Does anyone ever think about how long will it take your ocd symptoms to go away. Like just to live one day like someone without ocd? I really want my journey to come to an end and I want to get on with my life. ? Anyone feel me?

Not to sound too depressing but does anybody else get scared or worried about the fact you have to deal with OCD for the rest of your life now that you have it.. Is it even possible to live somewhat of a normal life and have your thoughts not bother you as much?

To anyone who has POCD and has had a successful recovery, how does your day to day life look like now? Do you still have those thoughts in the back of your mind and just not let them bother you? Or have you gone about your days without even thinking about it at all? Has your life somewhat been back to normal? Do you still have harder days? And how often? Have you gained trust and confidence in who you are? Do you not allow OCD to make you question yourself? The reason I ask is because I worry that though I might get “better” I still will have hard days like every other week. Like having to have good days but deep down knowing you’re going to struggle with this for the rest of your life. Because personally I just can’t possibly imagine having to knowingly do ERP everyday for the rest of my life just to not crumble and fall apart. Yes I might be “better” at handling it, it will still be something I’m gonna have to be focusing on not allowing OCD to take over. I just want to live my life how I used to. Not having to try everyday to fall apart, ignoring thoughts, forcing myself to be uncomfortable, having to resist questioning things, and faking being okay with what I’m going through. It gets tiring having to do those things everyday. It’s so much easier to just give up. I’m doing my best to not give up. But the thought of having to fight OCD everyday and knowingly sounds much worse than just giving up. I feel like I’m a pretty reasonable person so having to live through this just doesn’t sound worth it and I think it’s pretty messed up to shame someone for wanting to “give up” if you know what I mean. So If there’s no true good outcome after consistent hard work. I think mental illnesses can be just as bad as a physical illness. But we don’t shame them for giving up a treatment because there’s no actual cure. We understand they can’t deal with the pain anymore and want to be set free. But when it comes to mental illness, being set free is looked down upon. But maybe there is no cure or good outcome and all we want is to be set free.

So I’ve been getting treatment for about 3 months now and it’s been slowly starting to work I think and days are slowly getting easier. There are still plenty of bad days and days where I just feel completely defeated but I’m gradually learning how to deal with these emotions. Part of me is really relieved and excited as OCD was absolutely awful and the worst thing I’ve ever experienced. It held me back from so many things and I felt so trapped and I never imagined I’d be in so much agonising discomfort everyday. However part of me is also really uneasy as OCD is what I’ve known for so many years and I don’t know life without it. It’s almost unsettling integrating back into the ‘normal’ way of life as part of me doesn’t know where to start and I feel like I lack foundation if that makes sense as I have been unable to do so much for so long. I’m also finishing school soon which makes things even harder as I don’t know what comes next, or who or what I’ll become and do with my life. I guess my question is, is life beyond OCD worth it and is it worth climbing out of this hell hole? I also know that I’ll probably always have OCD and there may always be bad days but it’s just becoming less disabling and time consuming which is so exciting but sort of terrifying at the same time. I also am worried that I’ll live a boring and miserable life because at least dealing with OCD left me with something and made life more interesting, much more painful but It almost became my identity. But I guess there has to be something more beyond this life I’m living. Sorry this is long.