What did you do when your therapy was over? I am currently doing an online 12 week CBT program with a psychiatrist and she’s been really great. My anxiety has gone down from probably an 8 to 4 overall and I’ve learned a lot of skills. She says that usually after the 12 weeks, clients usually feel better and take the skills and tools they’ve learned and that people don’t need therapy forever. I’ve told her that I would like to continue sessions and she’s agreed to do 12 more weeks of online video chats (20 mins per week) but I asked to do them every 2 weeks I could slowly taper off. I feel like I’ve learned a lot but I still have questions about dealing with what ifs and what if my thoughts are real threats or just perceived threats. Should I keep seeing a therapist after or how do I remain in remission after the therapy is over?

For me after therapy I wasn't cured so I became miserable because therapists clarify that ERP wont cure you but will make your OCD into background noise and there's never any guarantee you'll be cured. My dumbass took this as a "Well technically you won't be cured but let's be real most people get cured and have no ocd until like years" (I mean thats kind of what my therapist said). I felt horrible because i wanted this to be completely wiped so I can move on with my garbage life, so I emailed my therapist like DO I NEED MORE THERAPY and she was like "idk there's never a guarantee it'll go away and we did every exercise we could think of. You can do more therapy if you want" and I chose to kind of wait it out. Basically what I'm saying is don't expect to be magically cured post-therapy. But do expect for you to have habituated ERP and ACT tricks and the avoidance of compulsions which coupled with time going on for like...till we all die, you're gonna notice it slowly wither and dissipate. It's gonna be a nag and background noise. Those moments that made you relapse back in the day are gonna be minor sad times at worst. You're just kinda gonna be accustomed to not giving a fuck about most things OCD throws at you. I'm not saying you're gonna be desensitized and demoralized, that's pretty much impossible even if we do like hardcore "could-wind-up-in-jail" ERP shit. I'm just saying you will notice when you are doing compulsions and catch yourself a lot more often and it'll be easier for you to be like "this is really dumb and I'm not gonna do it" than for you to be like "I HAVE TO FIND THE ANSWER" because uncertainty will DEFINITELY not be as torturous. Post-therapy uncertainty becomes a slight short-lenght headache compared to pre-therapy's massive 5 panic attacks in 1 package of a monster cluster demon headache. And it'll become easier for you not to do compulsions because uncertainty isn't flat out murdering you but more pestering you when you get to that point. Hope this helped!

What diz you learn????? Teach me