Thought I’d just make one last post before I go: Tips For Recovery • The key to OCD is to accept the uncertainty. You will never know for 100% certain if you’re gay, if your hands are contaminated, if your relationship is doomed, or if you could stab someone or molest a child. Sound scary? Good. Fear is your friend now. Seek it out and face it down • ERP does work, but its not a quick fix. You have to do it repeatedly every day for increasing amounts of time. Remember, fear is your friend. • Stop avoiding situations that make you uncomfortable. When I was deep into OCD I was too afraid to be near dogs. Fortunately, I’m also a dog minder. Being around dogs all the time was an excellent exposure, and helped me recover really quickly. • Medication is a band-aid, not a cure. Using it to relieve your symptoms while you undergo therapy is fine. Staying on it forever is unhelpful and unnecessary. • You don’t need to make sure your intrusive thoughts are a specific subtype of OCD. Your OCD might not match anybody else’s. Mine didn’t, and that’s okay. • Remain positive! If you start thinking you won’t get better, you won’t. • Take care of yourself! You put your body through tremendous strain just by worrying. Eat well, drink plenty of water, do gentle exercise. And get a good amount of sleep. • ACCEPTANCE! You have a mental illness. If you could think yourself out of this, you’d have done it already. If your compulsions were going to fix the problem forever, it would have happened by now. Stop fighting and feeding the cycle. • You have an anxiety disorder. Part of recovery is being responsible about this disorder. Getting drunk and smoking weed is going to make you feel better for a short time, and make you feel like crap in the long term. Same goes for caffeine and excess sugar. We have to be those annoying health nuts now, sorry. • Stop obsessing over your recovery. It won’t happen overnight, its not a linear process, and you won’t feel better tomorrow, or even the day after. You’re making the effort to improve yourself in the long term, and that takes time and commitment. That’s all I could think of! Thank you guys again! Recovery is possible for all of you, I know it!

Hi everyone. 3 months have passed since I self-diagnosed with pure ocd. I'm currently in the best state I've ever been in ever since this whole ordeal started. The last time I was on this app I did a compulsion, it backfired on me and I was very suicidal. I was getting reported by people on here and I felt like utter garbage. I was convinced that this was never ocd and that I was a monster. Yet it still didn't make sense to me. At that time I tried accepting that I was a monster but it didn't make sense to me. It didn't click. There was a voice in my head telling me that I was over-reacting or that none of this made sense and that I was once a normal person. Nothing felt real, nothing felt genuine, nothing felt like it was the truth. I was miserable. I was ready to take my own life. I went to sleep and woke up SEVERELY ANXIOUS. I was noticing that I was still being disgusted by my intrusive thoughs and that none of this went away when I thought that I had accepted the truth and that accepting that I was just in denial would fix everything. I was very angry and frustrated. I just wanted this uncertainty to be gone. There was evidence to confirm that the worst case scenario is the real one but there was evidence that it wasn't. It's literally a feeling we are all aware of - it feels weird denying it but it feels weird accepting it. I started doing compulsions again. Found all sorts of stories on OCD forums of people with literally the same backfiring experiences as me. You all know the feeling when you do a compulsion and get reassurance. You feel amazing - like all your problems are gone and like you're back to your old self. Then time passes and you're the same miserable panicked mess. Compulsions were what got me through the day. When I couldn't eat, when I didn't wanna eat, when I wanted to die - I would read a boatload of OCD forum posts and I would tell myself all sorts of reassuring things. I would start feeling better and I would be able to eat again. Then I would wake up anxious with cold sweat. This went on for a while - obsessing, compulsions, relief period, obsessing, compulsions, relief period. I wasn't doing ANY ERP. AT ALL. I was just avoiding the problem. Then I met a woman who's had OCD ever since she was little. Talking to her became a compulsion - I was constantly talking to her in hopes that she'll reassure me that it's OCD, but she never did. Instead she gave me advice on what to do with my symptoms. There was only ONE time where she told me "It sounds like OCD, but I don't have the credentials to diagnose you" and that was the only time she gave me reassurance of any kind. She gave me advice that literally saved my life and that's why I came to this app again - I wanna share what helps me in hopes that it'll help all of you. I don't feel the need to be on this app anymore because I'm at the point where I literally feel like my normal self again, I barely have any symptoms and I know that I'm not and never was a monster. I don't claim to have OCD - it could be something else - I don't want reassurance either. And I don't want to read comments like "Oh it's been 3 months and you've basically overcame it? Sounds fishy." I don't know what happened for me to feel like my normal self again. Please don't invalidate my recovery as it will cause me to be extremely stressed out. I've read that normally Pure O takes 6 months to completely recover from if you're treating it. It could be shorter or longer depending on the people. I don't know why I feel better all of a sudden and I don't want to dwell on it. I feel great and I want everyone else to feel great and that's all that matters - OK? ANYWAYS. HERE ARE MY METHODS OF BEATING ANXIETY AND RECOVERING. 1. Exposure Response Prevention. I'm not all for self-directed ERP because that can go totally wrong but if you don't have the option to seek help from an OCD specialist like me - you don't really have a choice. You have to be mindful of ONE thing - you could easily get ERP and compulsive checking mixed up. Here's the difference between ERP and a compulsion - you do a compulsion in order to seek an answer - to seek certainty. You want to do a compulsion. ERP is doing something you don't want to - something that's distressing. ERP is putting yourself in a situation in which you are uncomfortable and resisting the need to do compulsions. For example - ERP for me is watching old cartoons and resisting doing any compulsions. When I watch old cartoons I'm scared that I might find out that I have a crush on one of these characters that I had a crush on as a kid and that I'll find out I'm a monster etc. etc. You get the point. It's a situation I want to avoid, but instead I sit there watching the cartoon and when I get anxious/ a groinal response. I acknowledge it's there and I don't question it. This is part of the advice my friend gave me that helped me a lot. The whole time stuck in a rut because every time I would try to do ERP, I would question, analyze, ruminate - basically do like 50 compulsions and that's why it felt like I wasn't getting anywhere. ERP stands for exposure RESPONSE PREVENTION. Meaning you're PREVENTING a response. The whole point of ERP is to sit with your fear and not respond to it. The first time I did ERP right, I was looking at an anime character I had a false attraction to and I was sitting there anxious with a weird heavy feeling in my groin. I didn't understand why I was feeling that way. I just felt really confused. So I accepted that I don't know what it means and that It could mean anything. IMMEDIATELY the anxiety and the groinal sensation vanished. I was shook. So every time I would have anxiety/ the groinal, I didn't dwell on it. I just acknowledged it and I let it be. Gradually I had less and less situations where I would get anxiety. I don't think I even get anxious or get the groinal response anymore. I hope this helps yall. 2. Accepting uncertainty This is dreaded amongst OCD sufferers. I know the feeling. "I CAN'T ACCEPT UNCERTAINTY, I'D RATHER DIE THAN BE THIS!" We've all said these words at one point. Here's the thing. We have a very ignorant reaction towards the idea of accepting uncertainty. We're anxious people - of course we're gonna have difficulty coping with uncertainty. Here's what you HAVE to acknowledge about uncertainty, though, so you can really learn to accept it because uncertainty has helped me A LOT: UNCERTAINTY ISN'T 50/50 All of us have thought this exact thing every time someone has told us to "live in uncertainty" - "Living with uncertainty means that I have to accept only 2 possibilities - It's either one or the other - either I'm a freak or it's OCD" and that's just not true. For me accepting uncertainty means accepting that it could be plenty of things - it could be OCD, it could be hormonal, it could be my weird way of maturing and learning to let go of my past, it could be trauma related, it could mean anything, it could mean nothing - and I put the worst case scenario as just that - a worst case scenario. The comfort you will find in uncertainty will come if you stop assuming the worst. Uncertainty really helps with the damage done by ruminating. Sometimes I catch myself ruminating for HOURS and not only have I not found an answer to anything but I've just raised more questions. Here comes anxiety. What do I do? I tell myself - "I can't find an answer to this. I don't know and at this point I don't want to know. I'm going to stop dwelling on it now." and of course there are gonna be secondary fears and thoughts being like "but what if you DO know? What if you're delusional?" and instead of getting hooked on these thoughts - I get annoyed, I roll my eyes and I attempt to move on. That's the bottom line. You have to find comfort in not knowing. The human brain is powerful - it works in mysterious ways that might not even be documented yet. And fear is an EXTREMELY powerful and controlling emotion. So stop searching for an answer. You're not gonna find it. Be mindful of the present and stop dwelling on past, future, what this means, what that meant. It is impossible for human beings to live with full certainty. We have things about us that we will probably never know about ourselves. You just have to learn to find happiness in not knowing. It's not your job to find out. If life wanted you to know something - it would've thrown it in right at your face with no hesitation. 3. Fight the compulsions, not the obsession. So you have an obsession. It haunts you constantly. You want it gone, but how? Stop engaging in compulsions. Easier said than done, I know, but the reason the obsession continues to remain there is because the compulsions are fueling it. I know avoiding compulsions is very difficult and it's TERRIFYING. But it helps SO much. It's a struggle worth going through. When I was managing my anxiety and my symptoms were barely there, my fear sinked it's fangs into the fact that I self-diagnosed and that I don't really know if I ever had OCD in the first place. So as you can imagine, I was desperately looking for ways to get a formal diagnosis. I thought that getting the diagnosis is gonna be the key needed to fully recover. I was desperate and anxious without it. My friend saw through me completely. She saw that I was desperately looking for an answer and she told me "It's great that you wanna get help but you seem to be only focused on the diagnosis. That's not really gonna help you." I was like YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! I have to know this is ocd! It's going to be the only thing to prove to me that I'm not a monster. She replied "You don't need an OCD diagnosis to know you're not a monster." I hastily and loudly responded with I KNOW I DON'T BUT IF IT'S NOT OCD THEN WHAT WAS THIS HELL I WAS EXPERIENCING??? Her answer stumped me. "Maybe it meant nothing." I had no words. I was shocked. "What do you mean it meant nothing....". I couldn't believe it for a minute. But at the same time.....She had a point. What if it really didn't mean anything... I contacted Chrissie Hodges (Love her to death <3) asking if there was any way for me to get a formal diagnosis from someone abroad because I live in a country where there aren't ocd specialists. She saw right through me just as my friend did and she was basically like "I mean yeah you can go to this website and arrange a therapy session, but they're not gonna confirm nore deny that you have ocd. You getting a diagnosis won't help you - just stick to your ERPs and learn to accept uncertainty". I was noticing that it would be very costly and very complicated for me to get a proper diagnosis. So I asked my friend "should I just take the risk and live in uncertainty for the rest of my life." She replied with "Yeah, you can kinda." and she told me "There are some people that are afraid they're gonna get hit by a bus if they leave the house. Do they just sit and rot in their houses while dwelling on whether or not it's gonna happen? No, they gulp it down and they take the risk - they're not gonna let their whole life get dictated by some fear. Whatever happens is out of their control and they just have to accept it and move on." So I tried living with uncertainty. Living with uncertainty meant dropping a lot of compulsions. The first few days I was anxious out of my mind. It felt like I was going to get a heart attack if I didn't get reassurance. But I sat there - in agony - not doing anything - not thinking about anything - just trying my best to get through the day like normal. It was hell. But this is called HABITUATION and I encourage everyone to do it. With each day I tried habituation and resisted compulsions the anxiety gradually went away to the point where the fear was devalued and I no longer felt any anxiety. This resulted in a stange phenomena for me (I don't know if this will happen for anyone else resisting compulsions so please take all of this with a grain of salt). I was not anxious anymore, I was becoming a happier more optimistic person and I was just feeling my will to live come back and because of that - my brain felt like it was gonna burst. It was these strange pains at the sides of my brain and my frontal lobe. It felt like someone was strangling and stomping on my brain. Like someone was squeezing all the juice out of it. I got a little worried because I've always had health anxiety and I was scared that I might have like a brain tumor or something. I let the headaches stay and I was only going to go to a doctor if things got worse. With each day the headaches went away too. So there I was - standing there with no anxiety, no groinal, no headaches...What now? I noticed that I was still ruminating but with each day it was easier not to dwell on things. And there were still a few compulsions that I accidentally did, that I don't do anymore. Ruminating is by far the hardest compulsion to cut out because sometimes we don't even notice that we do it. For me I just say "Oh, I'm not gonna dwell on it." and I just refocus on something else. I don't feel the need to do any compulsions anymore. I devalued the fear by telling myself things like "Hey, you still have normal healthy attractions, you still have the potential to live a normal life regardless what's wrong with you." and that basically devalued the fear. This is something that a lot of people with HOCD and POCD need to hear - if you've always liked the opposite gender/adults, just continue liking those things. Don't let fear stop you. And I know it's hard because you get thoughts like "You don't deserve to be with who you want because you're gay/ a monster" but you really have to learn to punch back against those thoughts. Which brings me to my next point: 4. Practice self-love, learn to forgive yourself, don't dwell on the past, be mindful of the present, be the best person you can be every day and PUNCH BACK AS HARD AS YOU CAN when fighting off your fear. Stumbling into pride month after 3 months of having this ridiculous fear that I was a sexual deviant with the potential to hurt anyone made it a bit weird for me. June is my favorite month. Pride month, the month of my birthday - it's everything a gay person like me could ask for. But it was difficult for me to rekindle my joy for the month after 3 months of thinking I don't deserve to live. It still is difficult. I still get thoughts like "you don't belong to this community, they wouldn't accept you if they knew what you went through these past 3 months, pride month will never be the same for you" and I really just took it upon myself to disregard these thoughts completely. I'm a beautiful person with healthy desires, I love to make people happy, I love to be happy, I love to treat my friends, I love to draw my friends, I love to donate to crowdfunding campaigns in order to help other people - I am not a bad person. I never was and never will be a bad person. I was controlled by a ridiculous egodystonic fear that made me lose a lot of weight, made me overdye my hair to the point where I had to shave it, made me almost lose my life. And I know you can all relate. You're also all beautiful people. The reason you're scared is because you care too much. Because your hearts are just that big. I encourage everyone to practice self-love and I encourage everyone to forgive themselves for the things they've done in search of reassurance. You haven't hurt anyone but yourself, so why not forgive yourself. For me I had to forgive myself for some of the compulsions I did in order to get reassurance (picturing awful things to see if I liked them, checking constantly how my body reacted, becoming extremely dependant on my friends validation), because if I didn't forgive myself, I would just continue ruminating on it and I would get close to relapsing. Forgiving yourself is a very personal choice for everyone and I'm not gonna force anyone to do it if they're not comfortable, but I'll just say this - we all live with things we deem unforgivable. It just happens. I chose to forgive myself because even the worst things I've done in my life haven't ruined somebody elses. I haven't comitted any crimes, I haven't traumatized anyone, I've only done one-two things I can't forgive myself over and that are probably gonna stick with me till I hit the grave but those things never really hurt anyone except myself. But I'm going to try and move on regardless, because if I don't, then I can never recover. 5. One of the best weapons against OCD/Anxiety is ignoring it and not letting it control you. The less attention you give to it, the more powerful you become against it. OCD/Anxiety wants you to quit doing the things you normally do and just engage in compulsions ALL DAY. Do not let fear control you. Acknowledge that it's there and continue to fight your way towards getting through the day normally and getting work done. 6. Distractions. Save. LIVES! This is extremely important. LEARN HOW TO DISTRACT YOURSELF. Exercise. Go for a walk. Go for a jog. Call your friends. Grab a drink with said friends. Video games, movies, road-trips, art, music, singing, meditating, make yourself some tea, go to the store, DO SOMETHING! It is vital for someone with ocd to not have a lot of idle time. Keep yourself busy. Especially with other people - that helps even more. 7. Here are some things you definitely SHOULDN'T do (This is mainly for HOCD, POCD, but if you find something on this list that you do, feel free to try and avoid doing it): - Searching for an answer. Just stop. You're not gonna get one. - Checking/ becoming hyper body aware. Listen if you think your body is going to give you an answer - it won't. Arousal isn't black and white. I can get aroused thinking about myself having sex with a woman. Does that mean I'm bisexual? No, because I'm aroused due to certain aspects of the scenario that my brain is conditioned to aroused to. It's not the woman in my fantasy that arouses me. Everyone had different sensitivities to their sexual pedals or whatever it's called. Sometimes you can get aroused just because something is sexual in nature. Some people are aroused/orgasm while they're being assaulted, some women get aroused/orgasm while they're breastfeeding and then they blame themselves for feeling this way - There needs to be more awareness spread about how arousal is just an automatic body response and sometimes it literally means nothing. Your groinal responses don't define what you're into - YOU DO. - Picturing sexual scenarios to check how you feel. It's not gonna give you the answer to all your worries. The most you'll get is temporary reassurance. - Ruminating. This is the hardest one because it's so sneaky. If you catch yourself ruminating, stop yourself and refocus on something else. -Masturbation / Pornography If you're not at a late point in your recovery - definitely avoid these like the plague. You will be bombarded by intrusive thoughts because you're scared they're gonna happen and because of that - they will happen. Masturbating only serves to confuse you more. And please - DON'T TRY MASTURBATING TO YOUR INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS - THIS WILL EITHER WORK AND GIVE YOU TEMPORARY REASSURANCE OR IT CAN BACKFIRE COMPLETELY AND THROW YOU SO DEEP INTO THE LOOP THAT RECOVERY WILL BE A LOT MORE DIFFICULT THAN IT HAS TO. Masturbation can definitely become an answer/reassurance seeking compulsion and because anxiety can distort your perception arousal it can go terribly wrong. Just don't do it. Believe me. -This app and other OCD forums. I have nothing against using this app or visiting other OCD forums. It can be comforting knowing that you're not suffering alone and that people have very similar experiences to you. Just try to not reassure yourself too much using the information provided to you. If you notice yourself constantly using this app, browsing ocd forums - you're probably seeking reassurance. Meaning it's time for you to stop and try to use it less. I'm at the point where I don't even wanna visit an OCD forum anymore. I felt really alone when I was sharing my experiences on this app but then noticed that there were like a gajilion people with basically the same experiences as me. I don't use that to tell myself "Oh it's OCD because this person with OCD has lived through the same hell I have" I just see that OCD becomes a possible answer for what's going on and then I just stop assuming and dwelling on it and I move on. It can be comforting, but not in excess. - Repeating phrases to yourself. Stop repeating to yourself that you're not this or that. You're just gonna feel more anxious and you're gonna get more frustrated. Just stop. Your answer will find you when you recover, you won't find your answer by telling yourself things and analyzing how youre reacting to them/ repeating them to yourself so you can feel better in the moment. And that's all I have to write really. Currently I feel almost like my normal self again. I want this to be inspirational for all of you. You can go back to your older selves, you can overcome this, you are all good resilient people. I still struggle with intrusive thoughts. Just not as much. This is kinda graphic and I'm sorry if this grosses someone out but I'm at the point where I can masturbate regularly without getting intrusive thoughts. Or at most - get like one intrusive thoughts but they've become so easy to manage. Sometimes they catch me off guard. This morning for instance I was in that middle ground between dreaming and awake and I had a gross image pop up and it wasn't anything that bad, it definitely wasn't sexual in nature it was just a random thing that happened. I immediately got grossed out and started dwelling on it, but then quickly told myself - no don't dwell on it. It was just a thought. It meant nothing. I mean you were sleepy-headed, like come on. But yeah it feels great to feel like I'm going back to normal. I still get doubts and I still get anxious from time to time and I still don't know what a lot of the things that happened meant, but I'm choosing to not dwell on it and I'm coming to terms with the fact that I can't find an answer to those things. Who knows, it could be ocd, it could be anxiety, it could be hormonal, I could be crazy. I don't know and I don't want to know. I'm happy like this. And even still I get secondary fears like "what if forgiving yourself and moving on is you secretly accepting yourself as a monster, what if you never get rid of all of this, what if in the near future a catastrophe hits you" and I can't be bothered to respond to those fears. I don't care anymore. I'm sick of suffering. Living with uncertainty has only proved to me how ridiculous this self doubt of mine is and I'm just seeing that I'm a normal human being with normal healthy desires. I have things I know about myself and things I see happening that are enough for me to know that this was all fear controlling me. So I'm choosing to move on. I don't need reassurance anymore. All I need is the things that make me happy. I hope this will help y'all. You can all recover from this. Chin up and stay strong. ❤️?????

It’s been a few months since I’ve been on here and I’m happy to say it’s because I am pretty much pure o, ocd free! This app really did help so much! I want to share the things that helped me get a grip on ocd. I don’t want to use the words “recover or control” because ocd is a part of our brains but it doesn’t mean it has to be a distressing part. I had my first ocd flare up in Nov and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was crying and panicking almost every night for weeks, looking back I can’t believe I made it through the things I needed to do in life because I was a mess. But now I look at things like atleast I know what it is and how to deal with it when it comes. So here are my tips. 1. Reading about intrusive thoughts and pure o online and in books. I consumed as much knowledge about ocd as I could. 2. Starting erp therapy on my own and with a therapist. Though I do have a therapist to guide me 100% of erp is the work I put in. I would try all the recommendations of erp from accepting the thought, to making myself have the thoughts as practice, resisting compulsions, changing the way I reacted and thought about an intrusive thought, now this isn’t easy... but I did it all the time even when I felt the panic feeling and even when the ocd was strong, even when I didn’t believe it. I faked it until I made it 3. Practice is helpful, it took days of hard work especially in the first few months but that’s what I did, I considered every day, every intrusive thought as practice 4. Once I stopped the compulsions, (luckily mine weren’t very strong and I cut them off quick) I began thinking the thoughts that bothered me, and slowly added more disturbing content into my life (my ocd was harm ocd mainly) 5. I told myself that “yes that bad thought is real” and didn’t try to comfort my intrusive thought or push it away, if ocd said I was crazy and going to be locked in a facility then I agreed, I would say it in my head and sometimes out loud “yup your right ocd I’m crazy” 6. After acceptance and exposure I began working on being kinder to myself, I didn’t think that this step was crucial but it is.... ocd wants us to suffer and in a way it’s like by giving it power I wanted to suffer too, I told myself that ocd is a liar and I don’t want to suffer, it’s ok that I have ocd I accept it but now I must be gentle with myself 7. Learning to always default to these things when an intrusive thought happens, so much so that my brain does it naturally now ...a) hi ocd that’s cool but I’d rather not think about that and I continue doing what I’m doing, this is hard in the beginning but gets easier b) sure ocd I am definitely crazy but again I think I’d rather keep watching this show c) I am okay with the possibility of that happening but now is not the time for me to figure that out d) you are a liar and separate from me but thanks for the interesting thought ...8. Remembering these things: ocd is a liar, a thought isn’t sumthing u control but what u do with it is, if you don’t want to do something you won’t because of your morals and free will, this concept took me awhile to grasp but repetition is key. Almost everyone get intrusive thoughts so you aren’t unique or alone. I’ve learned through the ups and downs of erp how to combat my intrusive thoughts, how to be kinder to myself and how to change the way I think in order to live a better life. I still get an intrusive thought occasionally when I’m sticky but the way I think about the thought is so automatic now and so relaxed because of the work I’ve put in! If you are working towards erp don’t stop, keep going! I feel you, I know it’s hard and exhausting... 11 months ago I thought I was going crazy I was in the worst place of my life flash to today and it’s like I never even had ocd! You can do this I promise xx

Hey guys. So I just had a pretty big relapse in my ocd, the first one since I started going to therapy. At first it was hard to accept that I had gone back to old patterns, but I’m trying to look at it as a chance to do better for myself this time. A chance to handle it with compassion, kindness and regard for myself rather than the disgust and shame I felt during my first big ocd episode. Here are some things I’ve been doing that have helped: Epsom salt baths- what I’ve realized is that it doesn’t serve me to be anxious all the time. I need to calm my body down so I can feel hunger, and have moments of clarity. And these baths help a lot - the magnesium really helps relax and give you a moment to be comfortable in your body. Remember to eat and drink enough water. Right now, your mind is running wild and your body is responding as if it’s in fight or flight mode- make sure you’re taking care of yourself. Gratitude practice- I know that it can seem really hard to find the positive during a really intense OCD episode. But what I’ve found is that if I make the effort to recognize the good in my life, even if it’s as small as “I had the money to buy myself some epsom salts to take care of myself” or “I’m grateful for that sunset I just saw” has helped me keep my spirits more alive even if my brain wants to pull me into rumination. Crying - let yourself have a release. One thing I like to do is imagine my mom or an older version of myself coming in the room and comforting me. It helps to imagine what you would say to a loved one that just had the day you had. For example: if my head really hurts from ruminating all day - I’ll take the time to drink water and take some medicine. Then I’ll think about what I would say to someone who dealt with the stress, anxiety, and rumination that I just had that day. Well a lot of times (and we want to stay away from reassurance with this) I’ll say to myself “I can’t tell you whether or not your obsessions are true. But I can tell you that I love you and I’m here for you no matter what.” And I find this is a great way of reinforcing your relationship with self as you learn to trust your ability to navigate difficult flare ups. Holding your own hand, being the support you need, can make the world of a difference. Doing exposures in real life. I’ve found that doing exposures have made me feel empowered again, even if that only lasts for a little bit. I’ve found that not planning exposures as much and just going about my life saying “Right now, what would I do if I didn’t have ocd?” Or being spontaneous anyways even if it feels uncomfortable has helped. Look objectively at your day. Are you spending two hours laying in bed in the morning before you get up? Maybe eliminating that or paring it down intentionally will help you reduce rumination. Taking supplements - fish oil, b6 vitamin, vitamin c, vitamin d are all ones I take every day and help keep my immune system up and my brain functioning a bit better. Keep a feelings journal. Staying in touch with your emotions is really important. I’ve found it to really help me break out of ocd as I can say to it “I hear you, OCD. But my inner child is really sad right now, and I’m going to direct my attention towards her rather than engage in rumination.” At the end of the day we can’t help what our brains might want to do. They might want to ruminate, mentally review, make us afraid and anxious and have irrational doubts. But we can control the ways that we treat ourselves, and what we direct our attention towards. May we direct our attention towards the good in our lives, towards care and love and moments of peace, because that will start to being more of that in. You know what they say “What you focus on gets bigger”. And I would say that especially if you are dealing with ocd - you deserve even more love and compassion - and hopefully I’ve been able to give you some tips that might help foster that as well. Feel free to add your own methods of dealing with OCD below. And hey, to anyone struggling through their own relapse right now - I get it. It sucks. But it’s also within your control to make it better - and I believe in you. I’m so proud of anyone out there fighting ocd right now. Fighting for the big, beautiful life that you deserve. Stay strong ❤️ You can do this.