Danielle Thornton explains why people quit ERP: doubt from OCD's uncertainty, fear of exposure tasks, and perfectionism about progress. She shows how these barriers keep you stuck and how to move past them.
Welcome back. Do you doubt starting ERP or quit using the ERP that you've learned? I'm going to teach you three reasons why you do this and why it's holding you back. And stay tuned to the end, because I'm going to teach you what can get you to that lifetime recovery stage.
My name is Danielle Thornton. I'm an anxiety and OCD recovery coach, and I help people live happy, healthy lives free of ocd, just like I do now. One reason why you doubt starting ERP is because OCD is called the doubting disease. It's giving you a lot of doubts and negative thoughts towards that particular subject. The things that OCD gives us doubt about are things that are either uncertain or not easy. OCD wants certainty and perfection. So whenever anything is a little hard or uncertain, your brain might start doubting. What if it doesn't work for me? What if it makes me worse? What if I learn that my intrusive thoughts are true? What if they just want to take my money? These are all common intrusive thoughts and doubts that are keeping you from from either starting or continuing erp, which is actually keeping you stuck. Number two, fear. OCD is fear based. It's an anxiety disorder. So it's all about fear or discomfort. Now when I'm asking people about their discomfort, 0 to 10, when they tell me 8, 9 or 10, that's gonna feel like anxiety. But the 1, 2, 3, maybe 4, that's just gonna feel like a discomfort where your brain is telling you not to do that thing. And your brain is going to give.
You really reasons why, but it's still fear and discomfort based. And what we need to do is stop listening to fear. This is how we retrain the brain's anxiety response. And number three, perfection. OCD wants perfection. And so if things aren't going perfectly, if we're not understanding it right away, if OCD isn't going away completely, when the journey has its ups and downs, which it will.
