Hi. My question is if someone is in their late 60s and has had severe OCD for their whole life, is it reasonable to expect they will get improvement from doing exposure therapy? I ask because a close family member has severe OCD. She's had it her whole life and it is so engrained. She is a hoarder, throws away food before its date, has obsessions about technology, food, cleanliness, covid, what she says to people, chemicals, etc. I have OCD too and when I found out about my OCD I realised she has it too and be sent to counselling. She went to the same therapist that I did. Within eight weeks of my therapy I'd made a hierarchy, started exposure, etc. She had about 15-20 sessions and she hadnt really started exposure or challenging compulsions. And the theprist was talking more about reasoning through things. I wondered if this was because she thoguht my grandma is so bad that she isnt going to be able to get through the exposure and stop her compulsions like I managed to (over two years. But I am now almost anxiety free.) She stopped therapy but wasnt really better, because she hasnt started breaking the OCD cycle and still doesnt properly understand her compulsions. She asks me for advice on how to deal with obsessions etc. As we are close. And I talked to her about exposure (slowly and controlled obviously) But I dont know if that's the right thing to suggest for her. She felt more anxious having counselling as it makes you bring everything up. I found my theory so helpful but I was a teenager at the time. She has had OCD without knowing about it for over 60 years. Is it too late for her to have any real improvement. I dont want to push her into counselling or exposure if there isnt much chance she can change her OCD much now. I ask this because I love her and dont want to make things worse for her. Please let me know about severe OCD that has been going on for many decades... is there chance of much improvement or will she be happier carrying on doing her obsessions and compulsions without interference as she has for the last 60 years? I just want the best for her

My little sister is 13 we’ve taken her to a child psychologist and she was diagnosed with OCD and social anxiety and I believe germaphobia. The psychologist said that he can’t properly diagnose her with autism until her anxiety symptoms are treated. But I am very positive that she is also autistic as I am autistic and know the symptoms vary well. She was given a medication at a low dose, I don’t remember what kind, she had been taking it even tho she did not want to for a couple of months. It seemed to be helping her anxiety immensely but I believe she is scared of how the medication changes how she feels and she doesn’t like the taste. So they switched medications and that one was even worse because the taste was too strong she didn’t even try it for more than a day so there’s no way of knowing if that one was better for her or not. These are both liquid medications btw we used juice for her to drink it. Since then she hasn’t taken any medication and she has said that she doesn’t want to. We can’t force her to take the medication as that would obviously be counter productive. But since then her ocd and germaphobia have gotten progressively worse. On top of not wanting medication she doesn’t like the idea of using any coping skills like deep breaths or breathing exercises to calm down and doesn’t like the idea when I talk about ERP or therapy or any kind of treatment that could help. It seems all the ideas either make her uncomfortable or scare her. I fear somewhat that my own ocd compulsions have made her think that this is normal and doesn’t need treatment and I don’t know what to do to help understand that treatment and change isn’t scary. I also fear that I’m not approaching this right and my mom doesn’t understand ocd like I do so I feel like it falls on me to help her through this and help my mom understand what we need to do to help her. I’m sorry this is so long. thank you for reading this. She’s really struggling and it’s affecting my own mental health too and I don’t know what to do. If anyone has any tips or advice please that’s all I’m asking for.

I'm writing today as a concerned sibling. I respect you all for your hard work, sharing and the guidance everyone provides. I've been reading comments about how helpful OCD therapy is, but have yet to convince my sibling that it can help. They respond that they probably wont learn more than what they've already realized and that they can't actually stop the OCD behaviors for them.. I say that there are professionals with tips and would help to consult on ways to battle OCD. My sibling has realized that they cant give into the thoughts, but from that realization to action, is hard, as folks know. I've been taking note of people's reviews of getting better and plan to share those with my sibling, but does anyone else have other advice how to help them get more help? It seems the issue may be Contamination OCD and general (heavy) anxieties and depression (which has been around for most of their life). Thank you in advance for any more guidance.

Hey everyone it’s been a while since I posted on here. Honestly, I try to stay off of this app unless I really need advice because I find it triggering at times. But right now I’m feeling pretty down and just would like some hopeful and helpful advice. Has anyone ever felt like they’re just not capable of getting out of this? Has anyone ever felt like ERP therapy isn’t working or that they just can’t get it’s a click? . I’ve been in ERP therapy for over a year just about a year and a half actually and I literally feel so stagnant and stuck still. I show up every week I do my exposures, but my body is in such a chronic fight or fight all the time that it feels almost impossible to apply the tools. I’m super sensitive to begin with and I feel things very deeply and because of that it feels like I’m not gonna be able to ever change. It feels like no matter what I do or experience I’m just gonna always feel it so deeply and it’s gonna just rattle me all of the time. I’m honestly so frustrated. I’m tired and I’m overwhelmed. I so badly wanna change these patterns that I have and grow and be out of this OCD spiral, but everything just feels impossible. I’m just wondering if I’m alone here?? Has anyone ever felt this way? Has ERP taken a long time for anyone else or am I the only one that just can’t get my brain to click with it? Any encouraging and helpful words would be greatly appreciated thank you 🙏