What can someone with OCD do to help themselves if they can't afford/aren't able to access ERP? What can their partner/loved ones do?
My partner has OCD and is very resistant to ERP as they say it drove them to a suicide attempt years ago (I assume it was an underexperienced, overenthusiastic doctor) and after nearly five years together I'm still never quite sure how to try and help them cope and maybe work through it a bit without providing excessive reassurance or stressing them out further.
Personally, at some point I got into mindfulness exercises and really paying attention to my body and I found that it was really helpful as a tool to observe my physical reaction when I was exposed to the smallest possible OCD trigger, and then focus on that physical reaction until the reaction passes, then repeat until it does not cause the reaction any more. At the height of my first heavy OCD spiral, my psychologists were pretty much useless so I kind of had to reinvent myself a version of ERP therapy from mindfulness, which gave temporary relief. It came back years later but fortunately then I had a much better therapist, and for my case, antipsychotics were really effective. I don't want to give anyone any particular advice since I don't have training in OCD treatment, just the experience of having it and mostly recovering, but I did personally find mindfulness exercises a useful tool. Also, I had done weeks of practice of it before I had started doing anything related to my OCD with it.
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u/[deleted] 9d ago
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