Really confused about the "E" part of ERP

[canigetawitness]

I get the RP part, not doing compulsions in response to the intrusive thought. Is the E part just about letting yourself have the intrusive thought?

For example if one of my intrusive thoughts is "What if I forgot to lock the front door & can't remember if I did?" And my compulsion is to check, is the E part just letting your have that thought, embracing the uncertainty & not doing the compulsion?

Another intrusive thought of mine is when I'm showering and I get the random, intrusive thought that I might have purposefully lathered myself in soap AFTER the shower against my decision to. I'm not sure if I have or not. So I'm not sure how ERP would fit in here.

Also, I get random intrusive thoughts that I've smeared my TV with soap.

I'm having a really hard time figuring out how to apply ERP. I've heard that the content doesn't matter and that the therapy is the same no matter the flavor of the OCD, yet at the same time, I've heard a lot of conflicting information from therapists & OCD sufferers alike about how ERP needs to be done & that in itself makes me anxious.

[MothFir]

I think the 'E' part is just exposing yourself to whatever triggers you, with the goal of creating anxiety. In these examples it would be leaving the house and getting out of the shower. 'RP' (as you said) is not doing rituals to relieve the anxiety, which includes obvious things like checking the door or rinsing again but also mental compulsions like replaying the exposures in your mind to make yourself more certain that you locked the door or didn't reapply soap.

I really believe in the idea that content doesn't matter and that it should be separated in your mind from the anxiety as best you can. You have to work with the content to a degree, because that is what creates anxiety for you, but once you have created the anxiety it helps immensely to realize that it has little relation to the content.

In the door example, you could get ready to leave the house by first recognizing that people without OCD can check their door one time and that's enough to be reasonably safe. So when you leave, you mindfully check the lock once, and walk away. In that moment your OCD will hit you with all sorts of doubt, telling you that you didn't wiggle the lock enough, or maybe you unlocked it again and forgot, or blah blah blah. That is all garbage and you should expect it. Yes, there is a small chance that you screwed up and the door is unlocked, just like there is with anyone when they leave home. But it is an acceptably small chance -- it's the OCD that makes it seem important. So instead of arguing with your OCD about whether the door is locked, you say to yourself "Ah, there's that anxiety again. There's no reasonable concern about the door, the only question is can I tolerate this exaggerated feeling of anxiety about it?"

Keep trying different ways of thinking about your anxiety and handling your exposures. It took awhile for me to find a viewpoint that worked for me, and many things that work for some people don't work for others. I think it's the basic concept of ERP that's important, which is showing your brain that its false alarms about locks, soap, or whatever are unnecessary and you are not going to pay attention to them. Eventually it will get the message and stop sending them.

Once you find something that is helping, don't stress too much about whether you're doing it 'right.'

[canigetawitness in reply to MothFir]

Thank you. This helps a lot. I kind of like the simple approach of the therapy being "Experiencing the obsession & not performing the compulsion." It's easy to look at that way. A lot of the time I do get caught up in what's correct ERP. Sometimes my mind will even play tricks on me like "Since you you don't like that, it makes you generally uncomfortable, you need to do it for exposure." It's like my mind will scan for anything uncomfortable and says that's bad, when it's not an obsessive fear. Like for example I like rinsing and getting out of the shower/watching TV as it is. But then my mind says since I'd rather not leave the shower purposefully lathered in soap/not have it smeared on the TV screen that it's OCD, when in reality I think it's just something I wouldn't like because I wouldn't like it.

I hope that makes sense. I guess OCD infiltrating therapy in itself in a way.

[MothFir in reply to canigetawitness]

I think I know what you mean. I’ve had scrupulosity issues in the past which have made me think that random things were “wrong.” Sometimes I would start to order off a menu and get the thought that what I wanted was “wrong” to eat. Then while I was working through that obsession and trying to go against my OCD, I would realize I actually wanted to order something else anyway. But that made me feel like I was accommodating the OCD by not ordering the thing that was “wrong.”

In those situations I usually just throw up my hands and say “Forget the OCD and the ERP, what do I really want to eat?” It’s easy to let the OCD sabotage therapy to the point that you don’t really know what you want or what it wants, but try not to get caught up worrying about that. ERP seems to work for most of us even when we don’t do it perfectly.

[DeathtoOCD]

The E basically mean exposing yourself to what ever it triggering for you, purposly thinking a though and waiting for the aniexty goes down on it's own. Or if some situation bothers you, you put yourself purposefully in that situation. For example one might be, depending of course, like normally I check the door 5 times, then you would tell yourself to only check 4 and then 3 and so on. Or lock the with full awareness and just walk out the door, there are actually a lot of different ways to do it, there is some experimentation with it, but don't worry about "during it right" just find what works for you and go with it. And what works for one might not work for something else, OCD is tricky, and you have to realize it from you, and always be aware it can change, once you find what works for you just go with it.