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Hello all. So I started therapy with a guy in NYC. He is less harsh than my previous therapist, and is alright with saying "maybe" to the thoughts being true and all this, instead of always agreeing with them, though he says eventually I should agree with them. Anyway, I'll worry about that when/if it comes up.

My whole thing, as it's been for a couple years, is mental contamination. Basically, I'll get a bad thought, like about incest, feel like I was turned on by it, then have to rethink the thought and undo that feeling if arousal. If I don't do this, "contamination" from being turned on by the thought spreads to what I'm doing, for instance, making a forum post or writing in a notebook, so that I will have to delete that forum post or throw out the notebook. 

He told me to just start doing everything I wanted to do, basically. Just start contaminating everything. Which is exactly what I have done. Strangely, though, I don't feel that much anxiety. I just feel tired. It's strange. I can't tell if the medication I'm on is helping, OR if, somehow, being in therapy makes the exposures not as "real" as they would be if I were on my own.

Do you know what I mean? I'm worried that being in therapy is basically creating a safe blanket for me where I'm not as "responsible" for the things being contaminated. I will bring this up with him, but if the exposures aren't creating much anxiety then I'm not going to move forward and I shouldn't be giving out $250 per session.

This isn't a typical therapy obsession for me, it kind of makes sense. I know I've read about this sort of thing before.

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Hey Ryukil,

I'm glad that you kept your appointment and that your therapist seems nice. I think that you should continue seeing him. I think that a huge barrier for you in your recovery is this need to have the perfect plan and do the exposures in the right way, that you seem to miss the part where you actually do them. Having therapy will give you some structure so that you actually follow through on these plans. Also don't forget that therapy isn't just about doing exposures, it's also about tackling the cognitive side too and having someone to talk through your problems with is also helpful.

I also think that a part of your OCD is concern about therapy and now your OCD is telling you that therapy isn't helping, so you should stop. Don't listen to this. 

Also remember that the purpose of these exposures is so that you can eventually deal with issues as they come up in everyday life and these are often random in varying contexts. So you don't really need the ideal plan or the ideal conditions to do ERP, you just have to do it.

Definitely talk to him about this, feedback is really important!

Good luck!! ?

Edited by malina
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Why don't I feel anxious though? I'm contaminating everything, but I just feel really "bleh" and disinterested instead of anxious as I normally would when doing exposures. It's weird.

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8 hours ago, Ryukil said:

Why don't I feel anxious though? I'm contaminating everything, but I just feel really "bleh" and disinterested instead of anxious as I normally would when doing exposures. It's weird.

Emotions work in weird ways sometimes. I personally experience a lot of depersonalization, which is basically an anxiety response but you don't feel anxious, you just feel unreal and detached. Maybe you're going through something similar, instead of all the anxious feelings, your mind is overwhelmed and is just making you have bleh feelings instead. The way forward is to just keep on going, do the ERP and keep seeing your therapist. Don't worry about wanting to feel anxious, don't spend time analysing how you feel or why you feel/don't feel something, just keep moving forward and it will all fall into place. 

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Medication mutes anxiety so a person won’t feel it. However, once medication is not taken the anxiety returns. 
 

Personally I believe that one needs to feel anxiety in order to resolve it.

 

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  • 1 month later...

Still not really feeling much anxiety, it's odd. I'm still in therapy though. I was thinking of going to the end of the year. I have been doing stuff I haven't been doing in a while, but somehow I don't actually feel like I'm making progress. I feel like as soon as I'm done with therapy all the contamination will suddenly become "real" and I'll be inundated with crippling anxiety. I guess all I can do is make sure I don't backslide.

Edited by Ryukil
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Yeah...he's kind of dismissed, he says we're still coming into contact with the feared things and contaminating, so it shouldn't matter. I can tell you, though, that if I weren't in therapy this would be causing me much more anxiety, while with therapy it's like a muted form of anxiety and more like tiredness than the anxiety I'm used to feeling when doing exposures.

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40 minutes ago, Ryukil said:

I can tell you, though, that if I weren't in therapy this would be causing me much more anxiety, while with therapy it's like a muted form of anxiety and more like tiredness than the anxiety I'm used to feeling when doing exposures.

Confronting something in therapy vs. confronting it in real life can feel safer/easier because you are prepared for it and its done in a controlled way for a limited amount of time.  Its good that you aren't experiencing great anxiety when you do the ERP sessions with your therapist, that's the goal (though at some point the process should ramp up to a more intense type of exposure until its all easy).  One option is to start engaging in exposures outside therapy, you've admitted yourself that those give you more anxiety, so it would be a more effective way to confront that anxiety.  After all, the overall goal of recovery is to be able to handle these situations in real life, not your doctors office.

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On 04/10/2019 at 12:29, Handy said:

Medication mutes anxiety so a person won’t feel it. However, once medication is not taken the anxiety returns. 

SOME medication CAN mute anxiety, but that is not universally true.  I have taken medication for over 25 years now, and trust me, I can still experience full anxiety if the situation warrants it. In some people the medication serves to allow the brain to function more correctly such that intrusive thoughts don't get stuck, this is different from merely muting the anxiety, and has been the effect I have experienced.

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