Hello all! I just want to introduce myself and share my experience in hopes of helping others feel less alone in this battle. My name is Trevon Cutlerknapp. I’m from Utah but currently reside in New York with my amazing husband and our two Boston Terrier fur babies. I like most of you also struggle with OCD. I’ve dealt with it for most of my life to some degree, but it really came to surface in 2008. At first it was the Scrupulosity obsessions that grasped me as I was serving a 2 year mission for my faith at that time and was away from my family. I dealt with it for a good 11 years just seeing therapists who diagnosed me with generalized anxiety and depression. November 2017 I decided it was time for me to come out to my family. At this time the scrupulosity thoughts resurfaced for obvious reasons. But luckily I came to the conclusion with help of friends that it was time for me to leave my faith behind and come out publicly. At that time I felt a huge relief. The scrupulous thoughts left...or so I thought. I had believed at that time that the reason I was struggling so bad was because I had not been true to myself. Needless to say the thoughts did come back but in a different way. Nearly 6 months after coming out I was struck with overwhelming fear and anxiety after noticing that I had looked at a female in “certain type of way”. It was then I felt the grips of the anxiety overcome me like it had before. Although this time it wasn’t as bad. It felt familiar. It was then that I began to deal with Sexual Orientation obsessions, although it wasn’t for a few more months that I learned I was dealing with OCD. I began researching answers to my questions. It was there that I discovered that I believed I was suffering from OCD. It was also when I found my worst crutch and coping mechanism, the compulsion of “googling”. It was around the same time that I met my husband. I also found an OCD specialist that I began working with. I learned new and more effective ways of “battling” this monster. At this same time ROCD crept in. In June of 2019, me and my husband decided to move to New York together. Because I had lost contact with my therapist in Utah I decided I needed to find a new therapist. I met with Chrissie Hodges, an amazing woman, who helped me find NOCD. It was there that I began ERP treatment more in depth than I had before. My NOCD therapist helped me build my hierarchy and gave me the push that I needed to help myself get better. In January of 2020 me and my husband got engaged. In October of 2020 we were married. Around this same time I finished my treatment with my therapist in NOCD. I was also asked to become an advocate for NOCD. My reasoning for sharing my story is to give others hope that you can overcome this. You can learn the skills to battle OCD in whatever “form” it attacks you with. OCD is OCD, but you get what I mean. I also share my story to give others the courage to fight back and live your life how you want to even when OCD is screaming in your face telling you that you’re an imposter or a fraud. The greatest thing I remember from both of my therapists is that the greatest thing you can do is to not let OCD boss you around. Go and live life anyway. For me that meant, even though I was dealing with doubts surrounding my sexuality and relationship, I did it anyway. I knew what I wanted before those doubts crept in, but I didn’t let them have power over me. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have days that I really wanted to give up because I definitely did. I still have those days unfortunately. OCD by no means has gone away. It’s still here. But because I made the decision to get help and learned to trust my therapist, I learned how to better manage it. I know that all of you have the power to do the same. OCD shows up in the most brilliant and brightest of minds and it really can cause us to suffer and feel tortured. OCD is torture. It’s vicious and it’s cruel. But you can overcome it with treatment. You can recover and put OCD in its place. Don’t give up! Fight back! But don’t fight against the thoughts. Allow them to be there and learn to see them as just thoughts. That is all they are. Our thoughts do not have meaning until we assign them meaning. The sensations we feel in our body to the thoughts are just sensations. They’re also meaningless. Our minds are not moral gate keepers. Our mind simply presents us with information for us to sort through. We get to choose the meaning of that information and what we want to do with it. We can accept the thoughts are there, but it doesn’t mean that we agree with them. Acceptance ≠ Agreement.