OCD - exposure therapy, CBT and experiences

Thank you for making this post.

O CD rules my every waking thought. Have tried CBC and exposure, but could never manage the exposure, anxiety just to h igh.

I hope you can join your son for that sandwich one day.
All of us here are a work in progress.
I hope the exposure therapy really helps you.

I recalled just now that one of the other exposure exercises years ago was to:

[Actively think about everything that scares me about the subject of World War 2 - while cooking a meal at the same time for about 30 minutes]

I didn't think I could do this beforehand... I believed for 100% I would not be able to function at all during those 30 minutes. Of course the anxiety increased dramatically, but I also felt free in my mind: I could think about everything that scares me without there being the consequence of "not being able to function" or "being forced by my mind to look up information on the subject of World War 2".

A strange connection I had made for many years was: "This subject is too sickening to me, it feels like it's important, but it scares me so much" I felt like I was going through a psychotic episode (see the first post in this thread). I was looking up information on the internet in hope to find relief for acknowledging my fears for my own thinking - This was my compulsive action.

[Seeing something that reminded me of anything remotely related to World War 2 triggered so many things in me... The more I read about it online, the worse it got.]

The psychologist may have noticed that I was actually trying to seriously avoid thinking about the subject entirely. And they were just thoughts in the end and nothing more. This exposure exercise had the best effect and result versus the negative expectations I had.

I made the connection during and after the exposure exercise that I could think about things that scare me to my core and still manage to function: Cook a meal for the entire duration, eat it and not getting distracted at all and not feeling the desire to perform the compulsive actions afterwards.

And this is the long version of why I can now go watch Oppenheimer later this month, a 3 hour movie. =)

A less obvious thing I learned this year that I'd like to share:

After sleeping or napping and waking up inbetween, you might notice that you feel less capable and sometimes even defenseless versus negative thoughts/expectations (stemming from OCD and more). Insomnia, lack of sleep basically always increases mental health symptoms for me...
The thoughts and feelings are more free to develop when our "guard" is down.

It can feel quite bad. - Trying to start a new day, finding new energy just to be instantly greeted by some horrendous thoughts and feelings of anxiety.

I'm not at 100% yet where I can cope with this fully and feel comfortable. It does help to know that my coping and defense versus these psychological processes are simply "out of my control". I suppose it happens to the best of us .

It doesn't need to become a bigger thing - that it's going to be an indication that "this is going to be the rest of the day" - dealing with thoughts all day long that I don't want to develop accompanied with anxiety.

In the first post of this this thread I actually didn't include the "model" for OCD, so here it is:

View attachment 61943

More about this model a bit later - it helped me identify things I can or can not control in my mind. There's different versions of this model to be found.

Back to OCD hell this week... I feel powerless at times & trouble with sleep now too.

I'll try to figure it out once more. For now distraction should work, later exposure exercises again.

Things have been better since September last year thankfully - the symptoms of OCD
have been much more managable.

Socializing with friendly folk offline & online has helped me tremendously. It's like I'm a different person when I'm with them - just fully distracted (positively, mentally) and focused on things happening externally.

If possible I'd like to avoid overstimulation (autism) as much as possible - In the days after such an event OCD tends to gain some ground again.

The effects, thoughts of OCD can really mess things up on the emotional level and it has a major influence on "the belief system" in the mind. Fighting symptoms in the mind directly reminds me of my time of the experienced psychotic disorder. It feels so bad at times.

I've been working towards a foundation / baseline that I can work with to recover. I'll try to write about this a bit later here or in my diary (in the Member's Diary subforum).