If I go back to therapy...how can I keep myself from staying in? (Merged Topics)

[Franklin12]

Mine was reversible up until today. Today is the point of no return. Hence the migraine. For me, an outsider, the consequence of your decision is not a huge deal. You may waste some time, lose some money. For you I suspect the consequences of a bad decision are bigger than that. For me, the consequences of me making my wrong decision are huge, but I suspect to someone else they may say otherwise, and that I need to man up and face the fact that that it could be wrong and deal with any fall out later. 

[PolarBear]

In a matter of hours you went from "I"m back in" to "maybe I need to go to someone else". This is all coming about because you ruminate endlessly over it. You are doing compulsions around therapy.

[Ryukil]

I guess. I guess I could ask my therapist how to deal with rumination.

[Ryukil]

I really, really want to drop out of therapy. The thought of being "IN" therapy is causing me tremendous anxiety. Really. Really, really bad anxiety. When I was on a "break" from therapy I felt a lot of relief. So I know if I did leave therapy, I would feel much less anxious.

But it's not the exposures I'm being asked to do. From day 1 of therapy I have obsessed about whether or not to stay in. The night before starting therapy, though, I was committed...I was ready to just do whatever and believed that therapy would get me over my OCD contamination fears if I just stuck with it. But then he said we would have to wait a couple weeks to do any actual exposures because I had to fill out forms and stuff. I got anxious about "wasting" two weeks not moving forward, which kicked off this whole obsession with staying in therapy or not staying in therapy.

Then came the kicker, where he told me I should try and "agree with" my intrusive thoughts by telling myself that my fears I was aroused by the thoughts were true, and that really scared me. I came around to seeing how that is a good idea, but before that I did a lot of research online to see other peoples' stories. There definitely ARE many people who got over intrusive thoughts without "agreeing with" them...agreeing with them seems like an exception rather than a rule, to tell the truth, but I see how it would work. It's a bit like dropping a nuclear bomb on your intrusive thoughts instead of chipping away at them more slowly.

Anyway, that whole fear of "agreeing with" my thoughts gave me another excuse to consider dropping out of therapy. But the whole point of this post is...my obsession with leaving therapy is not about it being hard. It's more that I just feel uncomfortable being IN therapy. For instance, I could go to therapy and not do anything he says yet I would still feel uncomfortable being IN therapy, feeling unable to do certain things like writing articles online for money because the fact that I'm IN therapy makes things off-kilter, somehow. It's like a perfectionistic thing. I remember a period where, if I were playing a game on the computer and something on my desk was not straight, it would make it so hard to concentrate on the game. I guess it's like that. It makes very little sense. But the level of anxiety being caused by being IN therapy (not doing exposures) is very, very high.

I realize leaving would not be a great idea. But I really don't know how to handle this obsession. I do sort of think I could deal with the contamination obsessions on my own, in my own way. I believe they will probably just go away on their own, naturally, since certain obsessions don't seem to stick around. Especially one like that, because it's so annoying I would just automatically challenge it...this has sort of happened before.

Anyway, I will see him today (Tuesday). I'm going to ask him what I can do to get over this fear before the anxiety is just too much to ignore and I have to leave...I think if I left I would feel massive relief, but then depression would start to set in after a week or two as my mind calmed down about the whole issue and I realized what I had done. I'm sure that, either way, a few months from now I will look back at this whole obsession and be confused as to what I was so worried about. Is there some kind of cognitive technique that could help me here...?

Edited February 27, 2018 by Ryukil

[PolarBear]

Look, this is OCD. I think you are getting intrusive thoughts that you should leave therapy. That causes you a great deal of distress. Then you try to figure out if you should stay in therapy or not (a compulsion). You've got intrusive thoughts, distress and compulsions. Treat it as OCD.

The problem that i see is that your therapist is working with you on sexual obsessions right now when your more immediate problem is obsessions about staying in therapy.

Talk to your therapist. Tell him how much distress this is causing and how much ruminating you are doing.

[Ryukil]

He wants me to listen to write 25 x a day "therapy won't work for me" as well as make a 2-minute recording of why therapy won't work and then listen to it 6x a day. Also, stop researching OCD on the Internet, which I definitely agree with.

Anyway, I still really want to drop out. But I guess I should at least try doing these exposures, because maybe it will make the anxiety related to being in therapy and it just feeling "wrong" go away. 

I am sort of confident I could treat the magical contamination stuff on my own now. I would just agree that I am aroused by all these thoughts, refuse to "undo" them, and then refuse to "decontaminate" anything. I guess that's easier said than done, and it would be helpful to have a therapist helping me to get past any roadblocks, but yeah. Guess I could always go back if I run into any major problems. 

It would just be such a massive relief to leave therapy. I'm constantly anxious and tense just at the thought of being in therapy. And again, it's not because of the exposures! It's just because it feels "wrong." I bet cognitive therapy would come in handy here, but yeah...I'm just going to focus on what my therapist says. Guess we're putting ERP alone to the test!

[Ryukil]

Telling myself that I am turned on by these thoughts is awful. Whatever. I can always try other things if I have no success with this after a couple months.

[Ashley]

8 hours ago, Ryukil said:

Telling myself that I am turned on by these thoughts is awful.

Therapy for OCD never is.

 If the therapy is not provoking anxiety, then it's not the right therapy. The key difference to this anxiety is that we're choosing to trigger that anxiety, and choosing to engage is so powerful and if anything shows steps forward.

[Ryukil]

Embracing the intrusive thoughts to such a degree is actually causing me to dream about them. I'm getting erotic dreams now. That's never happened before.

[Ryukil]

Can I ask if CBT would have me agreeing with my thoughts like this? Surely they would say it's alright to tell myself that "maybe" I enjoyed the thoughts? I guess it doesn't matter though...these extreme exposures methods just scare me so much. It's like trying to convince myself that I actually am a pedo / rapist, which is obviously frightening. Even if this therapist had me jumping off buildings to challenge my thoughts you guys would probably tell me to keep going...I get it, you don't want to make me doubt my therapist...

Edited February 28, 2018 by Ryukil

[Ashley]

12 minutes ago, Ryukil said:

Can I ask if CBT would have me agreeing with my thoughts like this?

Sorry, we don't engage in a persons compulsive behaviours on here ;)

Ha, that's not me being awkward, but you're falling into that trap of comparing therapy approaches again. 

[Ryukil]

I know. But logically I KNOW my therapist's extreme methods are not the only thing to work. But whatever. I guess I will have to continue marching through hell. What an absolute nightmare. And I realize OCD treatment is supposed to be difficult, but there has to be a thing such as unnecessarily difficult OCD treatment. I mean, I think he's the sole expert who would say telling myself "maybe the thoughts are true" is a compulsion. I'm tired of the reassurance police saying that absolutely everything is reassurance.

OCD Treatment, 2030: "No, just telling yourself the thoughts are true is actually a form of reassurance! You have to take it further than that and actually have sex with close relatives while telling yourself how much you love it! This is the only way to ensure these thoughts don't bother you anymore!"

I mean, that's the way it's going. In the 1990s reminding yourself "it's not me, it's my OCD" was acceptable. Then it was "maybe." Now it's "you must agree with the thoughts!" *sigh*

Edited February 28, 2018 by Ryukil

[Ryukil]

Whatever. I'm going to do the things he says. I don't know if I can hold out, though. The worst that could happen is I lose a few months of my life.

Someone help me. The things I have to do just make me want to die. Telling myself "I am a rapist" over and over is just...yeah.

Edited February 28, 2018 by Ryukil

[Ryukil]

Can you guys deactivate my account, actually? Enough posting on here.

[Ryukil]

Lol, so right now I've been talking with my family back and forth about sticking in therapy, how it's a good idea to just chill and stick in, how it won't last forever, etc. I realized my therapist would tell me this is reassuring myself, but since it's the only freaking thing keeping me from just quitting, I feel like it's not the worst thing ever. However, I will try to scale back on talking to them about it.

What he told me to do, actually, is to tell myself that I'm wrong to stay in therapy and that it won't work.