Atlantis

OK, has my post offended or upset people? The thing is, whilst I'm not sharing in order to gain reassurance because that will go against the therapy, I notice that hardly any of my topics get any responses and a lot of them tend to get ignored. thanks.

How did you get better?

OK so something happened with me the other night whilst I was having sex with a casual partner. For years I have had a problem with violent sexual thoughts during intimacy, like I am committing a terrible crime. They get worse when either I form an emotional attachment to someone else, or simply being in love with a girlfriend. The thoughts centre around non-consensual sex i.e. anal, so for example if we are having normal sex I will fear that I will penetrate her the other way whilst the OCD thought process is screaming "rape". So sex became a fear, because it would always be ruined by thoughts happening during actions pelvic thrusting). Classic example of this was the other night, I was so scared of having sex with this partner, because the fear of penetrating the "other way" was rampant, made worse by the fact that I have had now for many months, a strong emotional attachment to someone whom I adore, because as usual the OCD gets us thinking the most abohrent thoughts. Mine was / is that I fear the thoughts will tell me I want to rape someone in the anus whilst thinking of the girl whom I am emotionally attached to, thus bringing shame and overwhelming guilt. So, the other night as I was first moving to penetrate I had the first person, real-time thought "I am doing this to rape her anally and think of this other girl" I let the movement carry on thinking I wanted it, I did not stop thrusting despite the rising feeling of dread and fear, but nothing happened because it went in normally - but seconds later, I lost my libido and mojo and it all went completely off the boil. I just felt overwhelming guilt and disgust that I acted on the thought / tried to go through with it. I am currently in ERP, so instead of going over the usual compulsions by telling myself it's OCD, thought / action fusion, and reassuring myself if I did enter her the wrong way I would be in a state of shock and there'd obviously be no enjoyment or arousal in order to diffuse the situation, under orders of the clinic, I have to stay thinking that I did something wrong, that I am a sick depraved individual and I have to keep these thoughts going until my reaction to them is no longer distress.. eventually I will have to rest on the laurels of uncertainty, because I cannot go back in time to get 100 percent certainty, and even if I could, in that moment of panic when anxiety kicks off irrational thought processes at 70 percent, I would still never get certainty of my true intentions. By far the most hardest thing I have ever endured.

Hi BB, I'm also doing ERP which is by far the hardest thing I've ever endured. I do not want to second guess your therapist because my homework is of course different. Is there no way you can contact her to get clarification? I am sure she wouldn't mind if you did.

I am currently ungoing supervised ERP where it is my task to allow the thoughts to come into my mind that I have done something awful, not to fight or engage in compulsions to try and work it out, or seek reassurance that it's OCD and nothing else.. it is harrowing but the point of it is to allow the brain to become de-sensitized to the thoughts by thinking about it so much that eventually, it gets boring - the thoughts will still be there but they will (and I hope soon) be without poison and I will not feel the need to argue. My OCD fear of harming focus is centred around my neighbour and whenever something happens she will be on my mind as the reason for urges, fear of acting on urges. One of my compulsions is to confess to her things I think I did but.. that is just a compulsion which fuels the fire. I'd feel great for a while but then OCD would generate something else that I'd need to confess and so on.. But, what about the impact on her ? as someone young, pure and innocent without any real understanding of how evil OCD is, and then she has me spouting off stuff that would play on her mind and make her wary of me perhaps. That would be selfish of me, very selfish and I don't care how strong the urges are to confess, I would rather live with that uncertainty for the rest of my days than cause this girl any worry. You want freedom from this? The only way you'll get it is by NOT confessing and I strongly recommend ERP with a qualified professional.

She's probably got fantasies of her own like any other human being, I doubt she's crying to you about what they are so that goes to show that the only thing that's powering your guilt on this is OCD, at the time you didn't feel guilt because there's no need to feel it and rightly so. This guilt you feel now is fake because it's OCD that's causing it. You've been told this before on other posts. You're also hinting at suicide, how about getting your game face on and fighting this condition instead of churning out the same stuff over and over. Confession is a far more damaging compulsion to your wife, far more damaging than the fantasies themselves. I've been in your situation with my ex, I confessed everything - hence why she's now my ex. Only now can I see how much my lack of self control contributed to hurting her with stuff she didn't need to know because I put my compulsive need to feel accepted first instead of her mental state.

I just started ERP for POCD and it's made me reflect on a life time of screw ups, failed relationships, jobs, lost friends etc - at 43 years old I'm way past my youth but whatever time I have left on this planet I'm gonna make damn sure I enjoy it once I'm through the therapy.. I suppose you could look at it like digging a tunnel out of a prison, it's labourious, hard work but the pay off when you finally get out will make you wanna grab life by the balls and live it your way.

Boom! Good job.

? This isn't a valid question, you're seeking reassurance. What do you think?

I'm 43 and single with type 2 diabetes, severe depression and OCD. I'm in serious debt working a garbage job for garbage money and no sign of the debt ever being paid off. Most of my small social circle is made up of superficial friendships where the majority of these friends do not have money or career issues. I'm also at the age where the age range of women I am most attracted to, i.e. 25-30, are not interested in older guys and that's depressing in itself because it underlines the begining of becoming old from which there is no escape. I accept that is the case for the moment. But... I am about to start intense ERP for POCD / Harm OCD, this week will be the start of the journey to hell and I have to stay in hell until it no longer feels like hell. Once I am through this, I will change. I will no longer have the fear of being around kids, I will no longer have to avoid dating women who have kids, I will no longer have to focus on avoidng jobs where contact with kids is needed i.e. teaching which is something I always wanted to do and I will be able to stop tormenting myself with doubt / guilt / shame etc. I will feel more alive, I will stop abusing my body and get into shape because the depression will lift and motivate me. So Bruces, instead of coming on here and posting in self wallowing pity, contact your therapist and get a plan in place, because if I can do it I'm pretty sure you can too. Get your game face on and start fighting back.

You need ERP Lily, your OCD is going down every avenue you allow it to and it's becoming more powerful. From what I read you're getting worse, what help are you getting apart from the sound advice from this forum?

There you go, you're on a war footing. You're on the road to victory already.

Yes I do as well

Hi, I'm not sure what your theme of OCD is, but regardless, the mere fact that you're doubting it's OCD, proves it's OCD. The more you try and work it out, the more you'll doubt yourself. OCD has curveballs for every single thread of reassurance we give ourselves or from others. Once you're strong enough to resist the compulsion to work things out and can live with uncertainty, you'll start to see that the OCD thoughts of "I'm a bad person" etc, start to lose their poison. They run out of fuel if you don't argue with them.

At the very least you're not going to spend until you are 27 not knowing what was wrong with you, and then after loads of failed therapy, waiting until you turned 43 to get real help.. you are 17. your (adult) life hasn't really started yet so you can get to grips with managing it and hopefully put it in your rearview mirror.

Yeah so next week a colleague of the therapist has volunteered her baby to be a part of the exercise.. I am to hold the baby in my lap in all different positions and think the thoughts, make the movements and also stay thinking that I am what I fear, could take days, could take weeks..I feel sick at the thought, but also a determination to get this condition on the ropes for a change bleeding profusely.

So the first two days of ERP. Day one - was made by my therapist to go into a toy shop with him, get as close to kids as possible without running away and using avoidance tactics. The shop wasn't as busy as expected so the fear factor wasn't what it needed to be to get the full benefit of the ERP. Day two - today, was total hell on earth for me.. was instructed to go into a cinema showing a kids film, to sit in the middle. There was no seats in the middle so we were at the end. This is a situation I would never put myself into, ever, as I won't even sit next to a kid where I can help it. However this is where the real fear kicked in. A minute after we took our seats of course, more kids wanted to pass us to get down the row. We stood up, as one normally would in a cinema to let people pass. Nothing happened, I was in control and all was going well - or so I thought.. 30 mins later, a young girl got up and began moving down the row to get out meaning she would have to pass us. The fear kicked in but I was in control, this is right up until she got close to me and the therapist said that I should not stand up, just move my legs to the side - which I did, but instead of shimmying past, the kid decided to step over my legs one leg at a time meaning my legs ended up in between her legs, contact was made and within milliseconds the OCD thoughts and urges about wanting to touch her parts came in with such speed! Now I do not know if I moved deliberately on these thoughts, whether it was an involuntary micro movement or muscles tensing up but contact was made with the girl and immediately I felt like I had acted on the thought and I was repulsed. Shortly after this I told my therapist I wanted to leave the cinema, and after a little debate he agreed. The exercise itself was meant to keep me in the situation until the anxiety faded as it would with an aracnaphobe in a room full of spiders (eventually) however the way my OCD works is that if I suffer a spike then instantly I begin ruminations, checking and I am automatically locked in these thoughts, and not on my surroundings therefore the anxiety does not decrease. After this the therapist said that he thought the kid was too tall for my knee to make contact with her 'parts'. This reduced the anxiety a lot. An interesting point was made however, that if I did move on the thought that I wanted to touch the kids parts, that because it was NOT done for sexual gratification, then it would not be classed as what my OCD causes me to believe, as a sex crime. anyway, just thought I'd share my experience and will continue to do so

Yes, thanks Gemma your response means a lot! He said that I am to deliberately think the thoughts and not to argue with them because it's the arguing that sets off the need to check. I will update this thread regulary in case anyone else out there is going through the same thing.. Time to get my game face on.

So after the best part of 17 years spent avoiding contact with kids because of POCD, my therapist is taking me to a very busy toy shop during the school holidays. Personally, I would rather go back to Afghanistan but I know that this is crucial to beat OCD. He's said he will force me to stay in the situation, he has told me to purposely think the thoughts of "I want to harm" etc and that when the anxiety reaches 70%, the mind is unable to think rationally. Currently I feel a mix of excitedness and fear.. excited to get this evil condition on the back foot, and fear in case it goes wrong.. or doesn't work.. just wondered if anyone else has done ERP for fear of harming? thanks.

I think sometimes you have to let things go especially if the action was born out of OCD, i.e. if you didn't have OCD, then you wouldn't have done it.. because the only other choice is torturing yourself mentally by ruminating. It's hard I know but it is possible.

you didn't, your OCD did because it knew you would start ruminating over it. It's a piece of foam for gods sake.

Thanks Lostinme, yes Taurean I will be open and honest, time to go to war on this! All guns blazing.

If something happened you would damn well know about it because the guilt would be overwhelming, that's it. Pure and simple. As long as you're consumed by the intrusive thoughts you will be stuck in a multi-linear cauldron of 'what ifs', you need to distance yourself from engaging in analysing the whole thing, I know it's hard because I've struggled a lot recently, but you can do it. Once you step out of the loop you'll start to see the anxiety fade, even if that means feeling uncertainty.. Having read your posts it appears to me that during this night, you were having intrusive thoughts and you probably did not pay them that much attention because you were distracted by a normal situation, and only now you're remembering those thoughts that you had i.e. "I will definitely have to leave my partner now" therefore you may not remember why you had those thoughts. Which takes you into the 'all or nothing' spectrum of OCD, which is basically, you feel you've done something wrong but you're not 100 percent, so it's easier to punish yourself by confessing on here that you've done something, when all you've done is confided in a mate.

I'm off to a clinic next week for intense OCD treatment via CBT / ERP, it'll be tougher than normal because it's a German clinic and even though they have English - speaking counsellors, it won't be native so some parts of it will be skipped i.e. group therapy. Question is has anyone off here ever done ERP successfully? thanks

It's a normal friendship, that's all, but your OCD has been waiting in the wings to start casting doubts on it, and now you've given the intrusive thoughts importance, it has totally hijacked the situation and turned it into a big fat 'what if', your intentions all along have been innocent. And still are.