- Date posted
- 6y
- Date posted
- 6y
Hi, I’m going to be in the Gateway Institute’s intensive treatment program. I’ll be in Scottsdale (the city where I grew up, actually; it is near Phoenix). If you are having a hard time finding a specialist, if you haven’t already I suggest you look in the IOCDF’s resource directory. Also, a number of therapists do teletherapy; you can look for that.
- Date posted
- 6y
I hear you. I receive some teletherapy and it is helpful to a very good extent and has many advantages. But sometimes you need something more intense, and sometimes, you need a therapist to visit your home. But the advantage is that with teletherapy the therapist can see your home and you can point them to your triggers.
- Date posted
- 6y
Dude me too. Hang in there.
- Date posted
- 6y
Do you mind me asking where you are getting treatment @flamewheel? Also, is the ERP going to be something you will do in this treatment or are you planning on doing that on your own after your treatment. Sorry, The reason I ask is I am desperately trying to find some hard core ERP treatment as well, and I am having no luck, I keep running in to walls. The therapists I keep finding either don’t really know OCD or don’t do ERP. I didn’t realize it would be so hard to find an OCD ERP therapist. There are so many great articles out there on OCD and especially ERP, where are the people who write those!!!! Sorry, How you’re going about it will probably help me figure out some better ways to approach finding treatment. Thank-you.
- Date posted
- 6y
Thank you for being so open and generous with the information. I have looked on there, but unfortunately, vicious cycle that this OCD is, there is no one close by and getting to someone not close by will trigger all sorts of OCD and make it not possible to go after awhile. I clearly am speaking from experience. It’s happened to me so many times with so many things. One more question and thank you again for being so open and generous with the information, do you think teletherapy is equally effective? Also, does teletherapy mean some form of phone, Skype, FaceTime or some such other form? Thank-you.
- Date posted
- 6y
Thank-you @flamewheel. I definitely feel like I want and need something more intensive, to sort of get a push through some of this. Oh, that’s a great point on them being able to see or me being able to point out my triggers. I hadn’t thought of that at all, and also I wish you good luck in your treatment, it sounds like a great treatment program. Is ERP part of your program or something you plan to do yourself after? Thank-you.
- Date posted
- 6y
Any good treatment program for OCD will incorporate ERP. I also have to do it myself afterwards if I want to maintain...I am not looking forward to it. I wish I didn’t have to do this. Glad I could help you out. :)
Related posts
- Date posted
- 24w
Today I over came something that had been consistently bothering me with my contamination OCD and I'm over the moon I never thought I could do it yesterday the anxiety was there but I sat with and it faded I'm so happy thank you for all your support guys and I recently started working out and I feel much better To anyone out there struggling it gets better trust me a few months ago I was at the Lowest point in my life I couldn't even leave my house I failed really badly at school but now I can even go outside I try to socialize some days are harder than others and I've had a few hiccups along the way but it has gotten much better And I'm starting a recovery course for school to make up for my grades I'm so happy guys 😭then I can finally get into uni
- Date posted
- 21w
I had just posted a summary of ERP for a group member, and I thought it might be useful for everybody. Here it is below (with a little extra added)…. ERP therapy is researched-based. Most other therapies don’t work. There have been people who have been literally stuck in their houses (from their OCD) who gained their lives back through ERP therapy. NOCD does ERP therapy exclusively. You can find it in other places too, but you have to ask around. There are two tenants of ERP therapy: The first one has to do with the repetitive thoughts inside our heads. These thoughts are actually defined as “obsessions”. You are not supposed to do anything with the obsessions. You are supposed to let them run through your head freely, without trying to fix them or stop them. Imagine a tree planted by a river. The leaves fall off and float down the river. You can see the leaves falling, but you don’t try to stop them or pick them up. You don’t try to fix them. You just let them float away. This is really important to do with your obsessive thoughts. The more you try to fight them off, the worse they get. I used to have blasphemous sentences running in my head 24/7. I felt like I had to put a “not” next to each sentence in order to “fix” it. But this just took hours of my time every day, and it was very scary, because I was worried that if I messed up, that I would go to hell. It was very freeing to learn later that I could just let those sentences run freely through my head without trying to fix them. The second part of ERP therapy is all about “denying your compulsions.” Every time OCD tells you that if you don’t do things a certain way that something really bad will happen, that is a compulsion. Once you recognize what your compulsions are, ERP therapy will have you practice stopping doing all of those things. For some people, that will mean stopping washing their hands or touching lights switches or, in my case, putting “fixing” words in their head. Compulsions are safety behaviors. During ERP therapy, you will practice stopping engaging with safety behaviors. All this is very hard to do and scary, so during therapy you will be given tools to help you deal with the fear. Often ERP therapy will take people from being non-functional to functional. I highly recommend it. ————————————————- PITFALL #1: After you have been doing ERP for a while and become somewhat successful, the OCD will try subtle little tricks to bring you down again. The first one is to tell you that your thoughts are REAL and not OCD, and therefore you can’t apply ERP therapy. Don’t fall for this trick! All thoughts are just thoughts. They are all meaningless. Don’t try to figure out what is real and what is OCD. Just treat all thoughts with ERP therapy. PITFALL #2: The second pitfall is that OCD will tell you that you can’t move forward unless you have absolute certainty that you will be safe. Hate to tell you this, folks, but there is no certainty in life. You will never know for SURE that you or your loved ones will be “safe” from the OCD rules. Therefore, you have to move forward in the uncertainty. It’s hard, but it gets easier with time and practice. We got this, guys !!!!!!
- Date posted
- 19w
In 2023, as I was finally getting sober from harder substances, I found myself in one of the scariest mental spaces I'd ever known. I was still smoking daily, my relationship was rocky, and one night—it all hit me. It felt like I had slipped into a video game. Nothing felt real… or maybe everything felt too real. The world around me was distorted. I had always dealt with anxiety, but this? This was something else. I was spiraling—drenched in guilt over everything I'd ever done, every person I thought I hurt, every wrong I tried to make right all at once. It was suffocating. At 23, I tried checking myself into a mental hospital—something I hadn’t done since I was 17. I was desperate to understand what was happening. My relationship took a hit as I spilled every ounce of guilt I carried to my partner, unable to stop the cycle. It wasn’t just anxiety. It was OCD. And while the diagnosis was terrifying at first, it was also reassuring. I finally had a name for the storm inside me. I wasn’t alone. People I admire—like Jenna Ortega—deal with this too. It’s not just me. It’s real, it’s hard, but it’s also something I can face. Since then, I’ve made big changes. I stopped smoking—realizing it only made the noise in my head louder. I started therapy. My partner didn’t understand at first, but as we both learned more about OCD together, we grew stronger. We’re now engaged, and I’m happier than I’ve ever been. But now it’s time to reconnect—with myself. I want to find the me before everything. The creative, passionate, connected me. I want to start streaming games again and hopefully rebuild the following I lost. I want to connect with people again—I don’t have many friends left, but I’m determined to find my people again. I’m also diving back into my art. Journaling. Sketching—even when I don’t like it. Because it’s the act of creating that heals, not just the end result. I won’t let OCD run my life. I will prevail.
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