Hi guys!! I had harm ocd & still somewhat do i haven’t met with my therapist yet I’m very new to this site, but I would watch Ali greymonds videos on YouTube she also had ocd herself & it helped me a lot I’m almost feeling back to my regular self again so if you’re ever feeling hopeless at any time of the day pls go watch & there is hope I am telling you, use the same mental energy that you’re using to focus on the thoughts, to not focus on them. You will not act on these thoughts, you’re not a bad person, these thoughts are ocd thoughts not yours, these thoughts go against your own thoughts that’s why you are scared of them. We are just sensitive people with sensitive brains lol nothing to feel bad about. Trust me I had 10/10 anxiety 6 months ago I thought I was never going to get out of it I thought it was going to be my new forever but I put in the mental work everyday & im slowly but surely getting myself out of it. You have to push yourself mentally everyday though, just like a diet you can’t eat good for 3 days & see a change the first 2 weeks will be the hardest because your brain will be trying to pull you back in (this is for the people just starting to fight back still with 10/10 anxiety) the thoughts, images, dreams, etc, will all get scarier you will get the same thoughts in hundreds of different ways none of them matter, they are not real, even tho they feel so real it’s all just a ocd scam ocd makes everything feel real even tho it is not, the what if thoughts after are just as irrelevant as the original thought itself, let the thought be there & pass don’t question yourself don’t look into it only makes it worse. After you push hard thru and tell yourself that you are no longer wasting your time to focus on these thoughts that YOU are in control & YOU choose to ignore, you will notice you will start to feel so much better & it will give you motivation to keep going, there’s always good & bad days in recovery but don’t focus on them accept whatever you’re feeling if it’s a bad day oh well if it’s a good day great. You’ve allowed your mind to see these thoughts as important & scary, so your brain sends you these thoughts on autopilot all day your reaction is what will keep them around, if you tell yourself yes these thoughts are so scary, why do I have to deal with this, I want this to go away, your brain will keep sending it to you as important & as a way to protect yourself, your brain doesn’t know what the thought is it just knows you react in fear so it believes you’re in danger (which you’re not actually it just doesn’t know that). So if you react to the thought without fear & choose to blow it off as not important that’s what your brain will see it as, it will take a while for your brain to mark these as not important after that’s how you treat them but that’s okay give it time to heal just continue to tell yourself this is just ocd it’s not important & you’re choosing to not focus on it. No matter how scary these thoughts are choose not to focus on them , your brain will send these thoughts with automatic feelings like fear, anxiety, sadness, etc how ever you reacted on these thoughts before, & is how it will send them in on autopilot for just alittle while before it realizes you don’t seem to focus on them anymore but just choose to ignore all the feelings, sensations, etc that come with these thoughts because they are all just ocd symptoms, just like with a cold it comes with annoying symptoms & they’re going to be there yes & is there anything you can do about it no, it’s just going to be there but the farther you get in recovery the less you will feel these symptoms. It DOES get better I promise & I am a 20 year old (just turned 20 yesterday 😌) so it doesn’t matter the age, if you WANT to get better you will, you just have to put in that mental work even though I know it is so hard, & it doesn’t matter what theme you have ocd works the same for everyone! Everyone gets these thoughts these are just junk thoughts we had happened to look to deeply into. I hope what I said helps atleast someone if you took your time to read this thank you ((: we all got this ❤️