- Date posted
- 2y
Will I be the same person after ocd recovery?
I fear that I will be permanently changed if I recover from ocd and I will never be the same person again.
I fear that I will be permanently changed if I recover from ocd and I will never be the same person again.
Honestly I think that we can only be better humans after this ..
But I want to feel like me again. I feel like a stranger. I hate this feeling so much
I know how it feels trust me, I was about that age when it hit me , but I think that every person with or without ocd has to go through change to grow and than to come to him/her true self. There will be some bad , but also some really good days, stray strong.
I lived with OCD for so many years, it truly was/is part of my identity. I, too, had fears of who I would be after recovery. These fears are how OCD keeps us stuck. If we spend time thinking about who we are, will be etc. we are allowing OCD to control us with uncertainty. Don't let OCD trick you. As you move towards recovery, don't be surprised by the nagging doubts that you may have. The uncertainty, and learning to live with it (and not answer OCD's questions) is part of recovery and recovery will lead you back to who you really are. It did for me.
I actually felt like I wasn't me when my OCD was at its peak, and then after treatment and retraining myself to not do compulsions, I felt so much more like myself. I had that stranger feeling when my OCD was bad but now I don't feel that way so you might feel more like yourself actually.
You're 14, so you're not who you're supposed to be yet anyway. Your values and what you love won't change. Your personality won't change. What may change is your view of worrying, your thoughts, etc. But once you recover, and you will, you'll smile and laugh again and be yourself. None of us are who we used to be before the OCD took control. But we might be a better version. I feel for you.
You will be a person who can remain functional and happy with your life despite having anxious thoughts. That I think definitely is for good
I cant tolerate change, I hate it. I'm only 14
You're telling me I will be depersonalized for the rest if my life. I don't feel like me. In sorry but I want to go back
Looking back, I realize I’ve had OCD since I was 7. though I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 30. As a kid, I was consumed by fears I couldn’t explain: "What if God isn’t real? What happens when we die? How do I know I’m real?" These existential thoughts terrified me, and while everyone has them from time to time, I felt like they were consuming my life. By 12, I was having daily panic attacks about death and war, feeling untethered from reality as depersonalization and derealization set in. At 15, I turned to drinking, spending the next 15 years drunk, trying to escape my mind. I hated myself, struggled with my body, and my intrusive thoughts. Sobriety forced me to face it all head-on. In May 2022, I finally learned I had OCD. I remember the exact date: May 10th. Reading about it, I thought, "Oh my God, this is it. This explains everything." My main themes were existential OCD and self-harm intrusive thoughts. The self-harm fears were the hardest: "What if I kill myself? What if I lose control?" These thoughts terrified me because I didn’t want to die. ERP changed everything. At first, I thought, "You want me to confront my worst fears? Are you kidding me?" But ERP is gradual and done at your pace. My therapist taught me to lean into uncertainty instead of fighting it. She’d say, "Maybe you’ll kill yourself—who knows?" At first, it felt scary, but for OCD, it was freeing. Slowly, I realized my thoughts were just thoughts. ERP gave me my life back. I’m working again, I’m sober, and for the first time, I can imagine a future. If you’re scared to try ERP, I get it. But if you’re already living in fear, why not try a set of tools that can give you hope?
People who went from a really bad time with OCD to a better time now. Is it really possible? What was your theme? Did you take medication?
December 14, 2024, marked two years since my first ERP therapy session with my NOCD therapist, Mixi. And October 2024 marked a year of being free from OCD. It was not an easy journey, confronting my fears face to face. Exposing myself to the images and thoughts my brain kept throwing at me, accepting that I might be the worst mother, that my daughter wouldn’t love me, and that I deserved to be considered a bad person. It was challenging having to say, “Yes, I am those things,” feeling the desire to run, but realizing the thoughts followed me. At the start of my therapy, I remember feeling like I couldn’t do this anymore. Life felt unbearable, and I felt so weak. I longed for a time before the OCD, before the flare-ups, before the anxiety, the daily panic attacks. I thought I’d never be myself again. But I now know that ERP saved my life. The first couple of sessions were tough. I wasn’t fully present. I lied to my therapist about what my actual thoughts were, fearing judgment. I pretended that the exposures were working, but when the sessions ended, I went back to not sleeping, constantly overwhelmed by fear and anxiety. But my therapist never judged me. She made me feel safe to be honest with her. She understood OCD and never faltered in supporting me, even when I admitted I had been lying and still continued my compulsions. My biggest milestone in therapy was being 100% transparent with my therapist. That was when real change began. At first, I started small—simply reading the words that terrified me: "bad mom," "hated," "unloved." Then, I worked on listening to those words while doing dishes—not completely stopping my rumination, but noticing it. Just 15 minutes, my therapist said. It wasn’t easy. At one point, I found myself thinking, “Will I ever feel like myself again?” But I kept pushing through. Slowly, I built tolerance and moved to face-to-face exposures—sitting alone with my daughter, leaning into the thought that my siblings might die, reading articles about my worst fears, and calling myself the things I feared. Each session was challenging, but with time, the thoughts started to lose their grip. By my eleventh session, I started to realize: OCD was here, and it wasn’t going away, but I could keep living my life despite it. I didn’t need to wait for it to be quiet or go away to move on. Slowly, it began to quiet down, and I started to feel like myself again. In fact, I am not my old self anymore—I’m a better version. OCD hasn’t completely disappeared, but it’s quieter now. Most of the time, it doesn’t speak, and when it does, I know how to handle it. The last session with my therapist was emotional. I cried because I was finishing therapy. I remember how, in the beginning, I cried because I thought it was just starting—because I was overwhelmed and terrified. But at the end, I cried because I was sad it was ending. It felt like I had come so far, and part of me wasn’t ready to say goodbye, even though I had already learned so much. It was a bittersweet moment, but I knew I was walking away stronger, equipped with the tools to handle OCD on my own. If I could change anything about my journey, it would be being open and honest from the beginning. It was the key to finding true healing. The transparency, the honesty—it opened the door to lasting change. I’m no longer that person who was stuck in constant panic. I’m someone who has fought and survived, and while OCD still appears from time to time, I know it doesn’t define me. I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments. Have you started therapy, is something holding you back? Is there something you want to know about ERP therapy? I'll be live in the app answering each and every one today from 6-7pm EST. Please drop them below!
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