i just wanted to ask on here if anyone could share from experience what to do if it feels like you’ve already tried everything to get rid of ocd or as much of it as you can??? So basically when all of this first started about 2 years ago, I was actually in counseling just casually for a few months trying to just cure my anxiety but then I realized the bigger issue was OCD months later and i started going to talk (cognitive behavioral) therapy for it for about 6 months. During that time i tried Zoloft for a couple months, kept increasing til i hit true max but i honestly never felt anything! I didn’t try anything else bc i really didn’t like the idea of being on medicine especially at such a high dose and apparently zoloft is the best for ocd but it didn’t work even a little. then that didn’t work after all of that, so i i’ve been going to a hypnotist (who has a phd so he’s actually a real doctor) and it was supposed to take 3-4 sessions to help me, but so far i’ve done 11 sessions and nothing!! i’m still functioning but this is not how i want to live. does anyone have any suggestions please on what i should do or try??

I’m not sure if you mean me Bob999, but sure! Let’s say you had a fear of being contaminated by door knobs. Your first job would be to stop avoiding situations where you would have to be the first one to open the door, or you would be by yourself so you would have to open the door. Then you would PREPARE yourself to not respond for as long as you can to the compulsion (washing your hands x times) to the exposure of the door knob. You would open the door and first make yourself wait 5 minutes until you wash your hands, and then 15 minutes, and then 2 hours and so on. While you are doing this you would also decrease the AMOUNT of time you need to wash your hands, gradually.

Hang in there. I don’t have suggestions since I’m struggling on this myself and I have tried less than you but I wish you the best.

I see:/ ACT is basically changing our relationship with our thoughts! It is usually added alongside ERP to broaden the scope of the treatment. https://iocdf.org/expert-opinions/expert-opinion-what-is-act/ Here’s an article explaining it- it’s worth looking into!

Thanks Leah and Bob super helpful!

Laurpln - I got a prescription for Prozac but cannot take it until finals is over. I am worried the tiredness or nausea or whatever that is will make my studying challenging and my grades drop

I felt slight nausea at first but that was the only side effect ! Feel better and good luck !

Hmm. I’m sorry nothing seems to be working for you!:( Just wondering, did your therapist practice Exposure Response Prevention with you? Also did they go over Acceptance and Commitment therapy and mindfulness? Trust me every time I would hear ‘mindfulness’ I’d think yadda yadda okay yoga whatever- until I realized what it really was and how it was basically what I was internally doing to beat ocd. Also I know Clomipramine is the most studied ocd medication and some have said it worked wonders for them, but I know it comes with the most side effects for some too. Maybe you could talk to your doctor about that one too. Just some ideas!

Bob999- any tips for situations where you actually got exposed to a major contaminant? I struggle with that.

The most important part of ERP is obviously the “response PREVENTION”. Which also includes stopping ‘avoidance’ of certain situations (which is a compulsion).

@Bob999 thank you for that, i’ve attempted but i can never do it i guess because of the fact that it scares me and no one is telling me too. but i’m going to try harder now so thank you for that!

@Lark thank you, we will both get through it i know it just takes some people a long time sadly):

@leah25 oh yes the mindfulness and ERP we did and it did help for some situations, but as some of my issues would go away, more would appear and id still be left with bad ocd if that makes sense. but I can’t remember Acceptance and commitment therapy. what is that?

Prozac worked well for me I know everyone is different