Dear NOCD Community,  I hope all of you are well and enjoying the start to your summer!  As NOCD has grown over the past few years, my team and I have spent considerable time searching the internet for feedback about NOCD Therapy, our OCD-specific telehealth service, in the hopes of continuously learning how it’s impacting people in the community.  While going through this process, we also continuously noticed the number of prospective NOCD Therapy members doing the same: people are searching the internet high and low to find information about NOCD Therapy, to see if they should sign up or not. It felt like a pretty cumbersome experience for such an important decision.  For many products and services today, you can easily go to places like Google, Amazon, or Yelp to read reviews about their quality; whereas for virtual-first mental health services (including ours), you have to sift through company marketing materials and seemingly dozens of sites just to see what people really have to say about them.  We need to change that. We need to give people seeking help an easy way to see a completely transparent snapshot of what virtual therapy services are like in one central location. Then, people seeking help should be empowered to sign up or not based on real feedback, company responses to feedback, and peer-reviewed clinical research. This will allow people needing help to make completely informed decisions about treatment before starting, and will allow virtual therapy service providers to get comprehensive feedback about the care they are offering much faster. Sometimes the feedback will be productive, and other times it will give us an opportunity to respond and address misunderstandings or inaccurate information. With feedback, companies like NOCD can learn quickly to “pivot or persevere” accordingly, creating a dynamic that ultimately benefits the people who are seeking care long-term.  To take action, given our company’s member-first and extreme ownership values, NOCD has taken a stance to put all unfiltered feedback that we receive on our website in our reviews section. Our hope is that people in the OCD community can get a transparent view of NOCD Therapy in one location, and we also hope to learn from feedback more quickly and easily. Knowing what does and doesn’t work is the only way for us to ensure that we can drive high-quality outcomes long-term. Our team is in it for the long haul, since we are composed of people with OCD, numerous providers who have served the OCD community for decades, and friends and supporters of both groups.  You can see all NOCD Therapy reviews here: https://learn.nocd.com/community_reviews  If you are a NOCD Therapy member, we encourage you to share your experience with the rest of the community, and we welcome all reviews.  If you have questions or feedback that you’d like to share with me personally, please feel free to contact me directly at stephen@nocdhelp.com. I try to answer all emails.  Sincerely, Stephen Smith Co-founder and CEO

Hello! I am trying out and looking to partake in therapy, but I literally don’t know what is good. So could use some personal perspectives. Thanks

As the Chief Clinical Officer at NOCD, I like to check in with our community when we enter a new season, especially knowing how OCD responds to change. The arrival of spring can bring many changes—longer days, increased activity, and breaks from school or work. These shifts from the pace of winter can be refreshing, but they can also affect our energy, emotions, and stress levels. As a result, OCD symptoms tend to ebb and flow during this season, just as they can during any time of change. I encourage you to pause and check in with yourself in these early days of spring. If you're noticing OCD feeling more intense, know that you're not alone. Instead of judging these feelings, try to focus on how you respond to them—because no matter how OCD is showing up, there are tools and support to help you through it. Here in the NOCD Community, you're surrounded by people who relate, who care, and who are rooting for you. I hope you'll lean on your support system and seek care if you're feeling stuck or overwhelmed. Therapy can be a powerful way to gain skills for navigating life's changes, and our team is always here when you're ready to take the next step. Have you noticed any changes in your OCD as we enter spring? How are you managing them?

Good morning to my fellow community members ☕️ I hope everyone reading this is having an enjoyable summer to the best of their abilities 🌞 After responding to a post of mine from three years ago that someone just commented on; I wanted to take the time to put myself out there and share a brief update on where I’m at in both my recovery and remission status. Overall, I’m in a night and day different place with my OCD from three years ago and I’m thankful, grateful and blessed for that 🙏 Many factors have come into play in order for me to be where I’m at today and able to write this very post 💯 However, I have been met with trials and tribulations along the way and it’s been a very challenging process, but I’ve done my best along the way to take each year on with both stride and grace ☮️ And so, I wanted to speak on as of very recently; not going over my entire journey over the past few years. Hence, the title of this post being “Harm OCD Spike” and it’s exactly that. For me, it’s minimal, but it might be major for someone else who is experiencing Harm OCD and so I wanted to share it with you all and let everyone know that no matter where we’re at in our OCD journeys; unfortunately, it’s never going to be 100% perfect because as we all know; nothing in life is ever 100% perfect and that’s just the reality and that’s entirely okay ✅ It’s a tough pill to swallow in general, but especially for someone like me who has been challenged by the subtype of Perfectionism since my teenage years as well. And so, yes; as of late I have noticed a very-slight increase of random Harm OCD thoughts. Very similar and very comparable to others from throughout my past dealing with Harm OCD. That said, I’m aware of them; I don’t at all like the fact that they’ve sporadically presented themselves, but I’m not at all going to beat myself up about them the way I once did and let’s use “Three years ago” for example (referencing the intro to this post) and that in it and of itself is a win 💪 I’ve acknowledged these few random thoughts that have presented themselves based upon now known triggers. And as we all know; anyone, anything, anytime and at any place can trigger us and that also entirely okay because OCD is not specific when it comes to subtypes nor triggers 📢 No one nor anything is off limits when it comes to OCD and as unfortunate as that may be; it’s the factual reality that we all have to acknowledge, accept and embrace 📶 And again, entirely okay 👍 In conclusion, regardless of your random harm thought, the anxiety that comes to follow, the rumination after that, the want to perform compulsions; whether they’re mental and/or physical that we all experience and/or the assurance seeking that we all feel that we both want and need both in that moment and sometimes even after the fact; the fact of the matter is that no matter where we’re at in our journeys, this is ultimately what happens when having to live with this mental disorder/illness and that’s also entirely okay 🫶 I wish, hope and pray each and every single day since formally being diagnosed years ago that one day a 100% cure will be either discovered or made for us, but until if/when that day comes and God willing it does; we all have each other and our entire community with resources like the life changing/saving NOCD, etc. And THAT’S, what needs to be highlighted and focused in on 💛 Not the overall amount of time that OCD either attempts and/or does steal from us 💔 Why? Because we’re stronger than that! We deserve better than that! And we will continue to fight ourselves and our lives because we all owe it to, ourselves 💗 Sending love, compassion and support to all those suffering from the monster and battling the beast that is OCD 💌