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!

Thanks so much for your wonderful advice! I think I can speak on behalf of the entire community of nOCD when I say; we’re so happy that’ve you’re experiencing recovery after all your hard work! I just wanted to point out that, after all your hard work, you’ve reached a point where you can witness the mechanisms of your own OCD and recognise when it’s driving your thoughts and actions. This is fantastic! But just remember, not everyone on this community is in recovery just yet. They will be some day, but for now they’re doing their best with what they’ve got. Medication works but inhibiting the processes known to cause OCD in the brain. It’s not a band-aid. I know you might not have meant it, but it came across (to me at least) that your weak relying on medication. That’s not the case. I owe my life to medication combined with therapy, and if it means I have to remain on it for the rest of my life to fix the imbalance in my brain then I’ve accepted that. Please don’t think I’m being critical, I’m so, so happy for you! I just didn’t want others to feel weak because they’re yet to experience an epiphany like you :)) Have a wonderful day! d a i s y

We all just need to keep fighting in whatever form that takes. Maybe someday none of will need to be here. That's my hope for everyone anyway. Until then let's just share and support each other one day at a time. I'm so happy for you Tabbykittycat!? Go get 'em!

This is completely true!! Great statements! Agree with every word!!

I’m so sorry, I felt instantly guilty posting that worrying that you’d think I meant harm. Please know that was not my intention at all! I’m soooo happy for you and appreciative of your advice! d a i s y

@ d a i sy No no I completely understand! I know medication is an incredibly helpful tool! But on other forums, I’ve seen people talk about being on medication for years and then coming off it and becoming frustrated by resorting to their pre-medication habits, which really makes me sad! I think its really important for people to use the tools we’ve been given properly to see results! But I totally get if what I said sounded a little harsh!

Of course being on medication is not a weakness, I truly believe the sign of strength is doing whatever YOU need to do to improve, but in my experience, medication is best used with therapy :) I’d be really interested to see your thoughts on this though, I’m always interested in learning more!

Thanks so much for all of your help and support here, we’ll miss you! Good luck on your continued recovery ???

thank you!!

Well put!!

Hi Tabbykittycat! You weren’t harsh, I promise. I’m so glad I didn’t offend you! I’m truely ecstatic you’re recovering! I completely agree with what you’ve said :) You’re awesome! Best of luck for the future :) d a i s y

Couldn'tve said it better! Thank you so much God bless you the victory is already ours!