Not sure about self exposure therapy

[Guest tyga]

I have read alot on here about doing exposure therapy yourself to make yourself immune to the scary thoughts. But I am too terrified of my thoughts to try it. What if I do it and I end up totally convinced my thoughts are real? My mind is very powerful in creating images and I'm afraid I would end up believing the scary thoughts I'm trying to get rid of. If they were true, I just couldn't handle it, you know.

All I can do that works is distract myself until the anxiety dies down, and eventually when the anxiety has gone I find it easy to dismiss the thoughts when they come up. But now I'm reading that this is not good to do and ignoring them doesn't make it go away, which I guess is true cos every couple of years it comes back again and I have forgotten everything I learned the last time and basically start from scratch again. It is very good at making me believe that THIS time it isn't OCD but really true.

Can anyone tell me about exposure therapy and what it is meant to do? I really want this to go away forever.

Tyga

[Guest mnicodemos]

For years I heard that Exposure and Response Prevention therapy (ERP) was the way to go to treat OCD. But the effort was a great one to do and I found it too difficult for several years. I then went to a clinic where the majority of treatment for OCD was ERP.

The basic idea is that you expose yourself little by little. Kind of like putting your feet into a pool of cold water before finally diving in. But what I found most helpful in the clinic and got me into ERP was that there was a helper, another person who assisted you in doing the exposures. If I had done ERP all my myself I feel I would never have done them or would have done them incorrectly. The people who assisted me taught me how to go about dealing with the exposures.

Namely, you want to think about all the negative consequences that your exposure will potentially bring and you want to keep your anxiety up as long as possible. The idea behind ERP is that obsessions and fears that are not threatening can be habituated. Thats the idea behind habituation. After several ERP sessions you will end up getting bored of the exposures and therapy and then you won't think or obsess about things as you formerly did.

I can't really go into a lot of detail behind ERP and the psychology behind it but what I suggest is that you find someone who is an expert on the subject and who can assist you in your therapy. You must also take a lot of time out of your day to do ERP. Just doing it for five minutes a day is not enough. I used to spend five hours a day at the clinic doing intensive ERP to overcome most of my OCD symptoms. I'm not saying that you should take away five hours of your day. When I left the clinic I ended up doing ERP for at least an hour a day to keep my symptoms in check. The goal is to try to make ERP a habit in your life. Try to make each session revolve around something that can potentially cause you anxiety in your day to day life. Then when you face a sudden situation like those in your sessions you'll have the mind set to decrease your anxiety quicker than if you didn't do ERP.

So, my suggestions to you is:

1. Find a professional and expert on OCD who can help you get started with ERP.

2. Start off easy. If you are afraid of music or certain images, try finding a place that has them. You don't have to go or expose yourself directly to them but just being at a visible length from them can get you started in doing bigger ERP sessions later.

3. Make a schedule for yourself to do ERP sessions. Try to aim at something that is achievable.

I could easily rephrase my suggestions but I'll keep it at what I've written. Namely, get assistance, aim for exposures that are achievable first, and finally make a schedule for your ERP sessions. Hope this helps.

[Guest Aimsley_87]

Hi there, i did exposure therapy when i was staying in hospital and it has turned my life around. I did little steps at a time and i made a hierarchy of things i want to expose myself to in order of their 'do ability'.

This helped me so much. Im still not one hundred percent but im getting there.

I think it is best done with the help of proffessinals if possible as they can say whether you are doing too much at once etc.

Aims. x x x

[Guest ad1705]

Hi Tyra,

I sympathise and know where you are coming from 100% here, in fact in some respects I could have written it myself!

I know thats not much help but perhaps you can see that you are not alone on this one,

Andy...