How long has it taken you to get better? Has it been hard for you to discipline yourself in therapy? Not in terms of being responsible, but rather in terms of overcoming the difficulties that your OCD puts in your way towards working on therapy.

In my case, my perfectionism OCD has tried to make me do ERP in a certain "adequate" way, following certain patters or routines, for example. Also, ironically, trying to be "perfect" in terms of daily routines, which is something I struggle with, makes me be kind of a mess, since being "perfect" as my OCD wants me to be is virtually impossible, and I end up just buried in compulsions, or exhausted and unable to go through life in a healthy, at least slightly organized way because of dichotomic thinking - either I am "perfect" or I am not organized at all. All of this has made it hard for me to do ERP in a displined way.

@irenepsalmoral I see what you mean. I was similarly unable to even start working on my recovery because I was buried so deep, as you aptly put it, in anxiety and depression. I couldn’t brush my teeth or shower without melting into a puddle of anxiety, let alone anything beyond that. I would say I didn’t really start to be able to help myself until I was on the right medication, which took a while to find, but it made the difference for me.

@babbie Did you also seek for help, in terms of asking someone close to you to stop you from engaging in compulsions? I have done that and it hasn't worked for me so far - I start to trick them and lie to them in order to be able to do the compulsions. I just feel that, even if I want to recover, until I embrace the mindset of actually wanting to do the contrary as my OCD tells me to do, I won't be able to get better, no matter the amount of help I get. And this is tricky, at least for me, because my OCD tries to make me believe that recovery and compulsions are not mutually exclusive. Do you think I should persevere and ask for help from people close to me anyway? I'm just not sure of whether it will end up being worse, because all the lying will weaken our bonds. It's hard to explain to them how you can want to get better and at the same time engage in compulsions - I guess they don't see it as a symptom of a disease, as it is behavioural, and we tend to understand that we can control our behaviour.

@irenepsalmoral I personally have made a point of not involving my husband or other loved ones in my compulsions, because I tend toward codependency and don’t want to go there. I also find my anxiety worsens with external pressure, so others “helping” me isn’t necessarily helpful. It really depends on the person, obviously, and on the kind of compulsion, because some are more immediately destructive than others! But the methods that have worked best for me are usually kind of indirect? Like rather than putting all my energy into Stopping The Compulsion (which increases pressure and makes it worse, for me), I put most of it into things like self-care, getting out for walks, taking time to make myself look nice and feel nice. This sort of tricks my brain into thinking there’s less reason to be anxious, so it chills out a bit, which lessens the compulsions automatically. Basically, I sometimes have to accept that a compulsion, like skin-picking, is just going to be a thing for a while, try not to be too hard on myself about it, and take care of myself really well in other ways. Then, with some time, the compulsion will ease. But again, for me at least, all this would be impossible without meds.

@babbie Responding to another of your comments above: my ocd would also take wellness exercises and make them into perfection tests, which completely drained them of purpose. I’d do a breathing exercise and be thinking so hard about how to make it perfect that it didn’t relax me at all. This also didn’t really improve until I was medicated.

@babbie I can really relate to this. I used to do them and I'd end up hyperventilating trying to breath "correctly". In my case, wellness and exercise have worked only partially - the best strategy for me has been the 4-steps.

@irenepsalmoral What is the 4-steps?

@babbie It is an strategy to deal with intrusive thoughts. First, you relabel, meaning you identify the intrusive thought as what it is: an intrusive thought. Second, you reattribute, meaning you understand that your thought and the intensity of the emotion it triggers are caused by your OCD, and not by any kind of rational process in your mind. Third, you refocus, which means you try to focalise your attention in the task you were doing before getting the intrusive thought, or in any other task that helps you shift your attention away from the intrusive thought. And last of all, you revalue, which means more or less that when you feel better, you can, with time, look back at whatever was bothering you and realise it now seems way more unimportant and much smaller than before. It is better explained here: https://hope4ocd.com/foursteps.php

@irenepsalmoral That’s really cool, thanks for the info!

@babbie You're welcome! 😊 I hope it's useful!