I need more recovery story’s

Hi! I’m still on my own journey and still have days where I struggle but my ocd has gotten immensely more manageable since I started taking a different medication and supplements that support my system such as iron, NAC, glycine, and myoinosital. NAC has been scientifically proven to help ocd symptoms and it’s really working for me. Just remember my friend that healing is not linear. You won’t always be happy but you also won’t always be sad. The key is finding a balance in the middle that is manageable. I’m always open to talk if you need it!

A tricky thing to recovery is not seeking reassurance and yet without hope found from reassurance we have a hard time recovering. I’m still on the journey myself, but a small victory happened today. I went woodcutting with my bro and his boy. I feared handling my chainsaw around them but managed to get through without intrusive thoughts debilitating me.

I got better. Faster than stats indicate you can. I'll try bullet point the steps I personally used as I can talk for ever on it. - background: my ocd was triggered by a traumatic accident when I was 6 on my little brothers birthday. My ocd got stronger and stronger followed by other key events that only reinforced my ocd. I had this undiagnosed for 27 years. I was trying to figure out what was wrong with me since my teen years as I knew I wasn't quite right, or everyone else wasn't. Met a woman, she became my best friend and I could tell she saw something in me and tried helping. She helped me discover I had ocd. I was looking to get therapy and fell in love with her in the mean time. I lost her before my second session. My compulsions were too much and I don't blame her at all for this. I did resent her for ditching me, but don't anymore. (very basic summary). - in my early 20s I believe I hit remission accidentally for about 6 months. I didn't know I had ocd at the time but it felt weird in that period. I did CBT therapy which led to that. My mind was so used to racing around and I felt like a zombie in comparison, but that was actually me being better as I was doing more in my life than I ever did before. Was in a band and hitting the gym hard, work was fine etc. I didn't realise this was remission until later on in life. - in my mid-late 20s I had emdr therapy to deal with some trauma that occurred in my teen years. First session helped a bit and kind of felt like I was reliving it. I noticed a bit of improvement. Then we took a different approach to emdr where you actually don't talk about the trauma at all and that really helped and figured out where my guilt was coming from and it was further back, when I was 6. That helped me feel differently about my memories, they weren't traumatic anymore. - earlier this year after I met my friend I figured out I had ocd. We tried to get me better without therapy and it didn't work. We didn't have the education and we're missing vital stages. We were close but not close enough. Made me worse, but also made me determined to get better. - therapy. First 2, of 12 sessions were talking, just getting to know my bsckstory and what has worked for me before. After that we got to work. Mainly divided into 3 sections per session. Weekly update / erp / forgiving myself or changing a perspective of my core values. My therapist loved using my heartbreak for ERP. I hated it but I loved it because nothing would've stopped me. Once I got the hang of ERP I practiced it on my own every day and everywhere. I used a phobia I had, casadastraphobia as a Guinea pig which I had for half my life and it went in 4 mins. Thought I was going to die but it was pure relief after. It was like a eureka moment. So I used it in small things (not even ocd related, just genuinely small intrusive thoughts and feelings) and honed my skills so when ocd did decide to pop up, I've trained to deal with it. It got easier over time just like any other skill you practice. I definitely made mistakes but my therapist put me right and told me how to do ERP properly as she didn't tell me to do any of that and was quite shocked about how much I was doing out the sessions. Was trial and error but definitely got better. The mistakes hurt but treat them as a learning experience. Don't expose yourself without a clear goal in mind and don't do it reluctantly, do it with attitude. When you do ERP just say bring it. If done properly it's all worth it. You can go in increments too, I jumped in at the deep end and it was stressful but I was extremely determined to never let ocd screw my life again. After 12 sessions I didn't need therapy any more and felt like I had itz I had an option to do more but chose not to. I hopefully will one day do a Ted talk on how to beat ocd with my therapist. I want to make something of myself first. To summarise : - EMDR for trauma - CBT was good for mindfulness and helped me focus, but relapsed because I didn't have the education or knowledge to identify my pitfalls or how to deal with them. - I researched OCD like crazy and tried to educate myself. I looked at the neuroscience, subtypes, how to do ERP, joined this amazingly beautiful community ( thank you guys 🤗). - through looking at neuroscience I found out that our brains are more overactive within the fight, flight and freeze system. This is when stress is caused and we go around in loops until we cave into compulsions. This only makes this neural pathway more dominant as you've trained your brain accidentally to do this as it brings relief. This actually will make it worse over time. To use the other neural pathway, the rationalising pathway which "normal people" are able to use more than us, it requires serotonin. You can get better without boosting serotonin but when you do it's like a recovery performance enhancer. I started to exercise more go for walks in nature and changed what I ate so my body could produce more serotonin. Doing this alone does nothing, you need to have a mindset to go with it. It's like taking steroids and then not working out. - have a goals and targets. My main goal was to never let ocd do this again to me and I will get better. The other big goal was to say a massive f*** off to the recovery stats as they are off putting and demoralising. I had mantras is repeat to myself. I will get better, nothing or no one will stop me". " f*** the stats, I'll prove everyone wrong". I told my therapist I wanted to get better quicker than has ever been recorded before and she was on board with it. We both accepted that it may not work but we went for it anyway. I havent found another stat that resembles my results. There probably are stories out there like it but haven't seen them. Keep your eye on the prize, the result your aiming for. It's the light at the end of your tunnel and you will head wherever you're looking eventually. - the stats I saw before I said "f*** that! ". Roughly 1.2% of the population have ocd. 10% of those seek therapy. 10% of those who seek therapy get better with a minimum average of 6-12 months. Those stats were not good enough for me and wanted to show the world it can be done better. It was my everest. Soooo I'm not the most articulate person so this isn't structured how I'd like but it's all there. Reassurance is bad, encouragement is good. Maybe, maybe not, or exaggerate intrusive thoughts until they're funny. Acknowledge the thought then indirectly suppress them by showing other stuff attention, not to try and ignore the thought but to just focus on something else. This is key and a bit confusing to understand at first. Grounding techniques to keep you present. Boost your serotonin! Makes rationalising thoughts easier and you get less defensive. Have healthy or beneficial distractions available. If they aren't, sort it out and set yourself up for success, not failure. Practice ERP like a skill. You wouldn't go to a boxing match without training, because you'll get your butt kicked. Same thing applies when you're fighting compulsions. If something scares you or makes you feel uncomfortable. Think, what can I gain fron doing this with ERP and do it if you have an answer. Change your relationship with fear, stress and anxiety. They are all a part of us but we perceive the messages incorrectly. Change your perception. Find something to drive you to get better. What's your fuel for recovery? What's your destination? If I can do it, you can too. What recovery looks like/ feels like : First of all I didn't even know I was better until I realised I was doing compulsions by choice now and didn't feel like I deserved to be better. I reflected and thought why the hell did I do that? Felt like it was a choice for the first time in my life. Then I stopped. My mind is so quiet now compared to how it used to be. It's unsettling at first as your brain is like, why am I quiet, I needed to do something, let's do something! No thoughts with it just a lot of energy. My mind cleared up a lot of capacity. I felt like a blank canvas and still do a bit. I tried to become the person I thought I should've become before ocd took over but I think I went down this path for a reason. Now I'm trying to become whoever I want to be. I want to help others escape their mental cage which ocd disguises as a compulsion Palace. I believe all of you can get better, whatever better is for you. Getting better wasn't the finish line was looking this whole time. It was the starting line, and my life begins now. If you read all of that, I respect you as I could type for ever on it. Any questions, just ask.

Yes we need reassurance and it’s a part of our OCD too 😓

have you listened to the ocd stories by stuart ralph?

Like stated, it might be a journey.