Emotional Contamination and Stuff

You're correct about that reading the newspaper causes the least amount of anxiety (and it boosts my will to actually get out and do something). The bottom 4 things (alongside the music) is what I have been doing so far (since Monday), and also a little researching random things I read about and stuff, but that falls under newspaper in my opinion. I've been writing a mail to my sister these last few hours, and all is going well. No anxiety whatsoever, which has made it an easy choice so far. Sometimes I accidentally stumble upon something I like. So far I have been able to save almost everything I accidentally stumbled upon to the computer, with the exception of... something I might as well save, now that I look back on the other things I have saved and secretly care about :b

I guess I started back on Monday with bookmarking everything instead of saving it when I had a sporadic urge to look something up that turned out to be pretty good. But then Yesterday I thought "just this one thing, it's not like the world depends on it or anything" and made a 'B' folder in my February folder, in which I saved a few things. And then a few things turned into quite a lot. And now I like it :/ Oops. But it doesn't cause anxiety (yet? maybe once I have the option to 'repeat' on OCD-terms, but I've also retained a lot of October things un-repeated, so I know I can do it).

I'm still on Clomipramine, but have reduced the dosage to 112.5mg (1½ 75mg tablet). I don't take Risperidone anymore (yay!).

I can only tell you what helped me, so here goes ....

Keep doing all the things that cause very little or no anxiety for a few days. If you come across things that cause anxiety then put them aside as you have been doing.

Once you have completely mastered the things that cause little or no anxiety, move up just one step to the next thing that causes slightly more anxiety. Then keep doing this new thing until again it causes no anxiety. Don't keep moving up until you have completed a task without feeling anxiety. Over time your brain will learn to no associate anxiety with the tasks, just like it learned in the past to accociate anxiety with the tasks. Remember the anxiety is just a feeling, what we have done in OCD is associated anxiety with objects and tasks.

Does this all make sense?

Liz x

OK

That means... I will look for a TV series to watch after finishing the e-mail. Until it doesn't cause anxiety anymore. This is ERP right? I understand all the theory behind it. Now it's time for practice >:]

Thank you Liz!

TS

Yes this is ERP, what I am doing. I move up the levels of anxiety one step at a time at my own pace.

Keep me informed as to how you get on, tell me if you can do these levels until you have no anxiety at these levels. Then you can move to the next level.

Liz xxx

Hey Torrent, Liz, and anyone else reading,

After much consideration, I have decided that I would like the thread to be locked. Despite the fact that I would like more people to be aware of the existence of the Emotional Contamination variant of OCD (and its way out), I think maintaining this thread is not the best way of achieving that, and it ultimately isn't worth the trade off regarding privacy for me. I like to freely talk about what is going on around and inside of me, and having the possibility to include details. So far I have been quite detailed and liberal in my way of communication on this forum already, maybe even too much so, but this doesn't mean that I would necessarily have to continue this way and become even more vulnerable to anyone that discovers my identity. I hope you will all understand or at least accept this decision.

I will send a PM to Liz, and anyone else that would like to contact me can also do this through the Personal Message system (I receive an e-mail notification every time a message has been received).

Thank you everyone and please take care,

TwistedSpoon

i'm sorry i just saw this because i'm currently away (just a quick check now) and it's ok TS, i respect your decision, thanks for great posts you have made...

best wishes to you TS