I've had a further two sessions of CBT since I last posted. During last week's session, S showed me a model of OCD behaviour and how it works and part of my homework was to go home and re-design the model and tailor it to my own behaviours. This exercise was designed to highlight how avoidance of certain situations only perpetuates the phobia. This I already knew. However, one thing it did show me is that a lot of my phobia and the anxiety around it, feeds on superstition. For example, I hate it when someone asks me when the last time I had a bug was because I feel like if I say it out loud, it will 'jinx' me and my luck will somehow run out and I'll become sick. I've noticed on the Emet Forum I frequent that a lot of emets are similar and there is a lot of superstitious thought around 'anniversaries' and the like. In analysing my own behaviour, I also noticed how EVERYONE is the same to some extent. I pointed this observation out to S, that everyone has these funny little superstition quirks and lo-and-behold, not five minutes later she said something, followed quickly with "touch wood" and started looking for wood to touch so as not to 'jinx' herself. I guess the thing with us emets is that we put too much emphasis on un-jinxing ourselves and it occupies more of our brain and daily thoughts than it should.
At the end of last weeks session, my other homework was to test some of my behaviour and attempt to stop doing it, go with the anxiety it causes, and see if after a number of times the anxiety decreased. So, one of the little things I do is cross my fingers when certain thoughts come into my head. I KNOW it's ridiculous, I KNOW that even though my brain says "if you cross your fingers you'll be 'safe' today" that this is not the case, yet I can't risk jinxing myself. So, I did as she asked and tried to stop myself crossing my fingers. It was surprisingly easy. There were definitely times where I couldn't do it because the 'risk' felt too great but I've managed a considerable reduction in my un-jinxing behaviour which is very encouraging.
This weeks session concentrated on starting Exposure Therapy. There mere thought of which strikes dread through my very soul! I'll update in a few days or so.
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It sounds like you're making progress. Slowly but surely! What will exposure therapy involve for you? I had six months of CBT last year and my exposure went as far as looking at pictures and being made to stand on a stain on the pavement (which looked like spilled drink more than anything).
ReplyDeleteDefinite progress but I've a feeling it will be 2 steps forward, 1 step back at times!
ReplyDeleteI'll write up an account of last fridays session as that explains more about venturing into the land of exposure therapy but the task I was set this week was to eat a piece of meat. My other half and I get take-away once a week, he always orders meat and I always order vegetarian so my therapist wanted me to eat a mouthful of the meat my boyfriend orders...
How did exposure therapy work out for you?