Tag Archives: ocd therapy

No Shortcuts

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When Jeff Bell, spokesperson for the International OCD Foundation, spoke for our OCD Twin Cities event, one of the things he said that really stood out to me was that there are no shortcuts in treating OCD.

Woman and maze

That’s true, or at least it was in my case. I wanted easy answers: for deep theological conversations to solve my problems, or for comfort and reassurance from friends to be enough, for an hour-long conversation with a therapist each week to take away the anxiety, for an easy prescription to fix everything.

I definitely did not want the hard answer: exposure and response prevention therapy.

My psychiatrist didn’t mince words in his description: “It will be hell.”

It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life, but one of the most necessary and most rewarding. For me, there was no shortcut to healing, and since I was already living in OCD hell, the best way out was to keep going.

So, believe me, friends: I get it. ERP therapy is hard, so hard. You might think you won’t survive it. You might think your loved ones won’t survive your going through it. You might think it’s sinful or disgusting, and your exposures are probably going to be loathsome and repellent to you.

If you need to, go ahead and look for shortcuts. I know I had to.

But in the end, there were none for me, and I’d only wasted time looking for them.

While experiencing it, ERP was hell. But on the other side? It was my rescue.

 

Talk Therapy vs. ERP Therapy

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Therapy through Magnifying Glass on Old Paper.Sometimes I give talk therapy a rough time on this blog– but, please know that I am not against talk therapy (I see a talk therapist weekly for panic and adjustment disorder). I am merely against talk therapy for OCD.

I spent about four years meeting with talk therapists about my OCD. Once a week, I’d sit down, talk about my fears and confess my struggles– and my therapist would reassure me.  In other words, it was a one-hour compulsion fest.

Not good.

Every single OCD expert will tell you to skip talk therapy and do exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy.

Look, I get it: talk therapy is easier. In fact, in comparison to exposure therapy, it’s a walk in the park and ERP is a walk in hell.

But it’s not effective for treating OCD.

Talk therapy, which is lovely and helpful and beneficial for so many other disorders, naturally enables many OCD compulsions.

Four years in talk therapy didn’t make a dent in my OCD. Twelve weeks in ERP therapy mastered my OCD.

It’s just about know what treatments are effective. Band-aids go on scrapes, insulin is used for diabetes, chemotherapy for cancer, ERP for OCD.

I do love my talk therapist, but I don’t ever let us venture into the realm of treating OCD. Yes, we draw parallels– all the time, actually!– but I know that if my OCD flares up, I will turn to an exposure, not to a compulsion.

Have questions about ERP therapy vs. traditional talk therapy?  Let’s chat!

Self-Directed ERP Therapy

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???????????????????????????????????????If you’ve spent any time hanging around this blog, you know that I’m a huge proponent of treating OCD with Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) therapy, which is the best treatment available. It’s the first and only* treatment I recommend.

People often balk at it, which I understand: it’s difficult. Very difficult. People want an easier option. But I wouldn’t recommend a bandaid for a cancerous tumor, and I won’t suggest anything else.

But I’m too embarrassed …

But I can’t afford it …

But there are no ERP specialists in my area …

Those are all very valid reasons for seeking another treatment option, but the GOOD NEWS is that you can do ERP on your own, if you are committed to it, and if you’re willing to work hard.

It’s still important to have an expert guiding you, so please track down one of the following books:

Stop Obsessing by Edna Foa
Amazon | B&N | Fishpond
Freedom from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder by Jonathan Grayson
Amazon | B&N | Fishpond
The OCD Workbook by Bruce Hyman and Cherlene Pedrick
Amazon | B&N | Fishpond
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders: A Complete Guide to Getting Well and Staying Well by Fred Penzel
Amazon | B&N | Fishpond

With the help of one of these books, you can be starting your own ERP journey for under $50 (most under $20!).

Read the whole book from cover to cover and do all the exercises. Throw yourself wholeheartedly into pursuing wellness, freedom, and peace. You can have your life back. Believe me. I languished in the hell of OCD for 20 years before just 12 weeks of ERP therapy broke that torturous yoke. This can be your story too.

If you’re not convinced, go to jackieleasommers.com/OCD and read my posts about ERP. Then drop me a comment or an email with your questions!

* I think medication can definitely help too– but ERP is a better option than meds, and in my (non-MD) opinion, meds should come alongside ERP, not ever replace it.

The [Beautiful] Paradox of ERP

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paradox of ERP2Exposure and response prevention therapy. ERP.

The hardest thing I have ever chosen to do in my life.

And one of the best.

But that’s not actually the paradox I’m talking about. The paradox of ERP that fascinates me most centers around uncertainty.

The whole point of ERP therapy is to teach someone to learn to live with, accept, even embrace uncertainty. ERP actually re-wires the brain to help the OCD sufferer with this. Before I went through ERP, I wanted to know everything with 100% certainty. Anything less would cause intense havoc in my mind, heart, and body. Because of this intense desire to know everything with certainty, I so often felt gobsmacked by uncertainty. I lived as if, without total certainty, I could barely know anything. Doubt pummeled me like a linebacker. My life was ravaged by uncertainty.

But once I went through ERP therapy and learned to accept uncertainty, the bizarre thing is that my confidence returned. I suddenly felt surety and certainty again– after I realized I didn’t need it.

When I demanded 100% certainty, what I ended up with was often something in the 25-40% range. Or lower.

When I abandoned the need for 100% certainty, I ended up in the 90-99% range. Sometimes less, but usually way, way up there.

That’s weird math. Backward logic. A paradox.

One I love.

99% sure,
Post-ERP Jackie

P.S. If the need to know for sure is ruining your life, you need ERP. Read more about it at jackieleasommers.com/OCD.

P.P.S. I’m a follower of Jesus Christ, and I can’t help but be struck by the similarity of this to “Lose your life to gain it.”

Image credit: Nicu Buculei, modified by me

Sweet Freedom

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freedom in redAlison Dotson, president of OCD Twin Cities, and I were emailing recently about how sometimes we feel as if we say the same thing post after post, article after article, especially since they usually involve our own stories with OCD, and history doesn’t change.

But I reminded her that even if we’ve heard our stories over and over, someone else might be hearing it for the first time. Not to mention that sometimes those of us with OCD need to hear the truth multiple times before it is finally able to sink into our heads and hearts.

So here it is again:

I was in bondage to obsessive-compulsive disorder for twenty hellish years. I was plagued by ugly, intrusive thoughts that caused me intense anxiety and even terror. Many days I felt completely out of control of my own thoughts, and I hated the ugliness that polluted my mind. I was sad, lonely, depressed, lost, engaged in an ongoing war where the battlefield was my own brain.

And then an amazing psychiatrist named Dr. Suck Won Kim gave me not only a prescription but also the phone number to a cognitive-behavioral therapist in the area, along with the warning that ERP therapy “will be hell” and the encouragement that I had to do it anyway.

And I did. For twelve grueling weeks, I practiced the exposure therapy assignments set out by Dr. Christopher Donahue, and after twelve weeks of hell … I was free. Free for the first time since I was seven years old. I could barely even remember what freedom felt like, what it felt like to be master of my own thoughts, to rule over my OCD instead of having it rule me, and so it was actually a little scary at first.

But let me tell you: you get used to freedom, joy, and light pretty darn fast.

The last five years have been magnificent.

Please, please ask me questions if you have them.

For (lots!) more about OCD and ERP, go to jackieleasommers.com/OCD

Image credit: Jesus Solana

I Confess

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confessI don’t want to admit this to you.  I really don’t.

But I’ve made such efforts to be honest with my blogging community, and the wonderful, encouraging reception I’ve always gotten from you, my beloved readers, has continually encouraged me to continue with that honesty and integrity.

So today I’m going to tell you something that might make you made at me.  Here it is:

Sometimes I get really frustrated with people with OCD. 

Five years of freedom and already I am so quick to frustration.  Shame on me, right?  Then again, the last five years of my life (post-ERP) have been so absolutely incredible that they make me even more frustrated with those who avoid treatment.

The truth of the matter is this: exposure and response prevention is the best and most appropriate treatment for OCD.  Quite simply, if you’re looking for a “solution” to your OCD, then I have it for you: ERP.  I hear from a lot of people who seem to want a different answer, and yet my bottom line remains the same: ERP, ERP, ERP.

I know it’s scary.  (Trust me, I know it’s scary!)  But it’s the right answer, and I’m not going to send you on a wild goose chase when I know the right answer.  That would be like me telling you to go get chemotherapy for your gunshot wound or that you need insulin for your broken arm.  It’s obvious that those aren’t the correct treatment for the issue, and I won’t do that to you.

Research shows that ERP is the best treatment for OCD.  My life shows that a person with obsessive-compulsive disorder can redeem the years he or she lost to being enslaved by OCD.  No matter how many times you ask me, I’m going to give the same answer.

There.  Got it off my chest.  Don’t worry, folks; I’m still here for ya!  I aim to be a voice advocating for our quiet and oppressed community.  But just how I refuse to aid someone in compulsions, I will also refuse to send you down the wrong corridor for help.  I’m doing this with the best interest of our community in mind, I promise.

My heart and energies and motivations rest in leading those in slavery toward freedom.  Know that.

A Metaphor for Obsessive-Compulsives

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A new friend came over to my apartment the other week, and we got to talking about Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) therapy, and I shared a metaphor with her that I’d like to share with you now.

We put out fires, but what we need to do is shoot the arsonist.

arson

The problem with attempting to “solve” an OC’s obsession is that, as soon as it’s solved, a new obsession will take its place.  In that way, you’re only putting out fires, not dealing with the root issue, which is an inability to handle uncertainty.  For years and years, I watched my obsessions hop from one thing to the next.  My compulsions– and even my talk therapy sometimes– were shortsightedly stamping out the flames in one corner of my mind while OCD set a new fire in another corner.

How can you possibly manage to keep up that way?  It’s not sustainable.

That’s why I agree with so many of the OCD experts in this country that the best way to fight OCD is with Exposure and Response Prevention therapy.  ERP is so very different from most standard therapies.  In it, obsessive-compulsives are exposed to a trigger that prompts in them deep anxiety; then they are not allowed to respond with an anxiety-easing compulsion.  Instead, they are forced to sit in that discomfort.  Doing this repeatedly actually re-wires the obsessive-compulsive’s brain in a way that they learn to live with uncertainty and their quality of life improves dramatically.

It’s been four years since I turned my attention from the bonfires to the disorder that was setting them.

It’s been a good four years.

Preparing for ERP Therapy

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Lately, I’ve been talking to some brave, amazing people who are planning to tackle cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), specifically exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP).  I know it’s the right next step, they tell me.  Any advice?

Glad you asked.  Here are my suggestions as you prepare for ERP.

1. Read and research!  Don’t go into this (incredible but difficult) therapy with your eyes closed.  I believe that the more you know about what ERP entails and what will be expected of you, the better.  In fact, I have a friend who had done enough research on it that he realized only one or two sessions in that he knew more about ERP than the therapist did– instead of wasting time, my friend was able to stop meeting with that therapist and find an expert in ERP.

2. Have an open heart.  ERP is not the same as talk therapy.  You will be given homework and made to go through exposures that are intended to spike your anxiety.  Before I started ERP, my psychiatrist gave me this advice: “Think of a mother, Jackie.  A mother would do anything to help her child.  You must be willing to do anything to help yourself.”  By its very nature, you will be expected to do things that you do not want to do (AT ALL).  Do them anyway.

3. Surround yourself with the RIGHT support system.  What you need are cheerleaders, people who will be your biggest fans and encouragers.  What you absolutely do NOT need are enablers– because they will only be hindering the ERP process.  Educate your closest friends about what ERP entails and ask them upfront to not baby you or enable your OCD.  When they offer you reassurance or do anything to enable your obsessions and compulsions, they are siding with your disorder against you, instead of with you against your disorder.  This is going to be hard for both sides.  Tough love is not fun … but it is good.

4. If you’re the kind of person who prays, pray hard.

For those of you who have experienced ERP, what advice would you add?

comfort2