I am almost convinced that psychedelics are the solution.

Commenting on this for more info. I’ve looked into it for 4 years but haven’t tried yet.

So...psychedelics can be beneficial, IF used correctly in conjunction with a professional therapist. If you have Netflix, I highly recommend that you watch “The Mind Explained” (or something like that) episode about psychedelics. It’s REALLY interesting! If not used in the proper environment or context, you could have a REALLY bad trip, especially given that you have OCD. However, if you are with a trained therapist, they can guide you through your “trip” in a way that will actually help you resolve a lot of underlying mental health issues. It’s very fascinating! I actually looked into it at one point, but it is of course hard to find professionals that can provide such drugs nearby, especially if you live in the United States of America, like me. And although I’m not a conspiracy theorist, I’m willing to bet pharmaceutical companies are one of the biggest lobbyists against “drugs” like “marijuana” and psychedelics because those would significantly hurt their sales. YET, they have no issues acting worse than drug cartels when it came to pushing opioids (often time mores powerful than COCAINE, like fentanyl) and fueling the opioid crisis. ??‍♀️ I’m an epidemiologist, and while some prescription drugs are HIGHLY beneficial, WE MUST STOP PRIORITIZING PROFIT OVER THE HEALTH OF OUR CITIZENS. And we should be able to pursue, legalize, and cover (via health insurance) better treatments that don’t require people to take medications for the rest of their lives. If a few sessions of psychedelic guided therapy could cure people of mental health conditions, then it should be legal AND insurance companies should be required to cover the cost of treatment. Also, ketamine infusions has become a more popular and available treatment for treatment resistant depression, and my psychiatrist’s office actually offers the treatment, BUT it is SO EXPENSIVE because insurance won’t cover it because it is still considered “experimental” even though it has been in use for quite a while.

As a person with diagnosed OCD, who experimented with psychedelics twice, I can say the following: They will not 'cure' your OCD. The only way to get better is to change your behavior by not doing the compulsions, because only in this way you create a permanent change in your brain. With OCD, the misfiring circuit in the brain is so strong that any drugs, even if they can chemically force a different version of the 'wiring', will not change it permanently because the OCD eventually comes back (the faulty wiring becomes the main one again). The drugs always supress the 'bad wiring' to some extent and because of that it can be easier for you to do ERP. However, psychedelics can be of tremendous help. Why? As psychedelics have a certain 'mind-opening/widening/enhancing' effect, they can make you see you are actually capable of overcoming the OCD. This can give you a tremendous amount of hope and strength to fight this illness with ERP. During my trips, I was able to see the stuff going on in my mind from a much different perspective. It's like this third-person observer (who is actually always there, this is probably what they call Consciousness) came to the front. I was able to see the obsessions and compulsions, but I was much more 'distant' from them (I suffer from Pure O, so all of my compulsions are mental). I was then able to stop doing the compulsions - and as I did, I started feeling anxiety (during the trip) - but I knew this was normal. I leanes into the anxiety, it was rising, and eventually this wave of relief came over me. For a split second, I saw that tjia mechanism is not ME, that it's blocking me from actually experiencing life. And I saw that I could overcome it, that it's possible to do this. When the trip started to end, I could feel the OCD gradually kicking in more and more. Eventually I was right back where I was before the trip - but I had this new hope in me, because it's like I saw I can be free from this torture in my mind. The way I see this incorporated into therapy is doing guided sessions to help a patient reconnect with their 'true self'. During a trip, a patient could see their OCD is not them, that it's just their brain playing tricks on them. When you come back from the trip, it's like you're back in the OCD, but deep inside you know that there is a way out because you saw this thing for what it really is.

Could you please elaborate further? I experimented with them and had this insight, like I could somehow elevate above my OCD and see this cycle that I'm stick in. DISCLAIMER TO ANYONE READING: Do not try them in your own.

Right, to be honest this is all presumption, but I hope that somehow I can alleviate the pain in the back of my head with these drugs. I’ve had my share of traditional antidepressants anxiety medications, but to no avail, so I’m really just hypothesizing and hoping that it might have worked for someone.