I am new to NODC and starting therapy this Tuesday. I am excited but very anxious and honestly a bit triggered about starting and making my symptoms worse (on top of my other current triggers). I hoping for some positive vibes and the ability to take back control. All of my issues are mental obsessions and compulsions in various categories of OCD. Any good insight would be much appreciated!
I am so proud you are starting therapy. It’s a wonderful step forward. I also have mental obsessions and compulsions. My advice for you is to be honest with your therapist about how you feel, and what intrusive thoughts you have and how you respond to them. It’s normal for your anxiety and symptoms to spike up right now, before you start tackling them. I’ve been with NOCD for over a year, and I’ve felt so many emotions, and have struggled a lot. This is the nature of having OCD. But keep doing the work, keep practicing sitting in discomfort, and it will pay off, and you will have a handle on your OCD. There are also wonderful NOCD run support groups you can attend. Best of luck on your journey, you can do this.
@Anonymous Thank you so much!
Welcome!! So glad you are here! I recommend trying to be patient and compassionate with yourself (which includes accepting that there are good days and less good days in the recovery process). If you have any questions about the process or fit with your therapist or how to talk with your therapist, the Member Advocates Team (under the messages section of the app) are all amazing, kind, and so helpful. They’ve helped me a number of times. And of course, this area of the app where all of us are going through therapy is a great resource too 😊
@Hobbit Thank you so much. It’s a scary idea to get help and possibly making things worse so I appreciate the advice.
@Anonymous I totally get it. I was in a similar place six months ago (afraid of ERP, worried it wouldn’t help, wondering whether I even had OCD, etc). You are not alone and we are all here cheering you on ❤️
@Hobbit How are you doing 6 months in?
@Anonymous Good! thank you for asking! It’s a helpful reminder for me to look back and celebrate my progress ☺️ I’ve made lots of progress in my understanding of my OCD— what all my themes are and how OCD tends to show up and sound like for me. I’ve also learned tools to manage my OCD (rather than making it worse). I still have a long way to go, but I’m so glad I’m on this ERP/therapy journey (rather than avoiding it). Keep in mind, everyone’s journeys look different (for some, they make progress relatively quickly — for others, it’s a longer process).
So glad you are here.
I started today and feel the same. You’re not alone. Go us 🙌
Hi, this is my first time posting here, though I have been looking at the app for support for a while already. I have pretty bad social anxiety which unfortunately extends to even being in forums online as well, so I have been putting off sharing on here. I am in my early 40s and have struggled with OCD in various forms since I was a child. In my mid-teens it exploded into very tormenting Pure O. It is complicated by some comorbidity with other diagnoses — social and generalized anxiety, depression, and CPTSD. The sad thing is that I’ve actually experienced so much harm over the years at the hands of uneducated mental health professionals who didn’t have a clue about OCD or how to work with it, and i feel like I carry this extra burden of shame and trauma from those bad experiences on top of the grueling daily struggle I have with my mental health diagnoses. I am set up to have an initial consultation appointment soon with a therapist who is a psychologist in private practice. They seem kind and very knowledgeable, and so I am very hopeful that we will be a good fit for working together. But I am still haunted by those past bad experiences, and so the whole process of starting with someone new is nerve wracking. Has anyone else had bad experiences with therapists who didn’t understand OCD or who had only a superficial understanding of it? Thanks for reading!
Today I start my first session of ERP with an NOCD therapist! Iam very excited but a little scared! Could you share your good outcomes after ERP? Thank you 🙏
Hi there. This post may be a little lengthy so apologies in advance! I’m relatively new to NOCD. I’m currently on my 3rd week of counseling for ROCD. I’ve been dealing with ROCD on and off since the summer of 2020. My initial dealings with ROCD in 2020 left me bed-ridden for weeks, not wanting to eat or drink anything - just wanting to sleep it all away. It got to the point where I couldn’t decipher if what I was thinking were my true thoughts or my anxiety. From the moment I woke up until the moment I fell asleep. I was truly a prisoner of my own mind. It was such a painful and heartbreaking experience not only for myself, but for my fiancé and mother to witness as we didn’t know anything of ROCD then. It got to the point where for the first time in my life I voiced aloud wanting to die - just so I could shut my brain off and have peace. Since then I’ve been placed on medication and have been in and out of therapy. Until finding NOCD, I always felt therapists in my town (a small, southern part of the US) just didn’t quite understand what I was dealing with. I’m happy to be here on NOCD and giving ERP a try. It’s definitely different from any other therapy I’ve received in the past… but sometimes the sessions can be triggering. I’m currently dealing with a “flare up” right now. I constantly feel as if I have one foot out the door in my relationship. I constantly think of people from my past. Two in particular. I chalk it up to never having closure (maybe?)… but then I’ll have intrusive thoughts. Playing out scenarios in my mind, making myself anxious and doubting my current relationship - knowing that the odds of these scenarios actually happening in real life are practically non-existent. I’m triggered by topics of marriage, couples that we’re friends with being on the outs, etc. It’s so painful to deal with. I say ALL of this to say, other than meeting with my NOCD therapist, I’ve considered doing the group ROCD therapy that meets every Wednesday via the app… but I’m really anxious about it. All because of this belief that if I speak what I’m going through into existence, then it’s true. I’ve also never shared my story face to face with people in a public setting like that before. I tend to be pretty private. I’m able to post this because for those who see it, you don’t know who I am and you cannot see me and vice versa. So, if anyone’s ever sat in on a group NOCD therapy session - would you be so kind as to give your girl some relief or tips to approaching it for the first time? I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you!
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