ERP with sexual pure OCD involving family

[someonepleasehelpme]

I have been seeing my OCD therapist for almost 6 weeks now. She is great, and she has helped me to understand my illness (intrusive thoughts) and why my brain works the way it does. I have been reading "Imp of the mind" along with other OCD books on how to finally get over my intrusive thoughts. The worst thoughts are of sexual content, usually involving family members. Now, the book and my therapist tells me that in order to successfully treat myself, I need to undergo CBT therapy, involving exposure to the thoughts. I am to "let the thoughts pass through my head and not resist", I am to "purposely think the thoughts and put myself in the situation that triggers my thoughts". My only thing is that I find it makes me more anxious/stressed when I attempt to do this. It's hard because thinking about sexual thoughts involving my mother or my sister is so sickening sickening to me. I feel as if I am "fantasizing" instead of facing fear.

The thoughts are worst when I am around my family, so basically what the doctor is asking me to do is think of sexual thoughts while I am around my mother and sister, which I find has not worked and makes me sick. Also, when I am with my girlfriend having sex, I find myself blocking out the thoughts of my family. My therapist said to let thoughts happen but who can have pleasure with girlfriend during sex while thinking such thoughts? How do I expose myself when the thoughts are so sickening? Would you want to think sexual thoughts around your family or during sex, even if you knew that you were doing it for a treatment? Another method is to either write down or record on a cassette tape the thoughts, and then listen to the tape for an hour each day until the anxiety subsides. How do I do this when the thoughts that I am fighting involve sexual thoughts involving my family? I can't willingly think these thoughts around my family because then I feel so sick. Someone please help me, my personal doctor assured me the anxiety will go away if I stay persistent. But I have tried this for weeks and I still feel sick when I intentionally think these thoughts around my family. What method can I try? I cant try the method during sex ill feel as if I am getting pleasure from the thoughts, which I obviously don't but still I just need some advice.Please someone help me!

[Oosh]

Hiya

I think "letting the thoughts happen" is the thing here.
I don't think that means "explore and give attention to the thoughts".
I think the most effective way to interpret it is "you had the thought, big deal, it doesn't mean anything, let it go, back to what I was doing".

Everybody has these thoughts. I do. And they shock me. But you can either explore the meaning of you having the thoughts and ask what it says about who you are etc or you can accept that it means precisely zero and says NOTHING about who you are, treat it like a flash in your mind, instantly discard it by attaching no meaning and move on.

It's only attaching meaning that asks it to stick around.
And exploring the thought, vision, has absolutely no use at all.
It's as useless as having sex with your gf and picturing a bus as being a giant jam sandwich and thinking " ooh, I wonder what it would look like if I took a bite, how would it taste, how would I feel". Utterly useless waste of mental time and energy. Useless, unproductive thoughts like these belong in your mental bin.
Visually scrunch, visually lob into mental bin and put your minds focus back onto what you were doing. They weaken, wither and die. I know because I've done it.
Without meaning or importance they lose any power.

Your a good person. You don't need to worry about what these ridiculously meaningless thoughts say about you. YOU ARE A GOOD PERSON.

[RATFINK]

I,ve had this worry also strangely exactly the same. You don't want the thoughts to enter your head. So what happens?? They come back more and more. Easy for me to say but just let the thoughts images urges etc come in and don't avoid no matter how uncomfortable it is. Hope this helps.

[yenool]

Hiya
I think the most effective way to interpret it is "you had the thought, big deal, it doesn't mean anything, let it go, back to what I was doing".

....

It's only attaching meaning that asks it to stick around.
And exploring the thought, vision, has absolutely no use at all.



This is so true, of course with OCD it is ridiculously difficult to actually let go of the thoughts as the mind is powerfully trying to suck you back into the "what if" , "what does that mean", cycle of thinking.

If you try to analyse and understand the meaning of the thoughts (whatever they may be) then you will end up going around in circles, coming to a final conclusion and then when the next thing triggers off the anxiety you will go back to square one re-analysing again.

OCD is a bitch and the most frustrating thing is unless you have the stereotypical visible compulsions (hand washing, checking, etc) people just don't get it.

[Namaste73]

I would welcome any advice as having a very bad pure o flare up. I used to worry myself sick I would harm children, I love kids and would never harm a child, and more generally have had probs with fear of fear and extreme fear of being a paranoid schizophrenic.I saw a counsellor and psychitrist about this following major surgery and illness (unrelated to the ocd but a bad period in my life) and was assured I was anxious and not mentally ill. However, recently I am having an awful flare up, concerning the people I most love. It happened after a very stressful period and exhaustion at work. Various repellent thoughts that I would see or hear things around people I love (never have) or that I may start to think closest family and pals were harming me (they are not, of course), or that I might harm them (I honestly cant think of anything more repellent). Culminating in the worst and most repellent fear ever about my dad , who is my rock and who has been the best father imaginable. It started with me thinking what if I thought Dad had abused me when I was a kid. Then I remembered my friend telling me her sister had a breakdown (post natally) and thought her mum had sexually abused her, when the mother hadnt. The family went through years of hell etc. My boyfriend is also currently working through childhood abuse issues so this 'theme' is very much current but I was broiught up in a loving a lovely family with fantastic parents so I dont know where this fear has come from.Since then absolute terror that I will think my dad has hurt me in the same way. I know he hasnt but i am absolutely terrified some memory will surface etc and now i can hardly look at my dad, who really is the nicest most gentle father you could wish for. I have so much guilt and this fear is crippling. Im trying to go back to CBT techniques but my anxiety is now so high. Its like my stupid brain has decided to create the most repellent fear possible. Im trying to accept that these are just thoughts and because I am very exhausted with adrenal burnout my anxiety is high and thats why i keep ruminating but Im sick to my stomach. please any advice. and please no triggers. Thank you.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hi,

I think if your thoughts centred on how your family or just your dad could hurt you now or in the future, you would be talking about paranoia which can often be seen alongside anxiety disorders.

If your intrusive thoughts centre around the fact thta he may have done this in the past and its not something you think could happen again, it does sound like your anxiety has latched on to this. The fact that you have been exposed to similiar stories makes me think that your subconscious has made such an association erroneously. Its a possibility because the area of the brain that does this is known to look at the emotional reaction and the stronger it is, the more it makes the connection. This can take time, unless in PTSD where it so severe in its original occurence, so if your subconscious has started to ruminate on these topics then it has made connections and now it sees it as a legitimate concern.

The subconscious looks at memories and other inputs such as emotionals, feelings, smells, sensations, etc. You can probably notice this with your other non anxious memories. Its how it associates neurons in the brain through a process called neuroplasticity. Its how we learn. So, your subconscious has learnt this behaviour, most likely form how you were thinking about your friend and BF. The fact you had OCD before which had the theme of harm, just seems to make it fit even more.

So, now you are just left feeling very bad about these thoughts and most likely experience a lot of guilt. Sadly, this all reinforces these behaviours and this is why we have to move towards things like acceptance which seem a million miles away as we just want to get rid of these horrible thoughts.

Personally, I think this is a very difficult area of anxiety to practice acceptance with. Look at the OP's post, how can we accept things like that? The key lies not so much in acceptance but in not making judgements. We need to have these thoughts and then look at them and not react in our usual manner e.g. this is sick, I must be sick, I'm a bad person, I'm capable of doing these things. If you can learn to have the thought and think "oh, its just a though, we alll have them, its just I have become trained to notice them more" you will start to experience them less and when you do they won't bother you as much which shows you are recovering.

And please remember that studies have shown that all people have intrusive thoughts that include abuse & harm, its just they float straight through and they don't notice them.

Namaste - do you perform any rituals? I ask because there could be more than one form of OCD going on here such as Mental Contamination OCD which is similiar to Contamination OCD but centres around thoughts of abuse.

I would also like to say that what the OP's doctor has told them to do, I am a bit concerned about. This seems quite extreme and very likely to increase anxiety further. Do not atttempt this form of exposure unless under the supervision of a qualified therapist, please! They seem to be actively encouraging them to engage with their thoughts as opposed to not judging them and this is how you may do something in ERP to habituate, but thats because we are trying to habituate ourselves into a normal activity to remove the anxiety from it, not inserting the content into activities such as sex with a partner where we don't experience anxiety!!!

[b0yer]

His doctor is trying to teach him mindfulness. When thoughts come, you can't react to them. If he has a sexual thought about his family member, he needs to just roll with it and let it pass through with no judgement. In time, the anxiety will fade if he continues to do this.

[ohwell123]

hi its very distressing I have been through it and come out the other side what you need to realise is these thoughts are only hanging around because you have all attached importance to them you believe the thought and you believe its you

some of you may like me have the urge to carry out the thought/compulsion this is purely adrenaline telling you to flee the situation although it seems unbelievable

so lets look at this way mr X loves his wife his 30 years old and she is hot he has always gone for hot women they have a 5 year old daughter they both love one day a thought pops into his head to molest the child and perhaps accompanied by a GO ON DO IT thought he cant shake it and everytime he sees the daughter the thought comes and plays out in his heads like a movie he may again feel like theres a woodpecker on his shoulder do it do it do it

mr x has now added two more problems he believes he is a paedo and he believes he is schizo physco whatever

however mr x doesnt realise paedos would love these thoughts and not not come home from work to avoid the child, people don't usually go from russ Meyers women to liking kids at the age of 30 and people who are schizo don't realize there schizo

usually the person/sufferer has an overactive imagination so once they've shook one thought a new one might pop up and plague them perhaps violence this time and not sexual

its horrible thing at the time but it will pass sadly youll look back and think how ridiculous but at the time yeah I know

picture something that makes you laugh youll notice it doesnt plague you but its just a thought it has the same power as your intrusive thoughts which is nothing unless you give it

tk care kris