Struggling with OCD despite ERP; seeking success stories for hope.

I think everyone’s different don’t worry bout the time you’ve been trying to get better atleast your working on it just keep working timelines don’t matter maybe some medications mite help different medications.

I’m new to this app and to this whole OCD process. I always dealt with this and GAD but never on this scale. I’ve listened a lot to Ali Greymond on YouTube, she has a lot of awesome videos. I have had a couple months of basically every second of every day dealing with ocd urges and thoughts/panic attacks. It goes from one theme to the next. I usually feel SO confused and my biggest fear is the same, that I am not strong enough (lots of moments of suffering and confusion). But I had to treat those fears as ocd thoughts as well by saying “maybe I am maybe I’m not” and accepting that uncertainty as well then just forcing myself to keep moving my body. This morning was the first time I felt normal waking up where I didn’t have DP and ocd thoughts first thing in the morning! By now I am already back dealing with accepting and allowing and choosing to disregard. But we got this!! I always see people post and I think “yes great advice but you don’t know how I feel” or “ I’m glad you’re strong enough but I am different” I promise you, you are not different from anyone that has recovered! It takes different amounts of time for everyone! Be patient with yourself, even if that means just hoping to be patient since it’s hard to really feel patience or hope!! I hold on to the seconds (cause that’s all I’ve gotten recently lol) where I felt normal and a glimpse of hope. You can trust yourself which I know it so hard since you feel as though you have lost touch with yourself. But you haven’t, it’s temporary! Hope this helps you feel less alone in your struggles! Sorry it’s so long hahaha

Just here to say you've got this. So what I've noticed is once I'm starting to feel a bit better in one area (contamination is my worst one) my depression starts to really kick in (separately I have MDD). And after a few good weeks my depression suddenly was deep. Like I got scared actually. The therapist said that since anxiety has been taking up so much of my brain space (its decades of this before I found this diagnosis) that the depression is coming out. So I might need to treat the depression separately but for now I'm doing the may or may not statements with my depressivec thoughts. So like it's not easy at all but it's helping. So also what I've noticed is my other themes come up and get triggered. I suspect I had harm OCD originally and now I have that and contamination. So the harm theme tries to take over when I'm dealing with the contamination. So I treat each thought with the ERP. Essentially the OCD is trying to take over and it feels intense and worse. But it starts to help a bit. Definitely ask the therapist. Maybe some of the ERP exercises are too intense or something? I'm not sure. But this process is intense for sure. If you have other mental health issues too you might need to treat those separately. I might need to treat my depression separately as well.