Jump to content

Big exposure coming up


Recommended Posts

So, a few months ago I was doing well with exposures and making progress contamination-wise. I arranged a huge exposure, which is coming up soon. However, in between arranging this exposure and now, I had a huge setback from an enormous trigger, am nowhere near where I was when I arranged this exposure that is coming up, and am now absolutely terrified. And I can’t cancel this exposure due to many other reasons. I am so scared. Any advice would be greatly appreciated…

Link to comment
26 minutes ago, sunflowersea said:

So, a few months ago I was doing well with exposures and making progress contamination-wise. I arranged a huge exposure, which is coming up soon. However, in between arranging this exposure and now, I had a huge setback from an enormous trigger, am nowhere near where I was when I arranged this exposure that is coming up, and am now absolutely terrified. And I can’t cancel this exposure due to many other reasons. I am so scared. Any advice would be greatly appreciated…

Just because you had a setback doesn't mean that you have forgotten all the knowledge you have gained. You know the ERP works by this point and so even though it's a big exposure, it doesn't mean you won't be able to handle it. To me I see each trigger / exposure in isolation and what this means for me is if I struggle with one in a day, it doesn't mean that if I get another trigger that because I struggled earlier in the day with a different exposure, now I will struggle with the one I have to deal with in the current moment.

 

One thing that might be helpful is in the time between now and the exposure, try doing different ERP progressively upwards to prepare yourself for the big exposure. That way it may not feel like it is as bad? I'm not sure that's great advice tbh but that's just what I've thought about as I was reading your post.

Link to comment
1 hour ago, sunflowersea said:

So, a few months ago I was doing well with exposures and making progress contamination-wise. I arranged a huge exposure, which is coming up soon. However, in between arranging this exposure and now, I had a huge setback from an enormous trigger, am nowhere near where I was when I arranged this exposure that is coming up, and am now absolutely terrified. And I can’t cancel this exposure due to many other reasons. I am so scared. Any advice would be greatly appreciated…

I’ve had similar happen where I feel like I flooded myself and it knocked my confidence a bit. I also felt like I got a bit complacent and stopped doing the positive things that helped and the focus became more negative. Instead of rewarding myself, setting positive goals and mindful practice, I let the negative thinking creep in and stopped self compassion.

I actually got a big trigger yesterday that I’ve been dreading for a while and whilst it send me into a bit of a panic, I’ve been practicing what I’ve learned before. I’ll put what’s helping me below:

First, try and practice compassion. Acknowledge that this is really difficult for you and be proud of yourself for exposing yourself and for planning something that you know will be difficult. Give yourself some credit.

Know that you haven’t lose any of the skills that you had, you just might need to remind yourself of them. Remind yourself that compulsions never help or change anything - only to make you distressed, more exhausted and less confident. 

You can handle difficult and uncomfortable things. OCD often wants us to find certainty, to eradicate anything potentially bad or uncomfortable but we don’t need to. If anything bad actually happens, we can handle it as and if it happens. We don’t need to prepare ourselves mentally or with rituals. You can handle it!

Break it down. So I have a big exposure in about two weeks and my OCD position would be to ruminate, check, prepare for any potential catastrophic outcome and burn me out completely. I’m choosing to break it down into smaller steps instead:

- I’m anxious but that’s okay. Anxiety is fine and I don’t need to get rid of it.

- I’ve let people close me to know that I’m likely going to want to do compulsions over the next few weeks and that whilst I may need their support, that too much reassurance may hinder me.

- I’ve accepted that I may do compulsions and that’s fine but I can try my best and use this as an opportunity to practice refraining from them as much as possible. I can teach my brain that I am capable of handling difficult things without them.

- I am going to plan in positive activities over the next few weeks. My default used to be to neglect myself almost as a punishment. I’m going to do the opposite and give myself extra care, reminding myself that I’m a human being and I deserves compassion.

Link to comment
3 hours ago, determination987 said:

You can handle difficult and uncomfortable things. OCD often wants us to find certainty, to eradicate anything potentially bad or uncomfortable but we don’t need to. If anything bad actually happens, we can handle it as and if it happens.

Thank you @determination987this was very insightful. I think I’m so scared of being away from my Mum who is my rock and my biggest support with my OCD. Then on top of that many contamination exposures, I’m already panicking about it. I wish I could put it out of my head for the time being but it’s like the classic example of ‘don’t think of a pink elephant’ and then that’s all you can think of. I wish I didn’t feel so incredibly anxious about this because it’s meant to be something positive, that people without OCD (obviously) would enjoy. And if I don’t do it I will be letting others down 🥲

Edited by sunflowersea
Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...