From what I understand, ERP is about letting yourself experience the obsession/intrusive thought & then not doing the compulsion. So, you're facing your fears and not doing the compulsion.
I run into problems not knowing how to apply this to what my OCD is currently latched onto.
Can you provide some details about what it’s latching onto /what the theme is?
I've spent some time typing out the cycle and hopefully this makes sense. My OCD is often centered around which exposures to do, how to do them, & for how long. It's complicated, but I've tried to explain the best I can below.
...
I went to get a cloth to clean visible fingerprints off my TV.
Before wetting cloth, my mind said "You're going to pump soap on that cloth and rub it into your TV screen."
I said to myself, that's a weird thought, I'm just going to use water.
Then, after wiping fingerprints off TV my mind says "Did I actually pump soap onto that cloth like the thought prompted and then rub it on the screen? I can't remember."
The following is now the intrusive cycle:
"Now, what do I do? Do I need to rub soap on my TV or leave it alone? If there's soap on my TV, shouldn't I get a cloth to remove it? If there's soap smeared on my TV, it's affecting my viewing. If I wipe potential soap off, that's a compulsion & now I need to fix that compulsion by putting soap on my TV. If I'm not putting soap on my TV, I'm not following correct ERP. Aaron wouldn't want soap smeared on the TV, so now you have to do that. If you don't, you're doing therapy wrong. I need to make myself anxious beyond experiencing the obsession & not performing the compulsion. To take that simple approach would be weak."
^
These thoughts are intertwined like Twizzlers, tieing the knots so tight, cycling in random order, confusing & hard to make sense of what's going on & what I need to be doing to get better.
Well that is certainly some twizzlers!
OCD is sneaky and tricky. I’ll share how I would try to approach this anyway. 🙂
In therapy, I learned to use maybe / maybe not statements. So when I have an obsession, I respond maybe, maybe not. Have you used that in the past?
So first, it sounds like your ocd is saying “did I put soap on the TV?” Maybe you did. Maybe you didn’t. Then sit with the anxiety of that. It will likely speak up about what you said (Aaron wouldn’t want soap on the tv etc), so I would just try to sit with the uncertainty ... repeating the maybe statements each time the ocd speaks up.
The other piece is if you’re doing ERP right. I have had some of this before. I wasn’t always sure what was OCD and what wasn’t but never wanted to let OCD win. But that in itself became an obsession. So perhaps trying the same method. Maybe I’m doing ERP right, maybe I’m not. I also get the idea of feeling weak. But that is 100% OCD talking. What does the OCD want you to do? Can you tell? It sounds like it’s trying to get you to second guess yourself - making you think you can’t do this or will mess it up. If you can do the opposite of what it wants, that can be helpful.
Perhaps just sitting with the obsession “if you don’t, you’re doing therapy wrong.” - maybe you are. Maybe you aren’t. And let that be.
There’s a lot going on here, so perhaps start with just one obsession and try the maybe / maybe not statements. It may also help to write it out - like you said, that can help make sense of everything swirling in your head. I hope this helps! OCD is so tricky!
That was helpful, thank you. I have heard of the maybe, maybe not approach & perhaps it would be helpful to start implementing. At the crux of it all, I think my OCD is telling me that just allowing my obsession to be there, without doing a compulsion isn't right. Like somehow that's not enough therapy, even though that is therapy...so it's throwing out extra exposure work to do, like rubbing soap into my TV, or stay lathered in soap after getting out of the shower (another theme similarly presented in this way).
It gets confusing because I wonder if it's OCD or therapy instructing me. I think I just need to let the intrusive thoughts be as they are, but what if I need to turn them into something else and expose myself to them. Almost like expose yourself to the content of the obsession, rather than exposing to the obsession, which I don't think ERP is, but my mind is saying yep, now that you had that thought "What if you unknowingly rubbed soap into your TV", you need to expose yourself to what was inside of that thought. Just letting it be isn't enough therapy. So it's creating content like "Do the opposite of how you'd want things. Rub soap into your TV, leave it on your body." in order to get better.
OCD is really tricky like you said.
I have found maybe statements to be the most effective tool I’ve learned. Some people use definitely statements but I havent used those as much - maybe others could advise on how that could be used here too.
I think you’re right - the OCD is demanding perfection even in how you try to beat it! Mine does the same thing. It’s nuts. You want to do The treatment correctly - it’s important to you, so OCD attacks it. It sounds like you’ve identified the obsession, so now you could try those maybe statements and see how that goes.
I’ve had the same issue with feeling like I had to do something. I dropped some food on the floor and the OCD said “don’t eat that.” So then I was like, great, now I HAVE to eat it. I’m not sure what the answer is but it feels like not doing it is letting OCD win, but doing it also feels like I’m still letting OCD control me. If I feel forced to do something because it doesn’t want me to, it’s still in charge. So it’s almost like it was what was telling me not to eat it but it’s also what’s telling me to eat it because of demanding perfection in my treatment. So perhaps it’s just making a choice and again, saying to yourself that maybe you needed to do it, maybe you didn’t. I’d be curious about how others have managed these thoughts. It does seem important to just decide and go with it because otherwise it starts a cycle of obsessing about the obsession/compulsion.
I've heard it said that in a case of dropping food on the floor, for example, ask yourself this question " What would someone I know and trust that does NOT have OCD do in this situation?" To me it does make sense and is reasonable.
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