For those who have OCD for decades and are ok

Hi, this is my first time posting. I have been dealing with OCD since I was about 10 years old. It has been almost 2 decades that I have had OCD. I for the most part am able to keep my OCD at bay and it does not bother me. In the past, I used to have very long OCD cycles that would take 6 months to a year to overcome. As I age, my obsessions change. Originally I was obsessed with accidents happening, then sexual orientation OCD when in high school and college, then relationship OCD as I was getting married. My OCD obsessions shift as I go through life to attach itself to something important to me at that time. As I think about having children with my spouse, POCD has been bothering me. Although I know my other OCD obsessions were just as terribly intrusive for me in the past, this one is just another level of horrible. I am already starting to feel better after practicing ERP on my own for 3 weeks. I feel like I am coming down the hump of OCD and just dealing with a few blips at the end before it hides away for a few years and then comes back out either with a new obsession or recycling an old one. For those who have had OCD for a long time like me, and for those with it for even longer and who consider themselves ok at treating themselves as it pops up, does it keep cycling forever? I read that it never goes away really but I am healthy enough to pull myself out of it when an obsession cycle comes. I am not particularly saddened by this as I had made peace with the fact that I have OCD and that it is a lifelong condition, but just wanted to hear from those that have had it for a long time. I think I am just looking for encouragement right now as I continue to disarm my OCD once again.

Nica

Date posted: 2y

My OCD started popping up around 4 years old when my mom noticed the symptoms (it helps that she’s a therapist) and she knew and then I eventually learned that that’s an extreme case of OCD. The younger a mental illness pops up, the more extreme and difficult it will be to get a handle on. And for many years it was out of control and I was barely living life; I was just surviving. But with intense ERP and other specialized therapies I needed to do, practicing mindfulness constnstly, exercising daily, getting on a daily and nightly schedule, limiting screen time, eating less carbs and sugar, and a bunch of other smaller lifestyle changes, I’ve been recovered and healed from ALL mental illnesses for 4 years now. But it took 6 years of intense, weekly therapy to get to this point. Is that a lot of hard work and money and time? Absolutely it is. But I’ve never been happier, all my mental illnesses are in repcerty mode and barely present, and if a huge stressor pops up and activated any or all of my mental illnesses again, I am 100% confident that I will handle it.

Pubbywomwom

Date posted: 2y

I have had OCD for 50 years. I had no clue until last year and I got help with NOCD. It has helped tremendously. My OCD jumped from theme to theme the whole time. Sometimes several themes at once. Get help if you can.

Oh okay

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 2y

You’re strong, keep doing what you’re doing. Eventually your brain will get tired of the exposures.

Scaredallday

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 2y

For me doing exposures everyday helps. Forcing myself to be triggered then dealing with it is easier for me. It's like I've one upped my ocd

Garrett Maguire

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 2y

I have had it for about 50 years, but never had treatment, until I started recently, so I guess what I'm saying is that untreated it won't get better on its own. But you sound like you have or are, getting help with it .

Pikkiper

Date posted: 2y

Thank you everyone for your replies. @Nica, your post makes me very happy to read. I am on the journey to getting better and better about resolving my flare ups quicker each time and that gives me a lot of hope!

Nica

Date posted: 2y

@Pikkiper You’re very welcome!

Anonymous

Date posted: 24w

Decades of OCD..confused about my next steps!!!

I have had ocd for decades! Could I still be cured???? (Of you can call it that?) I have seen different therapists but it never had fully left me...not by any stretch of the imagination. I do want to be free of this ocd and its power over me and all the bad that it brought into my life!!! Some days I am strong and feel like I am fighting it put other days...many days...I don't get things done or if I do I take a long time to-do the things I need to get done. I feel like I know this is just then ocd stopping me and that these are just thoughts but nobody in my family understands and though they have shared my journey and hated it a I do.....it just feels like I want so bad to be the best person I coukd be but I avoid places, people, things, that have any reminder of my ocd.......and so it restricts me from getting better and completing tasks the way I used to. Now UI might go and make 2-3 trips cuz I am worried to shop at a place and therefore it takes my time up. The avoidance I do is bad! When I actually don't listen to my ocd and don't avoid something...I feel great! ,However, it happens so rarely!!! I.dont know how finding a therapist through NOCD will help me. It is not in person and two be honest I almost think I need medicine to push me along. I don't have anybsteady and consistent improvements. However, I don't think I want to be on medication for the rest of my life! I am very confused!

Anonymous

Date posted: 16w

10 years in.

Hey folks, I know I shouldn’t post here and I know what I’m looking for when I do but I just feel so at a loss and OCD is playing the old trick of telling me I don’t have it which I guess is what it’s been doing for a while. My OCD started with a health obsession when I was 12 (I’m 22 now) but went away after a couple of months but didn’t present itself again until I was 17. I thought I had a degenerative disease and struggled with that day in and day out until I eventually accepted that I was going to die and made peace with it and then of course I kept living. OCD was pretty quiet for a few months after that. It would show itself when I had headaches and random aches and pains but it never hooked me as bad. Quite funny actually but I had a weird thing for a couple of months where every time I would go out for a drink I thought I’d wet myself so I’d stand in the bathroom for like 20-30 minutes at a time and that was multiple times across the night. Then in 2021, the theme shifted. I remember it distinctly, I was just lying in bed and a question appeared and that was it. My anxiety was really bad for about a year and then I met my girlfriend and we started dating. OCD went quiet until she moved to another city for university and I started to worry she was being unfaithful or didn’t love me anymore and things like that. With that obsession it kind of came to a head where I realised I either had to fully trust everything despite any doubt I felt or I’d lose her and so it just eventually started to pass. I’ve had a few occasions where I question my love for her and that really hurts because I’m pretty sure I’d be lost without her. That comes and goes though and it usually has to do with a general numbness that I feel after an OCD spike. The theme from 2021 (which I won’t say because I’m somehow worried that someone I know will see this and I will definitely wonder if people near me have seen this post despite it being pretty closed off.) never left but I was somehow able to put it to the back of my mind and get to a point where I was okay. I got a new job in 2024 at a point where I maybe was not ready. New place, new people and for the first 2 months or so it was fine. I even saw some potential triggers before they happened and did my best to ignore them. I got really drunk on a staff night out and when I woke up a lot of what ifs filled my head and I’ve been on my back since then. That brings us to now, my OCD has been pretty bad for about a year now but the weird part (and what I’m making this post about I guess) is that it feels different this time. I know that’s a super common phrase for people with OCD that therapists hear all the time and I have actually taken that piece of information as reassurance a few times over the years but it’s true. I feel so much more confused. I can’t even really explain it. It feels like my brain doesn’t engage or deny the obsession the same way as it used to and of course that makes me believe it’s real and I never actually had OCD. Instead, I’m left with thoughts that don’t give me that sharp feeling of anxiety that they used to and instead just leave me feeling super low and often angry just wishing it would go away. I think it’s probably because I’ve been at this for so long and had the same theme for years and so I’ve in a way habituated to the anxiety and that’s what rationally makes sense to me but like you all know, you can’t reason with this thing. It’s like it gives me just enough anxiety and depression to keep me on the hook and make it feel real but not enough send me into panic like it used to. I used to lie in bed, unable to get up and wishing that I was dead. I guess that now because I don’t feel that way, at least most of the time, my ocd is using that as a way to tell me I never really had it. Also I think I used to rely so heavily on reassurance but now know that I shouldn’t have it I try to avoid it. Without it though, it all feels real and I feel like eventually I will lose myself fully and that’s a fear that makes me feel unfathomably hopeless and makes me dread the future when I used to have dreams and hopes for myself that I looked forward to fulfilling. I don’t want to be big-headed, I just genuinely feel like I could’ve had a really great life and that’s gone now because of this thing. Anyway I just wanted to kind of use this post to get my head straight and map out something that I couldn’t quite explain effectively in therapy. I appreciate everyone who sees this but ask not to give me reassurance, I know we all empathise with each other but I’ve been at this long enough to know that it does none of us any good. I hope everyone is doing well, keep your head up. They tell me there’s a light at the end of this tunnel.

Optimistic

Date posted: 4w

Feeling overwhelmed by diagnosis

I am newly diagnosed with OCD as a 33 year old female I was fat oses with bipolar at 15 and never really identified with it much and totally relate to ocd. I wish i would have known long ago so I could have gotten treatment earlier. Now that I know and am aware and can see what’s off and what are compulsions and my insatiable need for reassurance it’s so overwhelming- it feels like my mind is a prison and attacks me with a new pure o quest as soon as I wake up I’m optimistic I’ll be able to get better but it just feels like it’s time sucking and joy stealing disorder I know I’m not alone here I feel like a crazy person replaying and replaying things I want to know if you can relate or if you have been at this for a while and actually feel like you are breaking free from this Thanks for the read

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