I was with my sister today. When I look at her, sex images pop up and I have to imagine them because in a second I feel very clearly like I like it. I ignored it the whole time but it feels real and I'm not calm.
Ignoring is not ERP
@truetrev so I didn't literally ignore it, but I tried not to deliberately imagine it deeper, but it seems like it's pulling me.. I'm honestly afraid it's not ocd..
@Anonimus ME 🦋 - It does sound like OCD. Trying to stop the images makes your OCD want to fight back harder. You need to let them happen and not react at all. Checking feelings, trying to stop them, trying to convince yourself you don't like those are all against ERP. When things like that happen and they don't bother you and you can go no about your day, you have succeeded in ERP. Let them happen and accept that you have those intrusive thoughts. Doesn't mean you like them or anything... you just get them and it's okay. I too experience taboo intrusive thoughts like this and I have reached a point to where they don't bother me anymore.
@Anonimus ME 🦋 Here’s the way my psychiatrist put it to help me understand: if OCD is influencing your actions in any way, then you are giving in to it. Reasoning with it will not work.
@EvnInArcadia thank you very much for your answer, it stresses me out that in that second when they pop up they seem like I like them, and it makes me imagine them in detail.. and if I feel something and I feel it, I will be desperate.
@truetrev How do you think it affects my actions? I didn't understand well..?!
@Anonimus ME 🦋 - Oh I completely understand. Unfortunately the hard part is you have to trigger yourself over and over again until you get the hang of it. It was extremely hard for me to where I was sweating and almost panicking. Triggering and pushing myself through it got me to the point where if the intrusive thought comes up naturally, I just shrug it off.
@EvnInArcadia thank you, probably some time will pass then. I don't panic anymore, I just feel ugly. If I imagine, I feel something like liking, groin, and if I don't imagine, as if I ran away, and "ringing" next to my head, feel that I liked it...
@Anonimus ME 🦋 You said in the original post that when the images pop up you feel like you like it. So then ignoring it would be this compulsion.
@truetrev aha, you wanted to say that I'm getting into it, I'm falling for compulsion?! sometimes I don't even know what's what anymore... but I'm afraid that if I let them go, they'll only get more detailed and eventually I'll feel my groin, feel like I like it... I'm not sure what to do..
@Anonimus ME 🦋 OCD is not there to protect you.
@truetrev I know that, but sometimes I wonder if it's real ocd, or if something in me is like that.. in fact, I wonder every time something like this happens to me..
@Anonimus ME 🦋 People without OCD don’t doubt whether they have it or not. You’re on the NOCD app with classic OCD symptoms; i’m not trying to reassure you, just give you perspective 🫶🏻
@truetrev thank you, thank you very much... everyone's angle means a step higher for me, I understand that maybe they are common symptoms, but I always feel like I'm the only one with it..❤️
@Anonimus ME 🦋 Ocd is very good at making us feel alone, i promise you are not though🙂
@truetrev thank you again, it really means a lot to me 🫶🏻
I can't anymore.. Erp is very traumatic for me. It's about a sexual topic, and I come out with those scenes in my head, as well as photos of that person where their face makes me think of sexual grimaces. Every time, but every time during practice, I get detailed scenes and groinal. To me it looks like real sexual excitement, and I don't know exactly how to be immune to something that is sex in itself! I don't believe it's part of ocd at all..because it won't come off me and I can't believe it's not me
does it also happen to you that during exposure to erp you can imagine that act and scene in detail, and feel some confused excitement that leaves you stressed because it is hard to believe that it is part of OCD, it seems so real! When i can imagine it in detail and feel it like i can actually get arousel about it.
these days I feel particularly bad. I can't let the thoughts and those scenes be there without going deeper into it. Everything about my sister has become a trigger for me, and I have the impression that she "turns me on" and creates a big panic. I feel like I can't breathe because I don't know how to let it all go and I don't attach importance... 5 months of ERP and now this, I can't do it, I don't know it...and I don't know what else to do...
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