Hard to believe that it's been a month since I signed up on this website. I haven't checked back much since I wrote my first blog, so I figured I would post something new. Treatment has been going good. I still have trouble with almost everything I discussed in my previous blog post, but I feel like I'm unearthing some things in counseling that I've kept bottled up for a long time and haven't really disclosed with anyone before. I'm hoping that by discussing these things more openly, it will hopefully reduce the intensity of some of my obsessions (and the desire to perform compulsions). It's strange, I've overcome some of these "root" obsessions to the point where they no longer bother me (i.e. watching a violent tv show/movie, etc.) but I still get bothered by things that I originally associated with these "root" obsessions. I know that's a lot of wording, so I will give a quick example (and I guess this would count as exposure work as well): for quite some time, the thought of cannibalism bothered me profoundly. I know it's a disturbing topic in general, but if I saw a picture of Hannibal Lecter, heard about cannibalistic acts, or even saw the word cannibal I would get extremely anxious and have to perform my various compulstions. I remember as a kid watching a halloween episode of The Simpsons in which the teachers started eating the kids. It ended up being a dream and not real, but that episode bothered me for many years after watching it. It got to the point where if I even thought about The Simpsons, heard the theme song, or saw a picture of the characters somewhere, I would get anxious. Today, I am no longer bothered by cannibalism, but The Simpsons still bother me when I come across them. I don't know why it still does, if I overcame the thing that originally bothered me about the show. In fact, I am really tempted to write the name of another cartoon in this blog post in order to counteract the rising anxiety I'm facing now, but I won't do it. I realize this post kind of got long-winded and meandered for a bit, but this is good for me. Thanks for reading, and hopefully it won't be another month until I post next.