PolarBear

Are you saying you would do an exposure, finish it and the anxiety stuck around for months? Or are you saying you continued to do the same exposure for months and you were highly anxious the whole time?

You don't focus on making them stop. You focus on not letting the thoughts bother you. Overcoming OCD is all about changing your behavior.

Because you have OCD.

Welcome to the forum. You have a choice. Either you stay stuck in the quagmire of cleaning you are presently in or you actively participate in Exposure and Response Prevention to teach yourself to accept things as they are (dirty or otherwise). That's your choices. Either put up with the way things are (which you have said are not great) or change your behavior. Proper ERP would include, at the outset, writing out a list of compulsions you perform and then rating each compulsion on a scale of 1 to 10 as to how much anxiety would be created if you didn't do the compulsion. You'd start on the lower numbered items on the list and practice ERP, literally preventing yourself from performing the compulsion and sitting with the ensuing anxiety until it goes back down to a normal level. You'd have to do that over and over again until the exposure no longer raises your anxiety level. Then you'd go on to the next highest item on the list. And on and on.

And off we go again.

So quit beating yourself up. It's a non-issue. It's irrelevant. Even if a kid jumped up and sat on your head, there's a chance he might fall off the arm of the couch. Tell grandma to go to bed and wake up nicer. Let it go.

It's OCD because you are having intrusive thoughts and a strong urge to perform compulsions. That's why it's OCD.

Every time you post you say it feels like you want to be with kids. You always post that you think you might enjoy being with them. Every time it's different. This has gone on dozens of times. That's what makes it all the same. It's always the same thoughts and feelings going on. There is nothing different here. Same old, same old. You really need to start telling yourself each time that its just more of the same OCD B.S. Because that's what it is. It's the same thing, over and over. Tell yourself it's the same thing and maybe you'll realize that you treat each new instance just like the last one. Ignore the thoughts. Ignore the feelings. Work your best to resist compulsions and carry on with your day.

No, no. It's good to talk about daisy. Rather than off-putting, it's an opportunity for people to see that there's a way forward. Could you explain what you did for ERP and maybe a basic synopsis of what obsessions you were working on at the time? Up to you.

That's sort of the way I look at it. It's one thing to outright say ERP doesn't work but it's another to delve into it and figure out why it didn't work. I think there can be quite a few reasons why someone found ERP lacking. I also think it's important to figure out what was going on and try to rectify it. Roy said: What the above tells me is that Roy was unable/unwilling to stop the compulsions and that's why ERP failed. At least in this instance we have a reason as to why and something to work on in the future.

I know I'm going to be the stick in the mud on this one. I'd like to hear from Tricia and Daisy as to why they think the behavioral side of CBT didn't work for them. I cannot fathom ERP having 'no effect' on someone with severe OCD. At the very least there should be a good sized rise in anxiety because of the exposure.

I've seen this a fair bit where someone says ERP doesn't work for them. To me, either the expectations are out of whack or it isn't being done properly.

Once again, you had an intrusive thought that caused you distress. I suspect you're performing compulsions by ruminating -- going over it in your head. This is a new instance of the same old thing.

You certainly should not fear the worst. You can't know what the future holds but generally speaking, OCD gets worse over time unless treated. You've made moves now to start getting help, so that's a good thing. Take your meds. Consistently. Don't go missing pill time here and there and taking your meds sporadically. That's going to cause problems that you don't need. Know that meds can sometimes make things worse for the first while, so be aware of that and ready for it. Hopefully you get into see a therapist soon and you can start working on overcoming your disorder.

Why isn't ERP working for you? You should be getting some kind of result from it.

I'm not sure how to take that statement. I'm not sure how proper exposure therapy could result in no effect. Exposures properly done will cause an effect (a negative one at the outset). If no effect is realized, either the therapy is being done wrong or there is no problem anymore.

You know deep down that is just magical thinking. It's made up hocus pocus. Look, you ask what to do and I tell you. There are no other ways. You have to face your disorder head on and start doing things your OCD is telling you not to. You have to stand up to it and say enough!

1. White elephant syndrome presupposes you purposefully try to not think about a specific thing. Not ruminating is not equivalent to not thinking about a specific thing. It's trying to calm your brain and stop thinking altogether (except perhaps on some task that you deem to be important to concentrate on instead of ruminating). 2. Yes. I am not a big fan of 'distraction' as it it written in some books. It ends up being described as switching over from one compulsion to focusing on some specific task (being the same task every time). I believe in that sense it is a case of swapping one compulsion for another. I advocate that people focus on whatever they happen to be doing at the time, whether reading a book, watching TV, washing the dishes.

Ruminating is going over something in your head, again and again, without coming up with a solution or answer. A lot of people call it over thinking.

As you should.

Why don't you start another post and let's see what we can do? Sometimes there's so many posts on here that some get lost in the shuffle.

What do you mean? Caramoole's thread wasn't targeted at any one person. It was a more general observation of posting habits on the forum.

And yet, those changes you've been focusing on seem to be working at the moment. You are coming across calmer and more positive now than in the past. And it's okay that the thoughts are going to sneak up on you and slam you when you least expect it. Actually, you should be expecting it. They'll throw you for a loop and it will seem terrible and tough to deal with again, but know that you overcame them before and you can overcome them again. At that point, when the thoughts become too much, give yourself a break, go ahead and feel the anxiety, and slowly refocus onto the important things and keep going again. You have actually done this. Several times now. You've gone from the depths of despair back up to a more normal way of living. You can do it again. And again.

I don't think there are any tricks to stopping ruminating. You're talking about refocusing onto something else. I think that's a valid way to go about it but the tough thing to get into is accepting the urge the ruminate and just letting it be while going on and doing something else. it's very difficult to purposefully refocus onto something else when you've got this overpowering urge to ruminate countless times every day. I look at it more that you should refocus onto whatever you happen to be doing at the time, not some set thing you're supposed to be doing. Keeping busy in general I think helps.

Oh yeah. Now that I know what I know I can look back and realize that ruminating was at least half my battle. I didn't know anything about OCD and thought those ruminating thoughts were just like the intrusive thoughts. Now I separate them and realize I was causing much of my own distress. There were times when I would suddenly realize I had been thinking the same thought and about the same thought for days. I didn't know know what it was but it would shock me how much effort I had put into something that turned out to be completely useless.