Hi all,
First time poster here. I was diagnosed with OCD a few months ago, and have been in therapy for about a month. My OCD is harm-based and primarily focuses on my children, and has been specifically around knives.
My therapy has actually being going pretty well, and we’ve quite quickly graduated up to doing some fairly scary ERP exercises, such as holding a knife for 15 minutes whilst holding to my son too etc. There have been a variety of exercises like this, of varying types and length of time, without any of my worries/thoughts etc coming true. I’ve done approximately 50 of these since starting therapy. So, progress you’d have thought. My therapist has pinpointed that my OCD seems to revolve around a fear of losing control and doing something terrible, despite having no desire to do so. She therefore wanted me to test out the principle of ‘losing control’ in general, not specifically around knives.
So, after I bathed my son last night I had him on my lap as usual as I was putting his pyjamas on. I had this sudden thought that I could put my hands around his neck, so I tried to make myself lose control and I was horrified to find out that I could make myself put my hand around his neck. I instantly felt absolutely terrible and then made myself do it again to see how I felt. It has absolutely haunted me ever since, and really made me lose confidence in the other exercises that I’ve done. If I can make myself lose control in that way, then why not with a knife too?!