has anyone here ever fully recovered from pocd?

omg! i always think about you🥺 how has recovery been going?

@Anonymous_234 I have good and bad days, you have to remember that recovery isn’t linear so there will be set backs and there will be days where you feel worse than others because of anxiety. But that’s what makes recovery possible, just going with the flow and knowing it’s going to be okay

how did you do it😭😭

@Anonymous_234 hey i’m so sorry that you’re going through this. pocd is definitely terrifying. i didn’t ask for reassurance with this theme, due to the content of the fear. i think that’s what helped me get past it. my other themes i feel the desire to ask for reassurance probably 20 times a day. when i didn’t have that, it didn’t feed the ocd i guess you could say.

@koitoi ooh okay 3 years ago i was the same way i wasn’t seeking reassurance but now that i do it’s gotten 30x more worse. im struggling so bad. did you struggle with urges, feels & etc as well?😞

@koitoi & thank you so so so much for talking to me😭

@Anonymous_234 The irony of me reading these comments about how reassurance makes it worse but I’m crying tears of relief right now from your comment about your urges and feels 😭

@_anonymous_075 it’s absolutely terrible, i struggle so so so bad

@Anonymous_234 Me too. I’ve been really struggling with the urges and feelings. Makes me feel disgusting

@_anonymous_075 how long have you been suffering with pocd?😞

@Anonymous_234 Ever since march this year. I had it for like 4 months straight then I that theme went away because I was following what this psychologist’s article told me to do until it finally went away. Then 4 months later in September I got triggered again and I thought I was doing good at first but then there were more and more compulsions until it started spiraling again for a while, then starting pushing the thoughts away hardcore, and thought I was doing the right thing by “not paying attention to them” but really I was compulsively pushing them away so that I was only affected by the thoughts when I was triggered and the cycle went like that. Then a little before Christmas I got triggered HEAVILY by an article on p—-philia when I was trying to get reassurance but it made it so much worse. Omg there’s so much more I wanna say but I just realized I’m basically telling you my life story right now lmao

@Anonymous_234 How long have you?

@_anonymous_075 i had it for almost 3 years, but back then it was never this bad the only thing that happened back then was a little bit of anxiety when it came to seeing kids but i never had the severe thoughts i have now. my dad passed away in august & i started noticings i was having way more anxiety around kids & my clients (i’m a nail tech) i started letting those feelings pass but it started just getting more and more severe, by this point i was already extremely stressed about everything. i was already starting to overthink why i was feeling the way i feel & trying to find out why. In october one of my clients kinda made my job extremely difficult for me because i was already fearing holding a minors hand when i would do my little sisters friends nails or something. the client who might’ve triggered me was caressing my hands and kept telling me “omg your hands are so soft” as she kept touching my hands in a weird way. i felt extremely uncomfortable but i struggle so much with speaking up so i tried to just push through this and do her nails as fast as i could. once she left i immediately told my mom and sisters how uncomfortable it was for me & they said she was in the wrong and i shouldn’t take her as a client anymore, okay so i sorta just let that pass as “it’s ok she probably didn’t mean too” to avoid me overthinking it bc i’m the biggest overthinker when it comes to things like this. okay so a couple weeks pass and i’m doing okay but i’m noticing i’m having an anxiety attack everytime i touch anyones hands and if they were a little younger then me i would find myself canceling their appointments bc of how fearful i was to touch their hands the wrong way or making them uncomfortable. ( i say might’ve triggered me because i’m still kinda worried i might just be overthinking it and that maybe it wasn’t her intention to make me uncomfortable) but fast forward to today, my thoughts have been so so so intense. in November i started having panic attacks because i kept trying to figure out why i felt so anxious around kids when i was literally the babysitter of the family. i always loved kids as if they were my own. i dreamed of being a mom to like 8 kids at one point. but me trying to go back into my memory and try to figure out where i went wrong caused me to have false memory ocd. i was crying every single day, every hour, i couldn’t eat anymore, i couldn’t sleep, i was constantly thinking, constantly shaking the anxiety was uncontrollable bc i was convinced i had done something in my past. that went on for at least a whole month. then i had a little 2 week break and i was doing somewhat okay i had came to my senses that nothing happened back then it’s just my mind trying to play with me. but little did i know ocd was gonna creep back on me & cause me more pain and distress. by this point my thoughts started with the “what ifs” or “this is what you are” and i couldn’t even imagine what was going on with me. i truly believed i was becoming the monster i feared the most.. & till this day im struggling so bad with my thoughts. they’re becoming so intense.

@Anonymous_234 I used to be the family babysitter as well, and used to dream of having a huge family like you! It just shows how ocd attacks what you truly care about the most. My thoughts feel so gross and disturbing and makes me think that I am what I fear being the most. Even though reassurance isn’t good, The only thing keeping me going and believing it’s ocd is that I heard ocd makes you have “deceiving brain messages” and remembering also how convinced I was nonbinary/ lesbian when I had identity related ocd when now I know I’m a bi woman and it’s on to this theme now, convincing me because ocd is making me think things that are so convincing it makes me sick. I know I need to break the cycle and I’ve been working on that but when the feeling/ urges are so strong it feels impossible to not seek reassurance, then making me feel guilty that i just made my ocd worse. But one step at a time right :/

@_anonymous_075 I’m reading this and I had the same exact experience where I had identity related ocd for years and years until I finally considered myself bi, and then my ocd moved on to pocd. It’s like your brain NEEDS to be anxious of something so it moves on to a different theme it can latch too. I believe it starts with one silly intrusive thought paired with a false sensation and then our brain gets stuck on it. We have to train our brain to not fear our greatest fear. For example my first scary intrusive thought was “what if you become like your abuser” when my daughter was laying with me watching tv. I freaked out and I wouldn’t let her near me for days, and then struggled to give her even a hug. So reading about erp I was determined to not let this terrible sickness come between me and my kids. I have always been so involved with my kids, taking them on adventures and doing crafts, or just cuddling up to watch a Disney movie. So I bit the bullet and started holding them while reading her books, and even though I would get very uncomfortable at times I pushed through it because I noticed the only sensation I was really having was extreme anxiety induced. The more time I spent with my kids the more clarity I got. Do not push away those scary experiences. You mentioned it started with that uncomfortable nail appointment which is understandable (I don’t like ANYONE caressing me either, that’s crossing a boundary)but maybe trying to do nails again here and there as erp would help to show your brain to not fear that situation. It’s possible to get through, don’t worry. ❤️

@Anon1294 i had that exact thought!! my mind told me “what if you’re just like your little sisters abuser!! you’re a monster!!” i panicked and cried, i remember my whole body going completely numb. i struggled so so bad with that specific thought. & then yesterday i was eating a popsicles and i’m guessing you already know what kinda of thought popped up😞 i still feel like i can’t eat, like i need to make myself throw up everything i ate bc i feel like a sick person for continuing to eat my ice cream. but pocd has forsure been one of my scariest themes. im so so scared that this is my life forever. i had so much ahead of me. till this day i regret seeking reassurance, i should’ve just let my thoughts go because now it’s only been getting so much more severe and scary. i’ve been doing erp lately, i have thoughts telling me “you’re gonna touch your siblings when you’re in the car watch!!!” and i panicked and talked to my therapist about it and she told me i have to face my fear and try taking my siblings to school on my own, so i did and for the first few days it was hell. i then realized i was doing erp completely wrong. i was constantly reassuring myself and not letting thoughts pass☹️

@Anonymous_234 You can do this girl, this is coming from trauma and anxiety. You can and will recover. When you’re doing erp, lean into the thoughts not away from them. I know it feels TERRIBLE but trust me this is how the thoughts let up their grip. I always say think of a Chinese finger trap, in order to free your fingers you need to push not pull. That’s what you do. You’re eating that popsicle? KEEP EATING IT. Your brain tells you something gross, tell your brain “yup thanks for that. oh well.” And do NOT retreat from the situation. It takes time and practice but you. can. Do this.

@Anon1294 thank you so so so much! youre amazing, you didn’t deserve this horrible disorder, i can just tell your the most amazing mom ever. keep doing you! you got this 🥺🤍

@Anonymous_234 Thank you!!! And I can tell you’re an amazing sister, and I can tell you as someone who is older and wiser I have been through other themes… they pass. I promise you. It’s going to pass. The fog is going to clear in time, I want you to keep the faith and keep working at this

@Anon1294 thank you so much! one day we’ll out be out of this mess!😭