Two rounds of CBT and an intensive treatment, yet I’m still on the severe end of OCD. Is there any hope?

Have you considered if there's any secondary gains to your OCD? I know I've tried lots in the past to no avail, but have recently been exploring the possibility that I might be clinging to my OCD because it benefits me in some strange twisted way, and if you can find the secondary gain you can work to mitigate it. If you haven't already done so I'd recommend doing a bit of googling around secondary gains to see if anything resonates with you. If not then sometimes it can just be a case of finding the right therapist

ERP is the gold standard to treat ocd. Traditional talk therapy will not fix OCD. Act, DBT, and some cbt skills can be helpful additions but exposure therapy (ERP) is what will treat ocd.

See, I’ve done all of that in my CBT rounds. And nothing has worked. I’ve started like other stuff and nothing worked

Interesting! Did it work at all like any improvements? I'm doing ERP now and have been for awhile. My OCD is still pretty bad but definitely better than it was starting.

Nope nothing has worked. The specialist clinic in the UK has given up on me

Question, did you do the exposures but weren't able to stop doing compulsions outside of exposure work?

I did the exposures all the time, my anxiety never went down. I didn’t do compulsions but my anxiety was so bad I’d have panic attacks and stuff

Were you still ruminating when doing the exposures? Rumination is like a mental compulsion. I hope I'm not coming across harsh I'm genuinely interested.

Sometimes it doesn't work because the exposures aren't designed correctly to target your obsessions. Other times it could be that you are engaging in mental compulsions that you aren't aware are even compulsions and that is the hang-up. But for a minority of people, they won't improve significantly even with a properly designed ERP program that they are doing correctly. Have you also tried medication and deep TMS? There are also second and third line medications that are helpful to some. Those options could offer some symptom reduction. There are also variants of psychosurgery that have benefited people who did not get relief from ERP, medications, and deep TMS.

Could you share more about deep TMS? I have not heard of it before.

Search for Brainsway. They have videos and more on their website explaining it. It's a very non-invasive treatment with virtually no side effect potential, but it is newer so it isn't widely covered by insurance yet. I don't know what the situation is where you live.

Great thanks I'll look it up

Thank you so much guys, I wasn’t expecting the replies!! ❤️