- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 1y
My story so far
My journey so far My OCD or obsessive compulsive disorder is a diagnoses that 1 in 200 people suffer with. It may feel like you are in a tsunami and your feet are just barely touching the ground you are trying to regain control and failing miserably the strategy I am about to teach you will be your drain to lower the water so that you may stand. Itâs called ERP it stands for exposure response prevention it stinks it really stinks but it really helps too. ERP is simple once you have your fears down think of something that scares you, not being loved,public speaking, or even losing control. For my demonstration I will be using the common fear of spiders letâs say you are deathly afraid of spiders you would first write a story âI was put in a box filled with spiders they started crawling over me and I couldnât breathâ you would record that and listen to it until your anxiety went down by half then you would do something else like look at a picture of a spider! If you are ready to amp it up then you might even go to the zoo and see a tarantula! You should do ERP 15 minutes a day every day and then consult your therapist and drop it down maybe 15 minutes a day every two days or every three days! Still itâs important that it doesnât feel like you have to do it every day exactly than your OCD will feed into it so switch it up! Some things that really helped me were by exercises like controlled breathing, deep breaths and 54321. I will list three helpful strategies: 1 deep breathing in out in and out 2 spaghetti toes this is where you thence your entire body up make your legs as straight as birds and squeeze everything tightly then release 3 54321 this relaxes the mind the idea of 54321 is to list 5 things you see, 4 things you can feel, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste (it can be your spit)! The things that really turns my life around were NOCD and Rogers both are OCD programs and they are amazing! I would like to say a spiral thanks to my family and especially my mom to be honest I wouldnât be here with out her. This is the letter that I wrote to the NOCD community after I finished therapy: I was diagnosed with OCD summer of fourth grade I donât remember my reaction to the news but I did give a presentation on my OCD to my entire class which was NERVE-RACKING!!! I had several therapists before NOCD one who worked with anxiety not OCD and some others that I might have been too silly for! And once I went to a program called rogers which was where I first learned about ERP I even chewed up goldfish and swished my mouth with water and made gagging sounds as I spat it out in the trash can! They asked me if I had any other fears other than the one I had listed and I felt pressured to say one so I made one up! I said that I was afraid of being locked in the bathroom alone in the dark and letâs just say I learned my lesson by devolving a new fear of being locked in the bathroom in the dark, oops! Then we found NOCD and things just improved so so SO much and they keep improving thanks to the people at NOCD so thank you (for everything and so much more). I will warn you that OCD never goes away completely but you can learn to live with it like I have. At rogers I found more than my emotional freedom I found a community if was surrounded by kids my age who had OCD too I will never be able to describe what that wonderful feeling was. A year or so later I found out that my close friend had OCD too I was shell shocked from then until the end of the class all I wanted to do was to talk to him eventually I worked up the courage and told him âI donât know if you know this but I have OCD tooâ he then replied âyeah it gets really hard sometimesâ I told him âyeahâ. That was the end of our conversation I wish I had talked to him more but I missed it. I have found out some of my other friend and even my frenemy had OCD too who would have thought!