- Date posted
- 3y
- Date posted
- 3y
Talk therapy doesn't work for OCD. Prior to realizing I had OCD, I did about 10 years off and on of therapy with several different therapists. I did everything I was supposed to, but never made an progress. ERP is not fun or easy, but it works and will change your life. I made more progress in 3 weeks doing ERP than I ever did in talk therapy. The key to ERP is starting slow and gradually working up. Also, not doing a compulsion during or just after an exposure. The hardest part is when your anxiety is going crazy. It feels like an eternity, but its only a few minutes. Then your anxiety will peak and start to decline. It also helps if you can channel your rage and anger about OCD into ERP. I read a really good book about ERP. Its called Daring to Challenge Your OCD by Dr. Joan Davidson. She does a good job of explaining ERP, how and why to do it, and also barriers that can hinder your progress. Available on Amazon. Good luck! You can do it!
- Date posted
- 3y
I’m also doing talk therapy and while I feel good about talking about what I feel, I don’t think it’s been effective in alleviating my OCD symptoms. I’ve heard great things about ERP and people swear by it, so if you don’t think talk therapy is helping, maybe you should consider ERP. You can always back out if you think it’s making things worse. I hope things get better for you!
- Date posted
- 3y
Thank you. I'm gonna try this. I'm determined to get rid of this or at least get control of it.
- Date posted
- 3y
Good luck! Keep us posted. Rooting for you!
- Date posted
- 3y
So my best advice to you is- any thought your brain throws up at you, is bananas. Thoughts are like farts. They mean nothing. When you fart, it’s just your stomach doing natural digestion and the fart is the by product. When you have thoughts, just think of it as brain digestion, because that’s all it is. Your brain can throw up ANY thought and that’s perfectly fine! How we get into this mess is by performing compulsions to get rid of the “unwanted” thoughts, feelings and sensations we don’t like. When in reality we can experience ANY thought, feelings or sensation and still carry on what we value! You are not your farts or your thoughts!
- Date posted
- 3y
Thank you!! This is great advice!
- Date posted
- 3y
Thank you. I'm definitely gonna look for this book.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 18w
I’ve been through a lot of trauma the past few months and years and had an anxiety breakthrough where I can’t stop having panic and anxiety attacks. I used to be a horror movie addict and one night during an anxiety attack my brain went “Kill your sister” My sister is my whole world. It all went downhill from there. I can’t even be around her when were home alone anymore. Every single day since then my brain is trying to tell me a bunch of different ways to harm her. Its getting to a point where its involving others now. “Kill your sister.” “What if you finally go back to your boyfriends house and kill his family?” “What if you kill mom?” “Kill that lady walking down the aisle at work.” “What if you killed yourself?” “You’re a bad person for thinking all of this.” “You shouldn’t be allowed to sleep, eat or relax. Bad people don’t get to do those things.” “These thoughts are in your head 24/7 because you WANT to do these things!” Its causing me so much anxiety and racing thoughts and I don’t want to become anymore depressed. SSRIs dont work. My doctor wants me to go on antipsychotics but I’m afraid to and I feel like I don’t actually need them and it will cause more damage. My goal is to become the person I was before all of this. Not to change completely. I tried buspirone once and I stopped due to increased health anxiety and often found myself saying “remember when you wanted to kill your sister?” and then brushing it off. It helped in some sort of way. I was only on it for a week. My whole life has changed since then. I dont go to my boyfriends house anymore, I dont see my friends, I can’t play video games anymore. All I do is ruminate and I cant stop. I cant even hold a conversation anymore. The compulsions are horrible. I’m so scared that theres no coming back from this. Its all adding to the anxiety that I don’t want to become severe depression. I just want to be me again. I’m starting off ERP and if it doesn’t work I dont know what to do. Can someone please tell me they have been through similar and have gotten better. I just need to save my life. Its getting to a point where this is convincing me this is all real and its going to happen and that im gonna become a psychopath. Its been going on for 3 months. I used to be so bubbly and happy!! (I am not schizoaffective)
- Date posted
- 18w
How to deal with dangerous harm ocd without a therapist… I’m on anxiety medicine and I’m on Zoloft, but I haven’t been able to get a therapist yet still saving money I try to just like ERP sit with the fears. I’m very weak in this moment cause I’ve had a breakdown mentally I went to hospital and when I try to sit through the fears usually becomes too much for me. Any suggestions?
- Date posted
- 16w
Hi this is my first time posting on here. I wasn't sure if I should because I want to make sure I'm not seeking reassurance because I heard that makes ocd worse. I don't want to talk about what my ocd problem was, but basically I was really upset about a religious ocd problem that I know isn't true. I'm feeling a lot better about it now, but when it was bad I decided to try and get better on my own. I read about ERP therapy and how you're supposed to make a list of your ocd problems, from least distressing to most. So I wrote them down on two pieces of paper. At first I started with the simple ones, like looking for spiders before leaving the room. I have a tendency to look for spiders before leaving a room but lately I've been trying not to anymore. Then I decided to try and do one of the hard things. It was a religious ocd problem. I decided to start simple, and just write the problem down on a piece of paper. So I went downstairs and got some paper. But then I thought, oh no, my ocd is probably not going to like this. What do I do with the paper once I write it down? If I think what I wrote down is bad and going to upset God and I will go to hell, (even though I know logically it's not), my ocd is probably going to freak out if I throw away the paper. It probably won't calm down unless I erase it. So I just decided to not write it down on a paper, and just type it on my phone instead. So I did, I typed it on my phone. So, even though I didn't write anything down on the paper, now it feels like that peice of paper is bad. I feel like it's connected to the problem I was having, and I was so upset I called my mom crying asking her what to do. Eventually I decided to just put the paper back with the rest of the paper downstairs, but I'm still upset. I feel like I have to throw away all the paper downstairs, the pencil I was going to use to write down the problem, and the eraser I was going to use in case I needed to erase anything. It feels like if I use any of those items I will make God angry and go to hell. I know I shouldn't do this though, so I'm not going to. I don't know what to do with the papers where I wrote down my ocd problems. They are on my desk and I'm too afraid to move them. And if I put them in my desk I'm afraid they will get mixed up with other papers. I guess I can do whatever I want with them. I think I'll put them in a folder or binder and if I make any more ocd papers I can just put them in there. I'm just really confused on how to move forward. Right now, I'm too afraid to use the papers, pencil, or eraser for anything. I feel like I can't write on them, draw on them, or anything. It's even making me feel like I can't make digital art. It's making me feel like I can't do a lot of things. I guess what I have to do is just do whatever I want to, because I know the ocd isn't true and doesn't make sense.
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