Has anyone recovered?

It’s chronic and there’s no cure, but you can absolutely recover! I’ve been recovered for 4 years now 😉

Yes I agree with the above. I went 10 years of symptom free but PTSD triggered mine. So OCD will always be there, just depends on how you react to it and what triggers it at the time.

‘Chronic’ refers to a condition that doesn’t have a cure, but it can be still be treated and managed :) I went years with minor symptoms but that was bc I didn’t know I had OCD back then so I just ignored it 🥲

I had suicide-oriented OCD from about the age of 13. Almost no information about this subset of mental illness existed back then — and I was young, I had no one to turn to, I naturally assumed I was going crazy. I had breakdowns in the school bathroom weekly. I had rich, detailed, near-hallucinogenic intrusive thoughts about how my life would end and how my family would suffer. Finally I broke down and explained everything to my mother (I was so scared to do this because my worst fear was that she would misinterpret me and believe I WAS suicidal, which would reinforce my fear that I was going to end up killing myself.) I don’t know that she fully understood what was going on in my brain, but she knew that there was something severely wrong and that I needed help. She set me up with my first therapist at the age of 14 or 15, can’t remember exactly when, and that therapist was a true saint. At 5’9” I stood almost a foot taller than her, but she was my savior. She recognized in me what no online literature at the time had been able to reveal: that my thoughts were symptomatic of a negative neurological pattern, that they didn’t belong to me nor fit my persona, that BECAUSE I was so frightened by these thoughts, it actually proved that I was the least likely person to commit such behavior. I can’t tell you that realization fixed me or cured me from the start, but it laid the first and most important stepping stone on the journey to recovery. I continued to have very bad days. I continued to spiral at times and grit my teeth through class and interactions with friends and family that should’ve been joyful. And despite this tiny therapist, who was never afraid to be brutally tough on me and wake me up to reality when I’d been living in delusion for so long, I attended every single session. And years passed. She recommended me a book called “You Are Not Your Brain”. I’d always been hyper-critical of self-help books, so I read it with the most skeptical of eyes. Four chapters later, I had the tools to improve by leaps and bounds. I admit, I’ve never finished the book to this day. Seeing my condition laid out flat with graphs and neuroscience and research studies put into perspective how what I was living in wasn’t reality, just a misfiring of neurons that was fully capable of being remedied through HARD, intensive work and the power of neuroplasticity. By the time I hit college, I was 75% improved. I had two more breakdowns, once in freshman year and once as a sophomore, the latter of which was the worst I’d ever had. (My parents picked me up from my dorm to take me to stay with them a night at an Airbnb on a farm far out of town. I cried at dinner and couldn’t touch my food, could barely speak. The night was dark and the road to the farmhouse narrow and dim. It did nothing to assuage my anxiety. The bed seemed full of bedbugs). But I was strong enough to push through it because of all the foundations I’d built up in my past, through therapy and reading and learning about my disorder and hard ass work. That night I cried very hard until I couldn’t cry anymore, and fell asleep. And I made it out of that night to see the morning on the other side (chickens ran about, the sun rose over a well-tended green hill, our hosts cooked us breakfasts with eggs and bacon, goat bleated and crickets chirped). That morning was the beginning of the rest of my life. I haven’t had a single breakdown or intrusive thought since then — and don’t let ANYONE say that it was because I was never incredibly ill in the first place. My late childhood was made hell because of the suffering my mind brought upon me. But you can absolutely fix yourself. My advice to anyone who went through what I did would be the following: be honest with your loved ones, find clinical help (medicine is good, I found moderate success with sertraline, medicine AND therapy is much better), open your mind to any and all treatment options no matter how much you think they won’t work for you, research intensively, connect with nature throughout your recovery process, and don’t let continued hardships prevent you from noticing the progress you’ve made. You climb out of mental illness one ladder rung at a time, and it’s normal to slip multiple times in the process. It doesn’t mean you’re not getting better. I am living proof that the worst among us can become well-adjusted and happy adults. Be kind to yourself. I love you and am so sorry you have to take this journey, but you can do this.

Most people agree it's chronic and there's no "cure" but that people can go years with minimal symptoms. I myself went through about 8 years of being nearly symptom free, and that was before official treatment. Hoping i can to longer now that I'm getting official erp

My longest recovery was about 5 years.

I’ve been in recovery for 7 years (same theme as you). It’s still something I live with, but it doesn’t bother me anymore. I’m in the best place I’ve ever been- newly married, two years at a job I love, baby on the way. Sometimes I can go several years without having any symptoms. This is chronic, but it can get better.

I've entered remission for about 6 months but I didn't keep up with my exposures so I did relapse. There will be relief!