Hi! My name is Mikhail. I have been diagnosed with OCD for a couple years now, and this year I started ERP therapy at NOCD. I first found out about Pure O from downloading NOCD's app and seeing other people post about their experiences with overthinking, fear, and shame. While I had been diagnosed with OCD before, I had never heard about Pure O, where the compulsions manifest themselves more internally. I was at a point in my life where I was isolating myself and afraid of the thoughts I was having all day every day. This eroded away my self-esteem and identity but the skills I learned doing ERP have helped me feel like myself again. I recommend doing ERP to anyone afflicted with OCD, as it has helped me train the mental muscles I needed to get back to my life again. NOCD specialists meet you where you are at and help you get better on your own terms. I have taken the opportunity to be an advocate because once I found out I wasn't alone with Pure OCD, it reignited the faith I had in ever recovering. Learning about other people's experiences and sharing my own has helped me live more authentically. I want to do anything I can to encourage others to recover as well, because I know it is possible and that this condition is manageable. Going through NOCD treatment invoked genuine compassion in me not just for others, but for myself, which is something I never truly felt before. If you have any questions at all, please reach out to me. I feel purpose in connecting with people about OCD and getting better together. Believe me, you are not the only one who has thought that crazy thing and then thought about thinking about it 17 more times until it impacted your behavior!

hi! I used nocd's services from March 2020 through August and my diagnostic scores for ocd cut in half from severe to mild. I was resigned to living isolated, and now I feel an authentic sense of self and assertiveness. I'm not sure if my OCD will ever really go away, but I feel very confident that I can manage it and get back up no matter how many ups and downs I experience. themes and obsessions that used to limit me have been disarmed and I now see that OCD is an internal process of cycles that can latch on to just about anything I feel vulnerable about. ERP has helped me get out of my comfort zone not only relating to OCD but in other parts of my life. I don't feel like I'm clawing through life as OCD controls me anymore, I am much more invested in the parts of me that want to see me and others succeed. I trust my gut more which is something I never knew how to do before. I can tolerate uncertainty, whether it's to do with my OCD themes or whatever curve balls life throws my way. mental illness has a way of normalizing perspectives inside us that are are pretty unkind, we get used to discounting ourselves and adapting around our obsessions. ERP has helped me ground myself and put into action healthier voices in my head :) I hope that is a helpful answer, I cannot emphasize enough how willing I am to answer questions like this.

@NOCD Advocate - Mikhail V. Thank you for sharing. So you did this without the therapy sessions? All on your own by using the app? Bravo if so, and Bravo if I am wrong. I am excited to start my journey.

@Anonymous I used NOCD to get matched with a specialist through the app, and met with them weekly from March to August. My therapist was within my state and we did our sessions through zoom. she was very nonjudgmental, understanding, and knowledgeable about OCD. she met me where I was and we figured out a way to organize the themes in my head along with a plan to tackle them incrementally from least to most distressing. Even writing down the thoughts that concerned me on paper helped disarm them significantly. I don't think I would have been able to do it without her, because she pushed me to do exposures that seemed impossible at the time even though now I see that it was just ocd limiting me. It was almost underwhelming, in a good way, how respectful and nonchalant our sessions were. I thought I was a complete freak and alone with my thoughts as a danger to society, but she approached our sessions with the understanding that OCD can latch onto anything. I've heard a lot of people say that the contents of your thoughts don't matter, and I agree with that. however, the scars those obsessions leave on you and the opportunities you miss as a result of OCD are very real. my NOCD therapist was aware of this and I appreciated how direct our sessions were. meeting with her helped me find the direction I needed to get better. she gave me the space I needed, and helped me help myself.

@NOCD Advocate - Mikhail V. Thank you so much for this wonderful response

@NOCD Advocate - Mikhail V. What was your ERP for pure o?

@anonymouse 🐭 My ERP was centered on Pure O, so I started by noticing physical compulsions and did my best to stop engaging in them. This included things like not walking down an aisle in a grocery store if there were children in it. I also started to do positive things that I had avoided because of OCD, like playing and listening to music, or having phone calls. These were my physical exposures, which helped me be more social. What really helped my pure O specifically was doing imaginal scripts: This is when my therapist would guide me as I wrote a paragraph detailing the most realistic and horrible situations if my obsessions came true. This was really hard, and personally I find it the largest hurdle to overcome in treatment is just writing these scripts then reading them back to your therapist. It seems impossible to do at the time, but it made the biggest difference for me. Writing my first script was my biggest step forward, overall, if I had to say. After sharing what I wrote, my therapist thanked me for doing that and told me that I will have to read it back to myself 10 times a day. She didn't seem concerned with the content of my scripts, no matter how horrible the situations were. The point of the scripts is to bring out that feeling of fear and "what if?" that fuels OCD. They are meant to be written to invoke the distress and tension on your body. By sharing them with a qualified therapist, they can guide you on how much you can handle the distress and help you pace yourself until you can manage even more. By reading the scripts back to myself in my head 10 times a day, I noticed my distress went down almost linearly each time I checked it again. I began to get bored imagining the situation instead of frightened, and I began to realize and feel that just because I wrote something down it doesn't make it true, and that thoughts are just thoughts that fly into your head . Everyone has disturbing thoughts, but OCD makes us keep engaging with them because we need certainty that they will never happen in real life. This is why obsessions in pure o are ego-dystonic (you're only so distressed by it because you are extremely against it ever happening, not because you actually somehow want them to!). When I got to the point of being bored reading the scripts, I was encouraged to try reading them in different situations. Reading them in line at the store or at dinner with loved ones, even just in my head, was much scarier than doing so privately. This brought back that scary feeling in me but when I looked up from reading in public, I saw nothing had changed. Just because I had the thought and felt that feeling didn't actually manifest something in real life. By reading scripts and imagining them happening while near people (especially those who were part of my obsessions/fears) was another game changer for me because it started to feel like I was in charge of my own recovery. My therapist taught me the skills and gave me the space and encouragement I needed, but I began applying it in my own ways that I knew would help me once I got to the other side of the fear. I began actually chasing this feeling of fear or "What If?" just to see if I could handle it. This enthusiasm helped me a lot, but the other part of ERP besides exposures is RESPONSE PREVENTION. This is how you prep yourself before exposures. For me my RP focused a lot on getting a good night's rest, eating nourishing food, and being physically active. I also practiced mindfulness and breathing as a way to ground myself during exposures. It took me longer to start setting myself up for success by doing these things but it made doing exposures a lot easier! I believe anyone can do the imaginal scripts and stop engaging in the cycle of fear and compulsions it just takes a little bit of guidance, tolerating uncertainty, and learning to tell the difference between what your OCD is telling you v.s. your genuine intuition and humanity.

@NOCD Advocate - Mikhail V. One response prevention tactic I still use every day is imagining that an intrusive thought has been said by a neighbor through the wall, or just by a stranger that has randomly come up to me and said something strange. This helps me disregard and let go of thoughts and not fall in to that cycle of obsessing and doing compulsions.

@NOCD Advocate - Mikhail V. Thanks this was a great response. For me I also have pure o but a lot of my compulsions are mental, over analyzing, Comparing, neutralizing, and sometimes they happen subconsciously. I found that meditation and constantly recognizing that the thoughts are only just thoughts has really helped me. I was wondering how ERP is done for mental compulsions. Thanks for your help

@anonymouse 🐭 Meditation and mindfulness are great ways to supplement ERP, in my experience each practice strengthened the other. Meditation helps us let go and return to the breath , no matter how many layers of thinking we went into. This acceptance and nonchalant return to the present moment is similar to ERP because we just tune into how we are feeling. OCD spikes fear in us and we do what we can to make it go away, but if we can set up the circumstances needed to get to know that fear in a structured and safe way, we can learn that the fear passes on its own and we do not need to do compulsions, they only fuel the fire.

@anonymouse 🐭 One more thing: if you are prone to rumination and over analyzing your overthinking, try timing in your head how much time you spend each day doing that. Not in a judgemental way, but just to note when you can how much mental compulsions have happened that day. When I did this it was a great way to nurture the part of me that wanted to recover from OCD. Noticing I was ruminating and estimating how long I must have been at it snapped me back to the present moment and gave my brain something to do as I roughly tallied up as much as 9 or 10 hours of my waking day. This may not be the best approach for everyone but I believe it's a tactic worth being aware of. Thank you for sharing your experience with OCD!

@NOCD Advocate - Mikhail V. Love. Much to love to you & your journey. Hyped to hear that you’ve been doing better. Got me hyped to dive into this therapy

@jeffZie That's awesome! You're not alone and OCD is definitely treatable

@NOCD Advocate - Mikhail V. Also is there a difference between just rumination about something and it being real OCD?

@Anonymous Rumination is when you begin overthinking about an intrusive thought or obsession in an attempt to 'figure it out' or somehow make it feel different. Ruminating on what the thought means or what it must mean about you is a sign of OCD and can leave you feeling quite drained and tense. Brainpower uses up a lot of energy and calories, and when we ruminate we get farther and farther from reality until we can't trust that a thought is just a thought and start changing our behavior based on our rumination

@NOCD Advocate - Mikhail V. How do you begin feeling what thoughts are real desires and feelings and what are just thouggta

@Anonymous You just accept uncertainty, and even invite in not knowing. Sort of, 'cross that bridge when we come to it' perspective. The more we can tolerate and work with uncertainty, the more things settle and OCD controls us less and let's us get back in tune with our natural intuitions and needs. Thoughts and feelings don't make something true, and figuring out what we want out of life and who we are is hard enough without OCD on top of it but it is a rewarding journey. Giving yourself the room to simply just be as you are and accept where you are at right now and what you're feeling gives growth to more positive voices in our head that can guide us to managing OCD and living authentically over time. This is a different journey for everyone, but I recommend watching NOCD's weekly livestream where experts delve more into tolerating uncertainty , or listening to podcasts like The OCD Stories can also give a more comprehensive grasp on what it's like to practice putting that into action. I and other advocates on the app here can also discuss that if you are interested!

@eleonoraadriana NOCD paired me with a therapist 4 hours away from me in my U.S. state of Florida. I don't believe NOCD has expanded overseas yet, but I would not be surprised to see that happen over time. Until then, I would recommend that you find a therapist in your area that specializes in OCD and is qualified to guide you through Exposure and Response Prevention therapy. How familiar are you with ERP?

@NOCD Advocate - Mikhail V. I find myself needing to find reassurance all the time. Whether it’s from others, the internet, etc. this can go away but always ends up coming right back. I have an extremely hard time sitting with my thoughts and accepting them. I want to fight them and challenge them and reassure myself. I’m afraid to make plans with friends or for anything in the future because I don’t know how I’ll be feeling. Can anyone relate?

@NOCD Advocate - Mikhail V. This! Thank you Mikhail. I just read this while scrolling through the app today and tried it with my obsessions, and this is a great way to deal with the thoughts and disturbances! Thank you for sharing this!

@NOCD Advocate - Mikhail V. You seem like a good dude!!! I am suffering and working with NOCD now

@NikitaG No they did erp

Hey melody! I've experienced that as well and it's a particularly sensitive theme to tackle since we want to acknowledge our privilege and be antiracist, but still recognize that catastrophizing, ruminating, or feeling ashamed of ourselves is not healthy for us or anyone else. I'm glad you shared and I think ERP will help! OCD themes are ego dystonic, they upset you because they are in conflict with your core beliefs. The cycles of intrusive thoughts and obsessive thinking certainly sounds like OCD to me. What has helped me with this theme is tolerating uncertainty, learning more about racism, and simply not avoiding that discomfort. When I have an intrusive thought like a racial slur, I recognize that distress but remind myself that I am doing my best to counteract any internalized racism and use my privilege to take action against it in daily life. These intrusive thoughts used to really distress me, since as a white person I don't know HOW MUCH I don't know about my role in racism and I would not want to inadvertently perpetuate it. At first, it helped me when I had a slur pop into my head to feel the discomfort, then take a moment to also acknowledge that I am continuing to do my best to be antiracist and learn, but that I can't control what pops into my head. OCD latches onto what we feel vulnerable about, no matter what it is. Recognizing that helps put a healthier distance between myself and my OCD.

I would also encourage setting aside a space where you can welcome that fear or distress about racism as an exposure. For example, writing out a script that describes your worst fear: something like, what would really happen if I was racist and where would that lead? This would help organize a lot of the distress and help you manage it incrementally. I'd also recommend meditation teachers like Rachel Rickets, who specifically guide meditations on privilege and internalized racism. I believe being antiracist is important to you, and OCD is capitalizing on that and causing you a lot of pain. In ERP, we learn to feel it on our own terms so it doesn't control us. I hope your call with NOCD went well this weekend, I believe an erp specialist could help guide you through it well and I have no doubt it will be helpful to you! It sounds unthinkable but answering the "what if?" feeling with "OK, I guess I'm racist then" can disarm it a lot and help ground you in day ti day life. Eventually you will realize more that thoughts are just thoughts . Sometimes I pretend intrusive thoughts are just something I overheard a neighbor say through the wall, or passing cars on the road.

@NOCD Advocate - Mikhail V. Thank you so much! It’s just been so hard because I’ve been struggling since August and I tried talk therapy and that didn’t work and I didn’t know what was wrong with me until I found a therapist here. I meet her this Thursday.

@Melody 25 I hear you, treatment and recovery is a long journey and unfortunately many mental health providers out there are not as knowledgeable about OCD as they could be. I tried a dozen medications and 3 therapists before I even found out about pure o OCD. Even knowing what the heck I was experiencing helped me so much to find direction and seeing other people's experiences with OCD made me feel a LOT less alone. You got this 👍 it's awesome you've taken all the steps you have despite how hard OCD can make things , let me know if there's any other way I can help

Hey Butters! I can relate with that. Before my OCD was triggered I thought about all sorts of things and was a bright student. Once intrusive thoughts and compulsions took over, any bright ideas I had eroded away and my brain focused 110% of it's energy on rumination about what it must mean that I'm having these thoughts. Once I got help, I had the tools and information I needed to heal but it took time. I'm really glad you're with a NOCD therapist, be patient with yourself, do ERP at a productive pace, and remember to rest! What helped me most with rumination was estimating the time I spent ruminating every day and keeping track of it in a journal. Every time I REALIZED I was ruminating, I would estimate how long I must have spent doing that and tally it up at the end of the day. On average, I ruminated at least 9 hours of my waking life. I don't really ruminate enough anymore to keep track, and my brain has slowly readjusted back to amusing itself with making meaning of the world around me. I like this method of keeping track of rumination because it can give us something to do the momenr we realize we are ruminating. OCD brains are stuck on loops so much because we feed that cycle of threat signals and pay attention to every single instance of an obsession until it is the only thing we are thinking about. Having to estimate how long we ruminate and add it up snaps the brain out of that cycle. Keeping track over time also allows us to better understand what factors relieve or worsen our symptoms by noticing what we did on good and bad days. Seeing just how much time we spend ruminating also helps get some distance between our sense of self and OCD, and can foster compassion. It helped me a lot when I was averaging 9 or 10 hours of daily rumination to see that number and know I was doing my best to help myself, despite everything. It also gave a greater sense of legitimacy to my OCD and I felt less doubt about whether I actually had the disorder or not since I saw in front of me how much time this was taking from my day against my will. I hope that helps! I love your name, have a good day :)

I would recommend organizing the themes that distress you most and writing them out somewhere outside your own head. This can help set a boundary between you and your OCD. Participating in an OCD support group would be a great alternative until you are in a position to do therapy. The International OCD Foundation's website has a page where you can find your nearest support group or join one online. I would advise against participating in online OCD groups unless they are moderated by a qualified professional. Many Facebook groups I've been in have been full of reassurance and a culture of despair that can complicate recovery, communication, and inclusivity. I would also recommend listening to OCD podcasts or videos, but these too can grow unhealthy if you watch them as a compulsion or listen to someone unqualified. I recommend The OCD Stories podcast to learn more about OCD + ERP and to feel less alone. NOCD's weekly webcasts are a good option as well because they feature qualified experts on OCD and answer questions live. This is accessible through the app or on NOCD's YouTube page!

@NOCD Advocate - Mikhail V. Damn. So true about the Facebook groups of people sharing posts of despair. Which I can understand why people are doing it - we all want support. Yet I don’t think constantly seeing those kind of posts are going to support our journey to recovery

@NOCD Advocate - Mikhail V. I was wondering how do you even know if it’s OCD? And can it just start out of nowhere... can you just have OCD over a specific thought that happened even if you aren’t having new ones? I’m just confused about it all because I’m just learning about all of this and not sure if it’s what I’m going through or not

I would be wary of participating in groups online that are not moderated by a qualified professional on OCD. It's a debilitating thing to experience and causes us a lot of pain and internal turmoil, so I can understand why people form groups like that and I've joined facebook groups like that before, too. I would warn against seeking outside reassurance of any kind because the key to recovering is no longer escaping that feeling of fear or shame. It can be helpful to share how you feel, especially among other people with OCD that can understand the struggle. However, if groups are formed for reassurance or only to share despair, I believe it only makes OCD significantly harder to treat. Sharing images, regardless of the content they contain, has no positive value because OCD is an internal process. It can latch onto literally anything, no matter how taboo OR normal it is. We have to be accountable for our own recovery firsthand and learn to regain trust in our intuition to sort out our own feelings of shame and fear . We can reframe how we react to intrusive thoughts and obsessions in a constructive way until the content truly becomes irrelevant no matter how unpleasant it is. One thing I hear a lot is that the content of OCD thoughts does not matter, which is true. But the opportunities we miss and the tolls these thoughts take on our sense of identity and self esteem should be acknowledged and properly healed, not just quelled through reassurance over and over again forever. I would discourage participating in unmoderated support groups and instead check out the International OCD Foundation's website, where they can point you to your nearest constructive support group. By being open about OCD, I have discovered that a close friend of mine also experienced it to the same severity. She is someone I never would have expected to feel that way, and we have been able to make a supportive bond free of reassurance as well. there are definitely ways to connect and share our experience of OCD to feel less alone without spiraling into hopelessness or reassurance. I am glad you have asked this question, since POCD is not easy to talk about 👍.

:) ✊👍

Hi Melody, how did your session go with your therapist? I'm sorry I didn't catch your message earlier, I hope you are feeling better. OCD can get us tangled in a web of "what ifs" and "justifications" that can go on forever. Racial slurs are a particularly difficult type of intrusive thoughts, but at the end of the day that is what they are. You did not ask for them, and they are making your life difficult right now. We can't control what comes into our heads, but we can control how we react to them and how much we let them influence us. It takes practice, but I believe you can get to a place where you can separate your OCD from your identity in order to approach the topic of racial injustice in an honest AND healthy way. I can see this is important to you, and you are trying your best with what you know. I am happy to talk about it more with you, but I think you would be in the best care by a certified therapist so that you can get the trust, space, and safety you deserve in treating your OCD. Thank you for reaching out to me, guilt can really take over quickly but sharing with others and feeling through it is a good way to go! Proud of you for reaching out.

Yes that sounds like OCD as a symptom of the pain and anxiety you are going through. I want to congratulate you on not taking benzos though, they help temporarily but they are very very detrimental long term

@Anonymous I think it may have caused it to be honest. It made me feel more depressed and I think it really made my anxiety worse which I think caused the thoughts to happen but now I’m stuck in a cycle of wondering if that was the cause or not. I definitely see I have been ruminating on what was the cause and how do I move on and also trying to accept that it’s just thoughts but I think I gave it so much power that it has brought me a lot of stress and guilt and I just really have a hard time understanding them because I literally have not ever really ever had thoughts like that. That in my opinion are disturbing.

@Anonymous Thanks yeah they had me on them for like 4 or 5 weeks. It wasn’t really a positive experience.

@Anonymous Hi, I believe my OCD was triggered by Zoloft as well. Even after I tried different medications, the cycle of intrusive thoughts started. I recommend you learn about Pure OCD, because to me it sounds like that is what you are experiencing. You are not a bad person for having intrusive thoughts, and I believe you can get to a place where you can manage this and the thoughts will no longer distress you and die down. Don't hesitate to reach out here if you have any questions, I would be happy to answer.

@NOCD Advocate - Mikhail V. How can I reach out?

@Anonymous Feel free to share and ask questions here. Everyone has intrusive thoughts, but OCD escalates them to really taboo places and overthinking. I promise you the content of your thoughts doesn't matter, OCD is an internal process that can latch onto anything you feel vulnerable about. Intrusive thoughts give us fear, and we do mental and physical compulsions to lower that stress. Unfortunately this only feeds the cycle, kind of like an addiction to cigarettes. However there are ways to break from this cycle by doing exposure and response prevention therapy, by sharing our experience as a way to distance ourselves from the thoughts and feel less alone, and by not letting OCD affect our behavior or let us miss opportunities in life.

@NOCD Advocate - Mikhail V. I guess I just get stuck wondering if it’s OCD or not? I just found this out by googling intrusive thoughts once I found out what they were. I feel like I had an event of paranoia and weird thought/visualizations that now I’m stuck on for the past 3 weeks. I have been researching constantly which may be a compulsion? Before researching that I was researching medicines to help my anxiety and insomnia a ton and then when I got off them researching withdrawal and if it was linked to intrusive thoughts that were negative.when I look back I realize for the past 3 months I’ve been researching anxiety and worrying about if I am ever going to feel like myself again? And if I am going crazy or not? Do I have some other diagnosis? But what really bothered me the most was the content of the most recent thoughts. Truly believing it means they will happen. It seems all fear based but it interferes with my life. Do the thoughts usually have a mental image with it??

@Anonymous I haven’t had a formal diagnosis for OCD by the way. Just anxiety which was mild and managed all my life with no intrusive type thoughts that I ever was stuck on. So I guess I just keep wondering why the heck did this come up now and so suddenly? I just really thought it was the medicine I was on but now that I’m off I’m still stuck and there’s still the visualizations left and the thoughts are hard to forget so I don’t know if it was from the medicine or if it was just my heightened anxiety. My fist therapy appointment with a therapist here isn’t for another 10 days so it’s just hard waiting.

@Anonymous I am sorry you're experiencing that. A huge part of OCD is that feeling of uncertainty. If you feel rushed and compelled to "figure out" that feeling, it is likely to be OCD. Mental images do happen for some people in Pure O. My intrusive thoughts came on very suddenly similar to how you are describing. If you are that worried about the thoughts coming true, that reinforces to me that you are likely experiencing OCD. These thoughts are ego dystonic, which means they go against your core values. You are reacting so strongly because you are extremely against them coming true, not because you somehow secretly want them to. Thoughts are just thoughts. I know what it's like to have this interfere with your life, and I believe meeting with a NOCD specialist will help you significantly. I am glad you are researching your symptoms, but yes obsessing over diagnoses or fearing that you will never feel like yourself again is another sign of OCD. I would recommend finding a support group to meet with from the International OCD Foundation's website, listening to podcasts about OCD such as The OCD Stories podcast, and turn to your most positive coping mechanisms. Until you can meet with a professional, I recommend journaling your thoughts or feelings down on paper. You can look up calming breathing techniques to ground yourself. One more thing is: when an intrusive thought comes in, imagine it's just something you heard a neighbor next door say through a wall, or something you overheard a stranger say. This helps put distance between you and the thoughts. Also, feel free to continue sharing here and exploring the rest of the NOCD forums.

@NOCD Advocate - Mikhail V. Thank you for this. Yes I notice my compulsion is the researching and also that I look for reassurance from others quite a lot and spend a lot of time trying to figure it all out. Prior to these thoughts randomly popping up I was dealing with anxiety from losing my mom however it wasn’t with this type of worry. It was more just anxiety and rumination on anxiety/depression and worry about health anxiety. Then when this started it was just like out of nowhere. Rewind to even 4 weeks ago and regardless of the anxiety I was a loving, caring, honest, person just dealing with grief and fear. And prior to that I was just recently married and loved my life and have everything to be grateful for. I just would like that sense of enjoyment back. I feel like this has robbed all the joy from me just these few thoughts/images. I don’t know how a thought could do that to someone. And how they can feel so real and make you question who you are as a person. I’m constantly trying to tell myself I know I’m a good person and I’m always crying when I see my spouse or daughter because I can’t believe I would have ever had a thought or even a concern that I might harm them. It just doesn’t make sense and it would have never ever been something I ever thought Of prior. I thought maybe the anxiety I’ve been under and the medicines I was taking sensitized my nervous system and perhaps made all of this catastrophizing start. I notice I have been doing some avoidance with just sometimes avoiding being around anyone, and avoiding potentially dangerous objects. I’m trying to get better with that but it’s hard. It really makes you feel like you are losing your mind. And then since those thoughts started now it’s just like all kinds of morbid things I’ve never thought about or just the idea of uncertainty of everything maybe perhaps a little existential OCD ? I don’t know thank you for your information this has been by far the hardest struggle. Can I ask, do people get better without meds??

@Anonymous I'm sorry you're going through all of that, it seems like even though this has come on very abruptly you have already taken a lot of steps to learn what's happening and how to deal with it. I believe you are more than capable of managing this condition with time, and will learn to trust yourself despite the thoughts :). I personally found significantly more help from ERP at NOCD than I did from the dozen medications I tried beforehand. Everyone is different, and there is no shame in medication if it helps you. I experienced too many side effects for it to work for me and have not been on medication in two years now, and I did all of my ERP without medication. I learned to properly rest myself before challenging myself with exposures and it has taught me to get up over and over again no matter what OCD or life throws my way. OCD does not mean you are permanently out of control, it just feels like it. You have more control than you think and I look forward to hearing your journey with OCD.

@NOCD Advocate - Mikhail V. Thank you I was reading a lot about pure O and that perhaps it’s most helpful for the Response Prevention part of the ERP more so than the exposure since it’s more about rumination and thoughts versus a specific compulsion like some others experience.

@Anonymous Pure o is interesting since the compulsions include things like ruminating, or mental rituals. For me physical compulsions include isolating or avoiding things, or tapping my feet or feeling like I have to breathe or wall a certain way. Internally compulsions can include engaging in "magical thinking", trying to think positive thoughts to counteract intrusive ones, seeking certainty or explanations by ruminating, or blinking or tensing up to "push down" negative thoughts

@NOCD Advocate - Mikhail V. What kind of side effects did you have ??

@khaugen Hi khaugen, to clarify, do you mean side effects from ERP?

@NOCD Advocate - Mikhail V. I mean from the meds

@khaugen I was prescribed about 13 medications in 2 years but my side effects personally included emotional numbing, rapid weight gain, strain on my liver, hypersomnia, and any positive effect was personally not worth the price of the medication financially at a certain point. However, there's no reason not to take medication and do ERP at the same time. My medication could have proven more useful if I had done ERP while on them. Did that answer your question?