Ryukil

Probably what will happen if I confess is I'll feel a need to explain it more thoroughly and perfectly before I begin. This is what happened when I confessed about the other things. Alright, I think I'm going to give it a shot because I don't really have a choice at this point, I have to stop letting my OCD rule my life.

So, in a little more than 4 weeks I'm going to another US state for a vacation, but I want to really use the time before this to do self-directed ERP. My issue is basically "mental contamination," where I'll get a sick thought, worry I enjoyed it, and then have to rethink the thought without any feelings of enjoyment to wipe away that dirtiness. If I don't do this and then read a chapter of a book, that chapter will be contaminated and I'll have to re-read it after going back and undoing the thought. So, my way forward is clear - I need to contaminate things and sit with the anxiety without undoing the contamination. A couple weeks ago, I put on pants that may have had some dried semen on the front, and when I was in the passenger seat of the car the metal part of the seatbelt brushed over my crotch, so I was worried semen got on it. I was going to clean it, but I never did, and a week later my mom sat in that seat. So I'm worried the metal part touched her skin or clothes, and essentially I had sexual contact with her. I feel the need to confess before I can start reading my book, because otherwise the book will be contaminated. Basically, I feel like if I start ERP without confessing to her first, it will be overwhelming and in order to not set myself up for failure I should first confess and then commence with ERP. Does that make sense? I'm worried that if I start ERP without confessing (which is a compulsion to "undo" in a sense) then the anxiety will be overwhelming and I will just cave into compulsions after a day or two. I don't really want to say anything about it though because it's ******* weird. However, I'm tired of wasting my life and just want to start and get 4 good weeks of contaminating stuff and sitting with the anxiety - I feel I have nothing to lose by doing this and everything to gain. But because this obsession involves "sexual contact" with my mother, if I forge ahead without confessing I will get horrible groinal response and what feel like "urges" to have sex with her, so for example will worry about standing in close proximity to her. I don't want to waste another day, so either I will confess or not today. Is it ever a good idea to give into a compulsion, especially when starting out?

Is it really though? It seems like a legit concern.

Probably posting about it and trying to figure out whether or not I should say something.

Still worried about this and it's over a week later.

Is it morally wrong to not say anything?

I want to ignore it but the anxiety won't go away.

So, one night I jerked off, changed my underwear to a pair of pants I had, so a bit of semen probably got on these pants. One day I went out, didn't have any clean laundry (OCD kind of makes me lose sight of normal things), so I put these on as they were like the only thing available. As I was getting out of the car, the metal part of the seat belt rubbed across my crotch. So, perhaps it touched some semen. I had meant to go out into the car and clean the metal part with soap, but I didn't, and today my mom was in that seat and so that part of the buckle potentially touched her clothes. I feel the need to say something, like - I feel like if I don't say something it's akin to rape because my semen could have made contact with her. I'm so bothered by this but I also don't want to say anything because I might just make it worse.

It's true that the bad groinal response only shows up when things are contaminated by certain thoughts, i.e., sexual thoughts about my mother, so what I had been doing is only contaminated things if I wouldn't get the groinal response in return. I can avoid it sometimes - however, that's obviously just going to keep me stuck, so, I need to accept that experiencing that will be an unavoidable part of my recovery.

I guess I can't really avoid it if I actually want to get better.

So, my whole deal is that things I'm doing (like reading a book or writing) get "contaminated" by my sexual intrusive thoughts, for instance thoughts about having sex with my mom. If I'm reading a book, my compulsion is to go back and re-read the section without having a groinal response. If I don't, the groinal responses are amped up to 11 and I feel like "urges" to have sex with my mom, which are TERRIFYING. Does anyone else get this? I guess the only way I can get over this is to face it? Like. Yeah. I try to make it so not giving into compulsions just gives me anxiety and not groinal responses - it can happen sometimes - but I think I need to stop trying to avoid the groinal response as well. You can imagine how scary it is when I'm standing next to my mom and get what feels like an urge to have sex with her.

Yeah, whether I have a therapist or not I'm going to have to face this eventually. I suppose every compulsion I perform is putting it off more and more, building it into a bigger problem, as opposed to not giving into compulsions and letting the fear sort of unwind itself.

I know, I don't know why I'm searching for justification to give into compulsions. Maybe I'm also looking for reassurance that not giving into the compulsions is the correct thing to do.

Yes but I believe to say that to myself would be a form of reassurance?

Now hear me out. I want to start ERP on my own as I can't really go to a therapist right now. I have been to McLean's OCDI as well as specialists, read lots of books and online information so I do have a decent idea of what I'm doing. I feel I have nothing to lose by putting in say 2 months of ERP on my own as it's better than just sitting around not making progress with my OCD. My whole thing is that I'll get weird thoughts, and these weird thoughts will "contaminate" whatever I'm doing. It can be a sexual thought, pretty much always about a family member, or an "immoral" thought. For example, I recently was reading about Hitler (I'm a history major) and felt like maybe I "admired" him. Obviously this upset me. The compulsion in this case would be to reread that paragraph without having a feeling of "admiration." However, I didn't do that and logged into multiple accounts, including this one, and so they are now "contaminated" by me admiring Hitler. I feel like I should undo the thought, delete those accounts, and THEN start with ERP. If I just go into it, it might be too hard to maintain because the anxiety from the Hitler thing will be too great. I sort of have a hierarchy, like thoughts about sex with my dog would bother me the least, thoughts about sex with a family member would bother me more, and a bad thought about a sex abuse victim or a thought that Hitler is admirable would be at the top of the scale. I think the idea is something like, If I don't delete these accounts, I'm saying it's acceptable to admire Hitler. It is like the accounts have been stained by the feeling I may have had. And, just as a side note, I don't admire Hitler at all, I think Nazism is one of the most horrible things that has occured in human history. But what if I did have a fleeting feeling of admiration? Should I delete the accounts and then agree to stop giving into compulsions, or should I not delete the accounts and then just carry on? I'm worried if I just carry on I'm setting myself up for failure because it will be too hard to resist compulsions, and I don't want bigger, more important things (like writing a story, for instance) to become contaminated by Hitler.