Question About OCD Treatment

[MsH224]

I have been battling OCD for a long time now and recently it has been worse. I’m in exposure and response therapy, but struggling with it. In the past couple months I have tried to do big exposures and “live in the fear” as they say, but each time some of my fears come true. It has been four big pushes I’ve made at this point with the fears happening so it’s making it very hard to keep trying, but I’m so tired and want my life back. It also seems when I do my OCDs things do actually go well other then me getting frustrated with them. Had anyone had this happen during treatment as well and if so how’d you push past it?

[BlackOnyx]

Do you started with milder fears and gradually get up to the big ones or did you go to your biggest fears right away?

[MsH224 in reply to BlackOnyx]

Closer to my bigger fears because those were the ones that started actually happening.

[MsH224]

Yeah, I guess it gets confusing. I feel like my main fear that is making my OCD happen more is a big fear if that makes sense. Have you gone through treatment?

[kellikaye in reply to MsH224]

When doing erp my anxiety got worse and it almost felt like my ocd was getting worse too. I think a big part also was me realizing just how many things I was doing that were ocd. So my ocd wasn’t actually getting worse, I was just now confronting all the things and by doing so my anxiety was high so I felt worse off than if I were to just ignore it all or pretend it wasn’t there. It got worse for me before it got better. I’d hang in there and keep trying. Your ocd is already there and you can’t make yourself have more ocd by doing erp. Eventually the anxiety will lessen. Hope this helps. Don’t give up!