Have doing exposures these few days as I need to go yo the university and I return home totally collapsing and crying, why my mind doesn’t want to release the thoughts?
Our brains evolved over millions of years to protect us from danger and keep us safe. Hearing the crack of a branch in the forest and making the split second decision to run for it is what kept our ancestors alive long enough to allow us to exist today. With OCD our brains are continuing that longstanding job of keeping us safe by looking for threats, but they're misfiring, creating fear and guilt, and generating intrusive thoughts and images in a misinformed effort to keep us safe from a threat that isnt there. Its why OCD feels so real, because to that primal part of our brain it is. Its also why our brain doesn't want to let these thoughts go, because it sees them as a mortal danger to us. Its also what makes you and every other OCD sufferer so so brave. To get through it you have to learn to sit with these very real thoughts and feelings that are screaming at you to respond with the same urgency they would have shouted at our ancestors in order to get them to run from a Tiger. Really its genuinely incredible how brave people with OCD are when doing these exposures. It would be like asking any regular person to stand completely still and do nothing while a Tiger lunges at them, thats how brave you're being.
@FightOCDwithme Thank you very much for your kind words 🙏
What a great explanation! The best I've ever read on this community board. Might I add that ERP therapy may make us feel worse before we see improvement. Simply put, OCD is fighting to keep you on its treadmill. But it WILL get better if we work on it. Recovery tends to be messy, not linear.
Hi! I was given exposure HW that I chose to do by my therapist but lately I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by it and thinking that maybe I need to start with an easier exposure. However I can only see my therapist every other week due to her schedule and I’m really having a hard time feeling like I’m not following the “rules” of therapy. I feel like she’s not going to help me if I don’t do the exposures and that I’m gonna be all alone again and have no where to turn. So, part of me was gonna just force myself to do the exposure to avoid feeling bad. I don’t want to let OCD run the show also by not doing the exposure…but also feeling like doing the exposure is not quite right either. Please if anyone can relate I could really use some help.
I find while doing exposures, rarely does my anxiety lessen. It usually amps up and stays that way for the remainder of the day. I could be having a fairly decent day, but dutifully do my exposures and then the rest of my day is anxiety filled. I guess that’s just how it is now? Also, I’m wondering if my therapist even believes I have OCD. I totally understand my therapist cannot provide reassurance. But it’s to the point it seems my therapist acts like I actually did the thing I fear. I feel so isolated.
today's exposure exercise. I look at the face of a person I have sexual thoughts about and I feel that as soon as I can connect that face with sex I am attracted to it, and I feel like I can touch my self on sexual way while looking at that face, and I can imagine it and get it as an urge..it seems like I am stopping myself because it is horrible, not that I don't want to... I get stuck a lot with this and I don't know how to get out...I can't...
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