To ERP Is Human; to Forgive Divine

It’s bedtime. I yawn, close my door, thankful that the days of dreading bedtime as if it were a trip to the dentist are behind me. Obsessive compulsive disorder always plagued me the worst at night. It was as if it knew when I was at my weakest, most vulnerable, and picked those moments to strike. As I’ve grown older and become a veteran at practicing exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP), the raging OCD I experienced back in my teens and twenties is but a faint whisper that only pops up every now and then, but as I’ve mentioned before, it finds ways to remind me. I’m about to climb into bed when I see it: violent images of me and the ones I love being murdered in our sleep. Then I feel the compulsion to check the door. But herein lies the issue: checking once is reasonable. Twelve times is obsessive compulsive. I confirm the door is locked. Then…

IT. BEGINS.

The itch, the niggle, the Oh-dear-God-not-again feeling of OCD rearing its ugly head.

It says to me, well, you know you’re near-sighted. Plus, you are at the top of the stairs looking at a door that is at the bottom of the stairs. How can you be truly sure the deadbolt is turned the right way? After all, isn’t it all one nickel-plated blur from up here? Yeah, don’t go look again. Sign everyone’s death warrant!

I’d like to say I didn’t close the door, feel a little rush of panic, give in and open it again, but I did. A good student of ERP knows we accept the uncomfortableness no matter how bad it feels. I’d argue I’m still a good ERP practitioner, but I’m also that pesky little species known as human. Lord help me. I’m prone to panic and failure. Aren’t we all? I opened the door and checked the deadbolt three times, BUT I didn’t run down the stairs to get a close up look, and I didn’t check 27 more times (I’d certainly done that back in the day), OR check after having already laid down in bed and drifted off several times. I can celebrate how far I’ve come while simultaneously acknowledging a fumble.

Why tell on myself in this little post after so many years of success? Because somebody needs to hear it. Take a breath. Remember your ERP training. Remember how far you’ve come, but also remember, you are human.

You’ve come a long way, and I’m proud of you.