Anyone else experience this?

I think most of people with OCD experience this. Yk, it's OBSESSIVE compulsive disorder for a reason. Tbh it's hard to make it leave. Especially without therapist or meds. When I have bad episodes, I can't really do anything, just wait till my brain decides to stop torturing me. It could be days, weeks, months. I really advice you to at least go to a psychiatrist for a diagnosis and maybe meds, if you can't go to therapy. I don't have a therapist, I'm diagnosed and am on medication. Meds help a little bit.

Agreed on the seeking professional support statement above. But I understand that sometimes life gives you lemons and you have to make lemonade. If I were forced to do what I’ve done with my therapist on my own this would be the general approach: - First hear that all these feelings are normal. They are disordered but not uncommon. Nothing you could say would shock a therapist. Honestly, I doubt anything you say could shock the community here, and we’re just regular Joe’s -honestly assess how severely and often your life is impacted by fixations around some of the common topics of OCD: contamination, illness, being immoral/bad, symmetry/order, those kinds of things. -identify your values, these are the core things you believe in life. Acts of service, or providing for yourself/family, or finding the humor in life. This is a personal thing only you can speak to, OCD will probably try to get you to second guess yourself on this, just go with your gut and take a leap of faith - learn enough about how OCD works and is treated. Without a therapist this will be hard. Learning is the easy part. Saying it’s enough is the hard part. In general OCD makes us want to go 100 or 0 when the answer is somewhere in the middle and we’ll never know if we got it right. A therapist already knowing these things is worth their weight in gold. Also keep in mind that you can’t outthink OCD, so the learning is just to make you more effective in your practice and training coming up - identify your triggers, sounds like you know some already, try to identify what you want to do by treating your OCD. -identify specific exposures/fears that you can target and imagine what distress they would cause you. This is called the suds level (0 for none at all 10 for worst imaginable). These are things you are willing to do and are ok to your values system. Ie if you are afraid of harming others, cold blooded murder is obviously not an exposure, but handling knives while cooking dinner could be. These exposures can be imaginary (writing out a script, watching a video, or simply thinking about) or real (you actually do them) -in your exposures identify the rituals/compulsions you normally seek to placate yourself (avoidance, reassurance, rumination, physical tics). These are any things you get antsy about when you cannot do them. -start with the low suds level stuff and work up, actively seek to prevent doing the rituals/compulsions as you do them. You have to do the RP part of ERP for it to work -do it forever lol, things will get easier over time and the SUDS level will fall but OCD doesn’t ever just go away. It’s just how our bodies are wired. Again you really cannot replace therapy. Metaphorically, don’t skip the pain meds or anesthesia when undergoing needed surgery, but if you are in an area or time where those things don’t exist, then don’t skip the needed surgery because you can’t get the meds.