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Blazed, hello. I am truly happy to see you are ocd conqueror. Congratulations!

Hi. It's been a hard week, but it's getting better. Thank you. How are you? What is life like once ocd is under control? Was the journey difficult? I am so glad you made it.

Hello, Blazed. First of all, I apologize for my late reply. I read your post immediately, but postponed answering due to 2 of my 3 cats having diarrhea and vomiting for the first time in 10 years. I was really worried. I got some medicine from a vet and yesterday one of the 2 started getting better. Except for being tired from it all and longing for wet cat food (he only ate dry good and water), he is fine. I hope. But the girl is not yet OK. Better but not ok. She refuses to take the medicine so 3x a day it's war, her against me, the battle of wits. She is super smart. No matter what I do to hide the medicine, she figures it out somehow. The medicine is actually a paste. No biggie to swallow. The other one just opens his mouth and takes it. Thank you for your support and offer to listen. Thank you a lot. These days I've put everything aside and worried about the cats, but I am sure as soon as they both are better and I have a reason to be happy, ocd will strike again. The more time one has to think, the bigger chunk of thoughts ocd claims. I am sorry your journey was very difficult. I am happy, though, that it went from the center of attention to the background. I am so afraid of ERP. I am not sure if I am capable of doing it. There is no therapist in this country who really specializes in ocd. Many of them claim to be, but actually have no formal education in ocd. Because they are therapists or psychologists, they think they are able to treat any disorder, and ocd is just one of them. They know less than a person who suffers from ocd and they fight you if you tell them they don't understand it correctly or that their approach is not appropriate or is more damaging than helpful. I complain about the lack of ocd therapists here, but deep down inside of me, I know I am actually also relieved, because that gives me an excuse for not doing ERP. I am petrified of it. Petrified of letting out what I have pushed down for so many years. I am not sure I can survive that. I have never had any support in my life. In no field in my life. Especially ocd. Everyone either turned their backs on me or treated me like I was worthless. . Close family even tormented me. No motherly love, no support, a lot of criticism and labeling (nuts, weird, crazy,...). Well they have not been a part of my life for the majority of my life. My decision. I literally ran away from them all. A matter of survival. They even tried forcefully to hospitalize me, just because I didn't want to socialize with their visitors. . My mother had a lot of visits on daily basis. No place for me to study, to have piece and quiet,.. Then there vere sibling's visits,... I refused to see them and told my parents I hated that. We lived in a 2 bedroom apartment. 4 people. Visits non stop. But I was despite that expected to do really well at school. Only As we're good enough for them. I developed learning difficulties, had a feeling I couldn't remember anything. Had to learn all nights long because that was the only time when it was quiet at home. I was exhausted at school. OCD came to help and protect me. Told me people who disrupted my piece and quiet every day weree bad luck and I had to do compulsions, like standing in a certain spot or sitting on a particular chair and not doing certain school things or doing certain things when they were in our home, while at the same time believing that if I strictly follow the compulsions, they would leave my home sooner That was the reason my family hated me, insulted me constantly, put me down every chance they had alone with me and wanted to forcefully hospitalize me. One day, out of the blue, they brought home a doctor and two men in white and they wanted to take me away. By force. I was shocked. Terrified. I demanded a private talk with the doctor or I threatened to sue them and my parents, so the doctor took the time. I explained everything to her, even told her my father tried to strangle me for saying it would be a lot easier if he cut down on drinking, told her about my mother's magical rituals to ruin me, about what was going on with me ( at that time I had never heard about ocd). The doctor told me, I should find a way to get as far away from my family as possible and left me her phone number to call her 24/7 if they tried to hurt me again while still living there. She threatened my parents to leave me alone and she and the 2 men left. My ocd got weirder and harder through the years. I was alone in the world for years. Always in the state of fear and anxiety about each and every day. I could rely only on me and my ocd. But then I met my future husband. I had some disappointments from him and his family in the beginning. It's fine now. My ocd occurred again, stronger, telling me it was my only friend, protector, my only family. And then my husband and his family really had no idea what was going on. I cried a lot, felt lost and lonely. Completely depressed. Years later I looked for help. I have found a couple of psychiatrists who had/have no ideas about ocd. They just gave me pills and one forced me to go out in the world and expose myself to my worst fears. No support, no gradual exposures, just fold turkey into it. I would have rather died than done that. Now again I have a psychologist who wants to do ERP with me, but has no expertise in ERP nor experience. She sends me home to do exposures. We never do anything together. I have realized that I just don't tell her about my most important obsessions and compulsions. I can do small unimportant exposures on my own. But the real ones, the ones that are ruining my life, I can't imagine doing at all, and no way on my own with no support. I feel completely alone, lonely and unsupported by her. So that is why I am afraid I am not capable of doing ERP. I am emotionally depleted. I am not sure if I am capable to emotionally open up again and survive it. I suffer from mental or emotional ocd with features of magical thinking ocd and disgust ocd. Disgust because of thought contamination. My triggers are abusive, inconsiderate, narcissistic people. One at the time, but it spreads to every person they are connected with, to places they go to, to the things they like. It takes away almost everything in my life. It took. Now with medication it is a lot better. At least I can go out of my home and do stuff. How do you work on depression? That is an issue with me as well. More and more so. Hopelessness, emptiness, emotional dullness and pain at the same time, desperation, being exhausted all the time. I am so sorry you are still suffering with depression. I guess ocd and depressions are sort of a family and like to occur at the same time. If you ever need to talk, to get some of the stress, worries, depression off of your shoulders, I will gladly listen. I probably am not much of a help to anyone since I don't even know how to handle my own life, but I will be here for you. I hope this week has been kinder to you. I do admire you for having the strength to work on yourself against ocd and depression. No matter how bad it gets, you are a strong person. Ocd already knows that. Now you need to make depression realize you are the boss. How? I don't know. I guess the way that feels best to you. When I am really down, I find a page with jokes on the internet and read like a hundred of them hoping I find a few that will make me smile or even laugh. For an hour or so I see the world from a nicer perspective. I wish you a wonderful day full of relaxation, joy and most of all fully carefree. I am sure that will make your ocd and depression really depressed. 😉😁☀️