Does it ever get better?

Hi everyone had a question I am 42 years old until about 7 months ago my ocd has become so bad almost debilitating. I think I have had ocd since my mid 20s but it was barely there and it would sometimes almost be non existent and I didn’t even know it was ocd until I was diagnosed four months ago It was always my family getting hurt especially at night I was convinced that someone would break in the house and murder us. Or a fire would start but j would just check the doors and stove appliances a few times before bed nothing to time consuming and I never had panic attacks or the physical symptoms of anxiety, I did do weird rituals like I blessed things that fell on the floor because I thought something bad may happen to my kids which seems strange and I would put clothes away a certain way or again something bad would happen and I hated the number 6 so the volume can never be on 6 things like that. When I type if I didn’t get the word right the first time I’d have to erase the whole word and start over sometimes the whole sentence which was super annoying! But since I had my daughter 4 years ago I would have this weird fear with knifes like only I could wash them and put them away or someone may accidentally stab themselves or someone else, and I began to get intrusive images of someone trying to hurt my daughter or someone would kidnap her or she would stop breathing at night but it all was pretty tolerable until out of the blue I had a really bad intrusive images of me hitting her in the head with my phone it’s scared me so bad I had a panic attack and started questioning why would I think that?! Then a week went by and another intrusive image of me hurting her and then eventually it was anything and everything in my house could be weapon to hurt her i was terrified I googled it and realized it was intrusive thoughts and it was harm ocd 😞I have been really struggling since and that was 6 months ago I try to tell myself that they are just thoughts and it’s just my brain being hyper vigilant to protect her but I fear that the more I have them I will do them in my sleep And the physical sensations of anxiety and panic attacks are unbelievable sometimes Can anyone relate to their ocd becoming worse almost overnight later on in life I want my life back I’m so sad I’m scared to sleep at night I just want this all to go away Any tips it’s hard not to react to the thoughts when it is about harming your own child who I love soooo much And please tell me this is ocd

I've been in treatment for about 3.5 months and I have definitely improved. However, I feel like I'm always relapsing... I do exposures for specific thoughts and it definitely helps. Usually my anxiety will go way down and that specific thought will improve. Then I may have a period of a week or so where my intrusive thoughts aren't so bothersome. But they ALWAYS come back. My ocd will latch on to anything at all and Im constantly having new intrusive thoughts. I seem to be stuck in a cycle of improvement and relapse. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Will the intrusive thoughts ever subside??

I am currently struggling with somatic OCD. It started yesterday and continued to build up more and more this morning. I want to be proactive and not just run away from it in fear and let it get any bigger. Basically I am super aware of my blinking, breathing, and swallowing (I do kindly ask that no one gives any other forms that somatic OCD can take. I heard about these and then instantly latched onto them :/) I did make an imaginal script saying the following. I will never stop thinking about blinking I will never stop thinking about breathing I will never stop thinking about swallowing I will never have piece of mind and the thoughts and sensations will consume me. it will destroy the relationship with my son and wife and I will have a miserable miserable life. I recorded myself saying this and started listening to it on repeat for 15 min at a time. I also have been telling myself whenever the thoughts come up to not fuse with them and do my best to not engage with them. However I do find myself thinking...what if I start thinking about it when I go here or go there, etc. Which creates anxiety and makes me fearful that I will not get rid of this. When I hyper focus on these three things it makes it hard to breathe, swallow, and even see because it makes me dizzy. I have had TONS of themes in the past but I have to be honest this one scares me quite a bit because these are things that I 100% need to do each day in order to function as a human being so its like each time I do any of them even naturally my brain connects it and creates anxiety. ****So I am wondering if the script I wrote is the best way to combat this? and additionally are there other things that I could do in order to conquer this? I know seeking reassurance is not a good thing but I would love to hear how others have overcome this and got free from it....without being triggering if possible :) Thanks so much for everyone on this platform. I cant even tell you how much I appreciate you all and have learned in the short couple of weeks I have been on here.