- Date posted
- 3y
- Date posted
- 3y
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!
- Date posted
- 3y
Thank you so much. It means so much for you to do all of that for me. I will definitely be checking out those links!
Related posts
- Date posted
- 14w
(Long post warning) Hi, I’ve been struggling with severe OCD for six years now. it started in 2019 with my theme being getting sick/emetophobia. it devastated my life. I almost didn’t graduate high school from it. I remember washing my hands for three hours one day until they were nearly bloody while crying and asking why I could not stop doing it. I remember id have to write and rewrite sentences when I did my English homework and that’s why I nearly failed that class. I remember how I would spend up to thirty minutes to an hour pacing the halls of my apartment while my mom was asleep until I neutralized the thoughts about throwing up and I could finally go to bed. I don’t know when it happened, but my theme switched. Sometimes in late 2020 or early 2021, it switched to POCD. It started with a single thought, and I focused on it and it’s been my theme since then for four years. It has been absolutely destroying me. I feel so disgusted and lost and just tired. My compulsions are severe now. I thought they were bad before, but now they’re ten times worse. I can’t eat, drink, change my clothes, walk, or even do things on my phone normally. I’ve developed so many mental compulsions that it’s so intricate and complicated yet at the same time I’ve done them so much that they’ve become normal. An example I have is if im putting on a shirt and I have a “bad” thought, I have to take it off and put it back on two more times (that’ll make it 3 times I put the shirt back on - odd numbers are my safe number). I have to have a good thought on the third time otherwise I have to take it off and put it on two more times to make it five times I put on that shirt. If not that then I just put on a different shirt because the original is now tainted with my bad thought. I can’t open apps on my phone. It’s with the numbers again. If I open TikTok once while having a bad thought - I have to close it and open it two more times and so on. Sometimes I do it up to 30 times. So I just don’t do things usually. I don’t turn on the TV because I know I’ll redo it. I don’t open a book or grab it off my shelf because I’ll have to repeat the action. I can’t even lay in bed without getting up and redoing it even if im exhausted. I just feel so helpless. I don’t know what to do. I feel disgusting and even now my minds screaming at me that I am dirty and what I think is true. I just wish I was free of this, I wish I could just live my life. I’ve wasted hours and days because of my compulsions. I mask it so well around my friends. I don’t do them in front of anyone or I’ve learned to hide it well. But when im back home alone, it goes haywire. I just want to live again.
- Date posted
- 12w
Some background: I’m a woman in my 30s who’s been struggling to find the right diagnosis for years. Since 2022, I’ve had multiple psych hospital stays, and with each stay came a different diagnosis and different sets of medications: Bipolar II, CPTSD, MDD with psychotic features, “high functioning BPD,” and most recently, Schizoaffective Disorder (depressive type). Before all of that happened, I had been seeing a therapist for CPTSD and AuDHD traits for 2 years, but after they left the practice, I struggled to find someone I trusted again. Most of my breakdowns happened during my last relationship. Looking back, I was in survival mode with them, leaving who *I* am behind. I got to the point where I started doubting my own reality from the abuse. This eventually added up and landed me in my first episode of psychosis. That combined with my attempts is what got me my schizoaffective diagnosis. After finally leaving that relationship 1.5 years ago, I’ve slowly rebuilt my life: new town, new job, new friends. Many of my old symptoms (major ones) haven’t returned, which makes me believe I may have been misdiagnosed due to reliving past childhood trauma and stress responses from the abuse. Through all of this, I’ve felt like nothing ever truly fit. I journal, I reflect, I replay the recordings and I’ve even watched old vlogs –the puzzle pieces still don’t come together. It’s left me feeling like I’ll never really know what’s going on, and I’ve started to fear that my diagnoses will just keep stacking up without ever leading to effective treatment. Recently, I opened up to a friend about this. She mentioned that her neighbor went through something similar not exactly like me but she thought it would give me a starting point—multiple diagnoses that never felt right—until a new doctor finally identified it as OCD. That one diagnosis changed everything for her. It made me realize I really don’t know much about OCD beyond the stereotypes. I didn’t know OCD could involve intrusive thoughts, rumination, or mental compulsions. My friend encouraged me to look into it, especially as I start searching for a new therapist. Facebook and Google lead me here… So now I’m wondering: could OCD be a better explanation for what I’ve been experiencing all these years? Questions for the community: 1. What steps did you take to find out if OCD was what you were dealing with? 2. If you had a long history of misdiagnoses, how did you finally find a clinician who got it right? 3. How did you advocate for yourself when people dismissed your concerns? 4. Is there anything you wish you had done earlier in your OCD journey? Thank you so much if you made it this far. I’m really grateful for this space and just want to start finding answers and the right kind of help.
- Date posted
- 10w
I am newly diagnosed with OCD as a 33 year old female I was fat oses with bipolar at 15 and never really identified with it much and totally relate to ocd. I wish i would have known long ago so I could have gotten treatment earlier. Now that I know and am aware and can see what’s off and what are compulsions and my insatiable need for reassurance it’s so overwhelming- it feels like my mind is a prison and attacks me with a new pure o quest as soon as I wake up I’m optimistic I’ll be able to get better but it just feels like it’s time sucking and joy stealing disorder I know I’m not alone here I feel like a crazy person replaying and replaying things I want to know if you can relate or if you have been at this for a while and actually feel like you are breaking free from this Thanks for the read
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