What are exposures you all do for rocd?

Few weeks ago I had to write a script and then record it for listening. Now I’m watching youtube videos to bring fear on. This is a great question btw! ?

Sorry I wasn't clear! What I mean is, sometimes anxiety is like an iceberg. There's what you think you're worried about, and there is the real root fear. These are big things which most people are very afraid of: being alone, being hurt, being a bad person, death, etc. What would would you believe about yourself if you left him? What is the outcome you're afraid of? For example, when I believed I should break up with my partner, on the surface I was afraid of being stuck with someone that was 'wrong' for me. The true reason that bothered me though was more complicated. What if people looked down on me for my choice of partner, and they thought I was stupid? And if they thought I was stupid, what if they stopped being my friend (root fear: being ostracised and alone)? Equally, I was afraid of breaking up with them in case doing so was a mistake, and ended up alone forever. In both cases I was afraid of being alone, but they manifested differently. So I was constantly torn back and forth about it. I had to learn to be okay with the idea I might be alone, by giving love and support to myself, to cope with this.

I don’t love my fiancé , our marriage is going to fail, I’m going to break up with him.. typical rocd stuff.. Compulsion.. check my feelings, think of past memories that make me happy, ask for reassurance is number one.. I have gotten a ton better by using acceptance that I have these thoughts because of ocd but not really sure how to incorporate exposures..

Gotcha - I had the same worries when my OCD was bad, I feel your pain. As Steviee said, imaginal exposure is useful for this one as you won't want to actually break up with your partner for exposure! But you can run through that scenario while avoiding doing any of the compulsions you listed. To some degree as well, just daily life with your partner is an exposure exercise. Can you be in the moment with him, showing him that you care even when your brain is protesting? Can you go about your day without reaching for reassurance or googling something? Make sure to think about what the fear actually is here, and how you can support yourself for the feared outcome in other ways. Even though the relationship seems like the most pressing issue you're likely doing compulsions in all areas of life but ignoring them because they're not as important to you as the relationship. Your brain will not understand why you are fine with small compulsions but not big ones! I believe Russ Harris might have written a whole book about applying ACT (I.e. Accepting your doubtful feelings) to relationships, but I might be wrong on the author.

Makes total sense. It took a lot for my partner and I to get together. There was a lot of back and forth for various reasons.. nothing unhealthy but emotionally draining at best. My ocd manifested when we were finally where we needed to be and happy. My ocd started off as harm and when I got over that it manifested to rocd. So I believe my true fear is hurting him emotionally or getting hurt by him emotionally. From our crappy past of how we got together. But we so aren’t those people and we have grown so well together. I felt like it was finally our time to be happy and bam OCD! We will get back to that tho. We are happy actually! It’s just learning to except the thoughts for what they are! Thanks so much for your words!

Have a look at the conscious transitions website, it might help. It has helped me massively

What sort of fears do you have? What compulsions do you do? :)

Also I just stated seeing an ocd specialist but the first appointment was basically diagnosing me so we haven’t really worked on any exposure stuff yet

Thanks so much guys and lol on the part where you say you don’t actually want to break up with your partner for exposure because while I never would actually do it I’m thinking how do I expose myself to a break up while actually doing it! And when you say make sure to think about what the actual fear is here what do you mean? My fear is not being with my partner anymore but I know that’s because How important he is to me. Is that what you mean?

*without actually doing it

Thank you Caroline!