I have so many mental compulsions I didn’t know I had. I strait convinced myself that I had no compulsions (basically just self gaslighting). I have been in mental health treatment for like almost 8 years now and I haven’t even begun to address my ocd yet and I’m yearning for relief. Everything in my life is made harder by ocd and things seem impossible to achieve. Questions for the community: 1) Has anyone here been married while they are suffering? How can I properly explain to them how I feel and my triggers without exploding? 2) How do any of you guys get relief? I feel like I’m always wound up in a knot and I can’t eat or sleep and it’s painful honestly. 3) Have any of you ever overcome mental compulsions? I feel like it’s so much easier to hide than physical ones and I’ve been doing them since I was a small child I just had no idea. (Definitely not invalidating physical compulsions though).

Hey caitlind123, So, so much empathy for you. It's sadly really common to have go through years of mental health treatment before getting help for OCD. It happened to me too, and it's so hard. 1) Yes, I've been married for thirteen years, which includes when I first got diagnosed, and when I actually was able to get help a decade later. Because neither of us really understood how OCD works, a lot of the early years involved my partner inadvertently enabling me and making me worse. They were just trying to help me feel less anxious, but it backfired in the long run. When I started therapy, we had a family session where we talked through some facts about OCD and how we could work as a team to overcome it together. I think the same can be done without a therapist's involvement: sit down and openly communicate what you're struggling with, look at some resources together so you're both on the same footing re: familiarity with OCD, and then discuss how you can approach this as a couple. This article about disclosing OCD to loved ones has some great advice: https://iocdf.org/expert-opinions/expert-opinionsdear-loved-one-i-have-ocd-tips-for-individuals-and-family-members-about-disclosing-your-ocd/ and this NOCD article discusses how partners can help: https://www.treatmyocd.com/blog/how-can-i-help-my-partner-with-their-ocd 2) I'm so sorry you're dealing with all that. Relief for me came in the form of OCD therapy, which is Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP). It's the gold standard treatment for OCD for a reason--it works. NOCD offers ERP, but obviously it depends on whether or not you're able to access professional treatment. If you can't, the NOCD app has a section that walks you through conducting your own exposure therapy--that's what I used at first. It's not going to replace formal ERP, but it's a valuable tool if that's not an option for you right now. 3) You're right, mental compulsions are so much less visible and that can make identifying and treating them more challenging. But I've significantly reduced some mental compulsions I had since childhood, and some of those I did in therapy and some I did on my own. The approach isn't too different to what you do with the physical ones. This article might help: https://www.treatmyocd.com/blog/what-is-pure-o-ocd-subtype And I found this one as well: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/think-act-be/201601/mental-rituals-in-obsessive-compulsive-disorder I hope this helps. Much luck and love to you!