Hello I am a full time therapist working with NOCD. I have a brother with OCD. I wish EPR was available or more know when he was younger. It works, I see this every day with the members I work with and how they regain their lives. It is hard work and challenging but know that you are brave and can do this. Each little step you take is progress. Don't let OCD be a bully you can show OCD who is boss. It will be challenging there will be highs and lows. Remember to practice good self care and self compassion. You can do this and you can move forward. We also have support groups that can provide additional support. They are listed on this app. I facilitate the moms with ocd support group on Tuesday and Thursday. The support groups have others who have experienced the challenges of OCD and understand. Have a great weekend. Thank you for the opportunity that you give us therapists to work with you and the courage you show.

I am FINALLY starting to (somewhat) recover from this last existential spiral, which admittedly, was probably the cruelest my OCD has ever been to me. Only thanks to you all. You were all able to provide me with kindness, understanding and support… without the kind of reassurance that feeds OCD, of course. When I downloaded this app, I was genuinely terrified. I was so scared that I was permanently doomed to the endless whirlpool that is the thoughts produced by my own brain and that life as I knew it was over, that I would never be happy again. For anyone who might be feeling that way right now, your OCD is LYING to you! Whatever you may be going through, it CAN get better. As hard as it may be right now, HAVE FAITH! Get up and do that thing you want to do in spite of the fear and discomfort. Take the fear with you like a whiny, unwilling toddler and do it anyway. Watch the movie, read the book, order that takeout you’ve been craving, bake the cake, wash the dishes… Please do it anyway! It will be hard at first, I won’t lie. But the OCD part of your brain, like a toxic partner, WANTS to win. It wants you to give up on those things that you love, all those things that make you happy so that there’s no space for anything but itself. Don’t let it win. The more you push yourself, the more you rewire your brain to realize that as much as it may feel like, the obsession doesn’t matter! Thanks to you all, even without therapy (YET - I’m starting that journey on Tuesday because there’s still a lot to unpack, and I know that OCD won’t just magically go away), I was able to get a basic understanding of ERP and learning to sit with discomfort and how to live life in spite of it, rather than letting it take over my very being. So for that, I thank this community. I think I would be in a very different place right now if it weren’t for the people I’ve met here who truly understood my experiences. I hope you have a wonderful day. Please don’t give up. You deserve to be happy, no matter what your brain is telling you ❤️

I had just posted a summary of ERP for a group member, and I thought it might be useful for everybody. Here it is below (with a little extra added)…. ERP therapy is researched-based. Most other therapies don’t work. There have been people who have been literally stuck in their houses (from their OCD) who gained their lives back through ERP therapy. NOCD does ERP therapy exclusively. You can find it in other places too, but you have to ask around. There are two tenants of ERP therapy: The first one has to do with the repetitive thoughts inside our heads. These thoughts are actually defined as “obsessions”. You are not supposed to do anything with the obsessions. You are supposed to let them run through your head freely, without trying to fix them or stop them. Imagine a tree planted by a river. The leaves fall off and float down the river. You can see the leaves falling, but you don’t try to stop them or pick them up. You don’t try to fix them. You just let them float away. This is really important to do with your obsessive thoughts. The more you try to fight them off, the worse they get. I used to have blasphemous sentences running in my head 24/7. I felt like I had to put a “not” next to each sentence in order to “fix” it. But this just took hours of my time every day, and it was very scary, because I was worried that if I messed up, that I would go to hell. It was very freeing to learn later that I could just let those sentences run freely through my head without trying to fix them. The second part of ERP therapy is all about “denying your compulsions.” Every time OCD tells you that if you don’t do things a certain way that something really bad will happen, that is a compulsion. Once you recognize what your compulsions are, ERP therapy will have you practice stopping doing all of those things. For some people, that will mean stopping washing their hands or touching lights switches or, in my case, putting “fixing” words in their head. Compulsions are safety behaviors. During ERP therapy, you will practice stopping engaging with safety behaviors. All this is very hard to do and scary, so during therapy you will be given tools to help you deal with the fear. Often ERP therapy will take people from being non-functional to functional. I highly recommend it. ————————————————- PITFALL #1: After you have been doing ERP for a while and become somewhat successful, the OCD will try subtle little tricks to bring you down again. The first one is to tell you that your thoughts are REAL and not OCD, and therefore you can’t apply ERP therapy. Don’t fall for this trick! All thoughts are just thoughts. They are all meaningless. Don’t try to figure out what is real and what is OCD. Just treat all thoughts with ERP therapy. PITFALL #2: The second pitfall is that OCD will tell you that you can’t move forward unless you have absolute certainty that you will be safe. Hate to tell you this, folks, but there is no certainty in life. You will never know for SURE that you or your loved ones will be “safe” from the OCD rules. Therefore, you have to move forward in the uncertainty. It’s hard, but it gets easier with time and practice. We got this, guys !!!!!!

To my dear OCD friends, I just want to take a moment to say how grateful I am to know each of you. Your courage, honesty, and support have meant more to me than you know. In the trenches of this struggle, it’s easy to feel alone, but then you all show up (raw, real, and brave) and remind me what strength truly looks like. Some days the emotions hit like a wave, or like a distressed baby crying out for comfort. And instead of pushing that pain away, we’ve learned to sit with it. To cradle it. To breathe with it. To say, “You’re allowed to be here, and I won’t run.” That is powerful. That is healing. Exposures are not just tools, they’re acts of defiance. Each time we step toward our core fears instead of away from them, we’re not just surviving… we’re becoming ocdemonslayers. We’re refusing to let a false alarm dictate our worth or our reality. That’s no small thing. Please remember: nothing in this life is worth ending it early. The storm feels so loud sometimes, but storms do pass. Life has seasons, and the darkest ones are often followed by the most beautiful dawns. Hold on. You are not your thoughts. You are not alone. God is good through it all; in the fear, in the doubt, in the healing, in the stillness. Even when we can’t feel it, His grace holds us steady. He sees the battle and walks it with us. I’m truly happy to know all of you. Thank you for being part of this fight with me. With love, Salad #ocdemonslayers