes all the stress and craziness worth it.
Nikki1373748Nikki1373748
- Date posted
- 4y
Im happy for u that u already have noticed a difference. I don’t live in the United States so I don’t think I can have a therapist on this app. I’m very desperate to get help. I feel very bad.
Nikki1373748Nikki1373748
- Date posted
- 4y
@HenryPosh Yes please. If you can and want to explain how i could start erp. It would be so nice of u and Im so sorry you need to go through all this
Lms526Lms526
- Date posted
- 4y
@Nicole1234 See if this helps. The point of an ERP is to trigger your anxiety. You want to start slow and build your way up. Your anxiety will spike, peak, then decline. The key thing when doing an exposure is not to do any type of physical or mental compulsion. Just sit in the anxiety. This is crazy hard and uncomfortable. You may need to do the exposure more than once. After you do the exposure rate your anxiety level from 1 which is low to 10. I can even go above 10. The goal is to get your peak anxiety down to a 1 or a 2. If you ending anxiety is 4 or above theans you need to do the exposure again. If you are doing it wrong, you will feel a significant decrease in your anxiety. If you don't feel like your anxiety going down you are probably doing some kind of compulsion. It could be something as simple as closing your eyes, tapping your knees like Henry mentioned. A compulsion is anything behavioral or mental you do to relieve your anxiety. Even something like taking a deep breath to try and relax yourself can be a compulsion. They can be hard to recognize. I do have a couple of physical compulsions like checking and counting. But the bulk of my compulsions are mental. So people aren't even aware I'm doing them. Does that make sense?
Nikki1373748Nikki1373748
- Date posted
- 4y
@Lms526 Thank you so much. I’ve been googling and I wrote up all my triggers and much more things and I have question. Some triggers is like physical so should I do it in like real life or do u understand what I mean haha? But still just be in my anxiety.
Lms526Lms526
- Date posted
- 4y
@Nicole1234 Nicole, there are two types of exposures in real life and written. For example, if you have something like harm or suicide OCD, you aren't going to want to do a real life exposure. One of my harm OCD themes is around knives. So I did an exposure with my therapist watching the movie Scream in 5 minute intervals. Worked great. You can also write out a script of you actually doing what you are afraid of. But its not a creative writing exercise. Then you read it to yourself or your counselor and then do ERP.
Nikki1373748Nikki1373748
- Date posted
- 4y
@Lms526 I understand. I have rocd and no counselor so I don’t know what to really do. For example I feel anxiety saying to my boyfriend that it is us forever or I feel anxiety from the thoughts “do I really love him?” … so it’s hard. But a little thing for example is that I’m scared to be around someone I’ve found handsome. Should I write down like “I found him attractive”… and then do what? I’m sorry for not understanding so well. I’m desperate and really trying. Sorry. Thank you for taking your time.
Nikki1373748Nikki1373748
- Date posted
- 4y
@Lms526 Like I feel like it’s going to be forced so I don’t get anxiety. If I sit and think and hope for anxiety. Agh I don’t know. But for example something that triggers me is to google relationships problems. Should I write it down and then google to win over the thoughts?
Lms526Lms526
- Date posted
- 4y
@Nicole1234 I don't have ROCD. Okay, so this is what I would do. So for the finding someone handsome. So imagine going up to a guy and telling him you think he's handsome. Write down the worst case scenario For example "I told Billy I thought he was handsome. He responded by laughing in my face, telling me I was ugly and destined to be alone for the rest of my life. He told me he wouldn't ask me out if I was the only girl left on the planet." Then he walked away still laughing. Then he told all his friends and they started pointing and laughing.. Pretend you are writing about something that really happened. Make it as realistic as you can. Then do ERP with that.
Nikki1373748Nikki1373748
- Date posted
- 4y
@Lms526 Thank you so much for the help! I really appreciate it.
Lms526Lms526
- Date posted
- 4y
@Nicole1234 No problem.
luckyklyistluckyklyist
- Date posted
- 4y
Yes
Nikki1373748Nikki1373748
- Date posted
- 4y
Can you tell me a little about your experience? :)
luckyklyistluckyklyist
- Date posted
- 4y
@Nicole1234 I have only taken 2 session of erp and my thrapist have given me some homework for ocd to write my thoughts.First she made heighearchy for my ocd .Today i will taking 3rd session .I am currently on meds of ocd so it helps me alot and i believe erp will help me get out my meds .
luckyklyistluckyklyist
- Date posted
- 4y
@Nicole1234 Which subtype of ocd do you suffer with
Nikki1373748Nikki1373748
- Date posted
- 4y
@luckyklyist That’s so good for you! I suffer from rocd, and u?
Nikki1373748Nikki1373748
- Date posted
- 4y
@HenryPosh I don’t know how to found a good therapist for this. I’ve been thinking to do the ERP by myself but maybe that’s a bad idea.
luckyklyistluckyklyist
- Date posted
- 4y
@Nicole1234 I suffer with harm ocd ,pocd ,rocd ,magical thinking
luckyklyistluckyklyist
- Date posted
- 4y
@Nicole1234 Doing by yourself is possible but it will be very hard for you
Nikki1373748Nikki1373748
- Date posted
- 4y
@HenryPosh Okey. Maybe I try to do the ERP on this app :)
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Tea and Honey
- Date posted
- 19w
Summary of recovery through ERP
I had just posted a summary of ERP for a group member, and I thought it might be useful for everybody. Here it is below (with a little extra added)…. ERP therapy is researched-based. Most other therapies don’t work. There have been people who have been literally stuck in their houses (from their OCD) who gained their lives back through ERP therapy. NOCD does ERP therapy exclusively. You can find it in other places too, but you have to ask around. There are two tenants of ERP therapy: The first one has to do with the repetitive thoughts inside our heads. These thoughts are actually defined as “obsessions”. You are not supposed to do anything with the obsessions. You are supposed to let them run through your head freely, without trying to fix them or stop them. Imagine a tree planted by a river. The leaves fall off and float down the river. You can see the leaves falling, but you don’t try to stop them or pick them up. You don’t try to fix them. You just let them float away. This is really important to do with your obsessive thoughts. The more you try to fight them off, the worse they get. I used to have blasphemous sentences running in my head 24/7. I felt like I had to put a “not” next to each sentence in order to “fix” it. But this just took hours of my time every day, and it was very scary, because I was worried that if I messed up, that I would go to hell. It was very freeing to learn later that I could just let those sentences run freely through my head without trying to fix them. The second part of ERP therapy is all about “denying your compulsions.” Every time OCD tells you that if you don’t do things a certain way that something really bad will happen, that is a compulsion. Once you recognize what your compulsions are, ERP therapy will have you practice stopping doing all of those things. For some people, that will mean stopping washing their hands or touching lights switches or, in my case, putting “fixing” words in their head. Compulsions are safety behaviors. During ERP therapy, you will practice stopping engaging with safety behaviors. All this is very hard to do and scary, so during therapy you will be given tools to help you deal with the fear. Often ERP therapy will take people from being non-functional to functional. I highly recommend it. ————————————————- PITFALL #1: After you have been doing ERP for a while and become somewhat successful, the OCD will try subtle little tricks to bring you down again. The first one is to tell you that your thoughts are REAL and not OCD, and therefore you can’t apply ERP therapy. Don’t fall for this trick! All thoughts are just thoughts. They are all meaningless. Don’t try to figure out what is real and what is OCD. Just treat all thoughts with ERP therapy. PITFALL #2: The second pitfall is that OCD will tell you that you can’t move forward unless you have absolute certainty that you will be safe. Hate to tell you this, folks, but there is no certainty in life. You will never know for SURE that you or your loved ones will be “safe” from the OCD rules. Therefore, you have to move forward in the uncertainty. It’s hard, but it gets easier with time and practice. We got this, guys !!!!!!
baukje
- Date posted
- 17w
Erp for insomnia ?
I have, alongside my other OCD themes, an intense fear of insomnia. Although this has been improving somewhat — partly thanks to medication and The sleep school on YouTube — I still find myself ruminating about it throughout the day when I have something important the next day, I get stuck in the fear that everything will be ruined — for both myself and others — because my mind is so preoccupied with sleep. + a fear of depression coming back. It honestly feels like a form of sleep OCD. I'm not sure if that’s an official thing, but that’s how it feels to me. A form of erp is the idea of befriending wakefulness. That works great tbh. Things like sleep hygiene, meditation, etc. — tend to backfire because my OCD latches onto them and becomes too obsessive about “doing them right.” I’m genuinely wondering whether ERP — for example in the form of a worst-case-scenario audio loop (imaginal exposure) — could be helpful in this case. I’m hesitant to start unless I know it can actually help. Is there anyone who has experience with this or thoughts about it? I’m not looking for reassurance or tips to fall asleep — only for ideas on how ERP might be applied in this situation.
Anonymous
- Date posted
- 14w
Is ERP worthless?
Anyone else feel like they just sit there during sessions? Like I can’t wait for it to be over so I don’t have to do this twice a week anymore. I think I’m putting in effort but sometimes feels like a huge waste of time and I’m not making progress but maybe that’s just my ocd?
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