When you’re diagnosed with more than OCD and everything affects your road to recovery.

What else are you diagnosed with?

MDD, GAD, panic disorder, BPD, PTSD and OCPD ? I’m like the Pokémon of mental illness.

I’ve tried ERP, DBT, talk therapy and something else. Just read that I might need to do somatic experience therapy for my ptsd. The article said the ERP may make the anxiety worse.

Wow. How is that even possible? I have OCD (obviously), a history of major depression, and I lost my mom three years ago to cancer. All of that was hard enough. But all of those conditions? Wow.

@Flamewheel I’m sorry about your mother. I lost my father to cancer too about three years ago and my Mother to her heart failure about three months after my father died. I had OCD since my teens but officially diagnosed three years ago. I was hospitalized three times and with each stay, they added new diagnosis. Two of the three are the same hospital.

That’s a lot to deal with. Amazingly I haven’t been hospitalized but I have come close to admitting myself, particularly in the last few weeks. I don’t know how I survived for so long. Watching my mom die from cancer was hard enough. She was only 46. But to have OCD on top of that...I don’t even know. I have come to a turning point in my recovery and I think things are going to be uphill from here. I wish my mom were here to see my progress! It took her death to realize how all-encompassing my OCD actually is.

Wow, your mother was young. I completely understand how difficult it is for you. Like you said losing a parent alone is difficult. I found “coping” strategies for my OCD during this time which made things a lot harder as the strategies became my compulsions. But had I not used them I wouldn’t have been able to my parents’ funerals. I’ve had ERP earlier this year but both my therapist and insurance agreed I need something more intensive which the insurance will not cover so I’m pretty much at square one again. Making my other conditions worse which then makes my OCD harder to deal with. Sometimes when I feel like I need to go to the hospital, I outweigh which option is the best. Because being at the hospital will definitely cause high levels of anxiety for me so most times I’d just rather feel the pain alone in the comfort of a familiar bed, room etc. I have used NYWELL, it’s a suicide hotline but I get to talk to others who are suffering and/or therapists. I can either call or text so maybe you can try that too?

I am going into an intensive treatment program so I think I will be okay. During that time I will have near constant access to my therapist. I am scared but also excited to go too. I think I am at a turning point. One of the companies I work for has an employee assistance program I can use. I can use the line 24/7 and talk to a therapist if I need to. I am grateful. I have had to use it several times...finally they were like “you got all the coping skills and you are on the right track”...I would just use them to help me calm down from the anxiety and I would do everything I could to not ask for reassurance. My mom left me with some financial means and I am using that to pay for my therapy. Totally worth it. Would rather not live a life crippled by OCD...I am 25! I may have a whole future ahead of me!

You do. You’re so young! I’m happy you’re getting the intensive treatment. When I was your age, my OCD became harder to deal with though I was not diagnosed with nor did I know it was OCD so I couldn’t do much. Now I’m getting old and well like they say “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. I wish you the best of luck though. Your mother is proud of you. She’ll be with you in spirit ?

Thank you so much. Even at the age of 25 I still fit the “It takes an average of 14 to 17 years to receive proper treatment” demographic. Amazing. I had the diagnosis at 18 but didn’t really know how bad my OCD was until the age of 23. Jeff Bell’s memoir changed my life! I read it for a public health class. I picked it because I knew I had OCD but I didn’t know how bad it actually was. I have met Jeff in person too. So grateful. It was his book that introduced the IOCDF to me.

OCD really does creep up on you. It seems like you woke up one day with this thing but in reality we practiced compulsions without realizing it. That was definitely my case. Everything I’ve learned about OCD-therapy, resources, websites was my obsessions about wanting to know everything about it. Unfortunately the gap between knowing what I need to do and emotionally and mentally exhausted is huge that thinking about having to do it alone drains very little energy I have. I have to get proper sleep first. Having insomnia, experiencing OCD in my dreams and having to wake up multiple times every night to do my compulsions of writing down the dreams definitely do not help. I’m glad you know what you need to do. I have a friend who suffers from OCD. She’s older than me but will not listen to me telling her she needs to look into doing the ERP. It’s excuses after excuses so I had to distance myself from her. You will definitely get better. It’s sad that there’s no cure for OCD. I’m excited for your recovery.

Thank you. I will keep the community here updated. Hope I can encourage others on their journey. :) We have an unusually strong community. If you can ever go to an OCD Conference I totally recommend it. One feels the strength of the community there.