Weird Obsession - Worried ERP Won't Work

[Ryukil]

Hi all, I've actually got two obsessions going on right now. The first one is that maybe I don't like the name of my account on this writing website, and so I feel an obsessive urge to delete it. I feel the name is too "formal" compared to other writers' names. I don't want to delete it though as I figure if I just stick it out, the obsession will go away.

But that brings me to my second obsession...I'm afraid that sticking it out with that account won't work and that the only way I'll ever get over this intense anxiety I'm feeling right now is to delete it. Some Youtube video I watched put doubt upon the concept of ERP for me, this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL4oOX2Vw94&t=2s

In that vid she says to give into your compulsions...and claims she's seen it work for people getting over their obsessions, and some people in the comments also claim it worked for them. There's more to it than that...there was this old doctor named Claire Weekes who was spot on about pretty much everything related to anxiety, and she also said to give into compulsions! Here's what she wrote, which is pretty much what Jodi Aman there is saying:

"A person with a compulsion to wash his hands could do so for hours without much fatigue if he did so willingly. It is the despair, the tension, the fear that accompany the obsesion that tire to a point where reasoning becomes difficult and thought becomes compulsive. If obeyed without fear, even such a tormenting obsession as this would gradually subside and eventually disappear, be cured."

I feel like that sort of makes sense...and in the description to her video Jodi Aman writes: "You may think that to get rid of OCD you have to stop yourself from doing the patterns. Discipline. But OCD just preys on discipline, often turning it around against you."

This sort of makes sense to me...but I don't want to delete that writing account!

I figure the way to get over the writing account obsession is to just push on with the account and not delete it, and also to stop reading about ERP (I mean, I keep going to ERP books to reassure myself that it will work) and just let it all go and see if my anxiety decreases over a couple of days...

[MyNameIsTerry]

Where is her proof? ERP is NICE recommended in the UK because they have reviewed clinical evidence proving it works.

For her to disprove medical evidence that is accepted around the world, she needs to provide clinical evidence that is to the correct standard and allow peer review. Where has she?

The Internet is awash with people selling their "cures" and some Say CBT can't work and some even dispute the existence of the science. Who would I believe? Someone who recovered (or did they ) or the clinical evidence?

Weekes work "may" work. There are different strategies and commitment to one may sort it, but where is the evidence? Recovery isn't clinical evidence.

ERP isn't 100%, no route is and if someone is telling you their method works 100% if you follow it, they are lying.

Remember we had this conversation before about Weekes? OCD wasn't well known back then. Some areas of OCD would be impossible to go this route, some would be unethical for a doctor to suggest.

Some people can wash their hands red raw in bleach. No doctor is going to recommend harming themselves. People with OCD tend to dislike their compulsions anyway so old "lock the kid in the cupboard and force him to some that box of cigars" isn't going to work.