- Date posted
- 3y
- Date posted
- 3y
Following
- Date posted
- 3y
I’m currently doing a mixture of medication and ERP everyday. I’m at the point where I have some good days/Moments. But that’s usually followed up With a bad day/overwhelming moments where my brain is giving me over 100 thoughts a day. When I have these days I tend to doubt my recovery and I feel like I’ll never get to the point where I want to be. I also obsess over my OCD, And every time I get a thought I get scared that I’ve never really get to recover.
- Date posted
- 3y
I was definitely like that in the beginning stages of my recovery. It was usually every other day. I’d feel good and then the next I’d be terrible. It made me feel kinda hopeless as well. However, the longer I kept practicing and moving towards uncertainty and purposely doing things that made me uncomfortable I began to have more good days between the bad days. I remember wanting so bad just to go back to “normal” but this is our new normal. You will continue to have bad days but they will be few and far between if you keep practicing. I promise! Remember, once you get closer to recovery and over one theme your OCD is going to try to obsess about something else. Try to keep it in the background as best as you can. Sounds like you’re on the right track. Keep it up!! :)
- Date posted
- 3y
@Kdeemz Thank you. How often do you have bad days now? I’ve been doing recovery work now for 4 months. I’ve definitely better when I first started, but I still get thought everyday and have bad moments. I have sudical ocd and that scares me the most. I just was this theme to end more then the rest.
- Date posted
- 3y
@Fran223 I still have nervous moments everyday. And a bad day happens Once or twice a week. But I realize my definition of a bad day has changed it’s .not as traumatic as they used to be
- Date posted
- 3y
@Fran223 The new normal thing scares me 😱
- Date posted
- 3y
- Date posted
- 3y
Like how do you get there? Or what does it look like when you get there?
- Date posted
- 3y
Both preferably
- Date posted
- 3y
@iamstrong Well, for me it took months to get to a point where I was comfortable. I had to do a lot of ERP which included reading articles of people who killed people, reading news articles, writing a script of how I would harm someone, being around people and intentionally thinking of harming them. It was hard. Very hard. However, you will see immediate improvement. Recovery for me was being able to have harm thoughts without batting an eye. I’d let the thought come and go without looking into it or assigning meaning. I was able to go back to do the things I enjoyed doing. It didn’t interfere with school, work, or family anymore. Once you grasp how OCD works and controls you, recovery gets easier.
- Date posted
- 3y
@Kdeemz It’s crazy though. All of that seems so impossible. What made you strong enough to do it and why do I feel like I can’t reach that point?
- Date posted
- 3y
@iamstrong It seemed very impossible in the moment. You feel you’re not ready because your OCD tells you you’re not. When has your OCD been right? Never. Don’t listen to the doubt it feeds you. You have to push yourself to do it with the mindset of recovery. Once you start you’ll be one step closer to recovery and retraining your brain.
Related posts
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 23w
Looking back, I realize I’ve had OCD since I was 7. though I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 30. As a kid, I was consumed by fears I couldn’t explain: "What if God isn’t real? What happens when we die? How do I know I’m real?" These existential thoughts terrified me, and while everyone has them from time to time, I felt like they were consuming my life. By 12, I was having daily panic attacks about death and war, feeling untethered from reality as depersonalization and derealization set in. At 15, I turned to drinking, spending the next 15 years drunk, trying to escape my mind. I hated myself, struggled with my body, and my intrusive thoughts. Sobriety forced me to face it all head-on. In May 2022, I finally learned I had OCD. I remember the exact date: May 10th. Reading about it, I thought, "Oh my God, this is it. This explains everything." My main themes were existential OCD and self-harm intrusive thoughts. The self-harm fears were the hardest: "What if I kill myself? What if I lose control?" These thoughts terrified me because I didn’t want to die. ERP changed everything. At first, I thought, "You want me to confront my worst fears? Are you kidding me?" But ERP is gradual and done at your pace. My therapist taught me to lean into uncertainty instead of fighting it. She’d say, "Maybe you’ll kill yourself—who knows?" At first, it felt scary, but for OCD, it was freeing. Slowly, I realized my thoughts were just thoughts. ERP gave me my life back. I’m working again, I’m sober, and for the first time, I can imagine a future. If you’re scared to try ERP, I get it. But if you’re already living in fear, why not try a set of tools that can give you hope?
- Date posted
- 22w
People who went from a really bad time with OCD to a better time now. Is it really possible? What was your theme? Did you take medication?
- Date posted
- 15w
harm ocd is the bane of my existence. people always tell me that if you have anxiety over a thought, that’s ocd. and these intrusive thoughts cause me IMMENSE anxiety. i’m constantly looking for reasons why i’m not what these thoughts tell me i am. but WHY DOES IT FEEL SO REAL?? it’s like i can’t reassure myself that this isn’t me and i don’t want to do it, but i also look for reasons why it’s not me. my brain is constantly telling me “if you don’t act on this, you’ll never feel free”. WHAT EVEN IS THAT?? and why does it feel real?? anytime i think about getting therapy, i constantly think that it’s not going to help me positively but help me realize i am this person. i just wish someone with harm ocd could get into my brain, understand me, and tell me everything will be okay. i wish someone in recovery could tell me that they’ve been where i am, felt the same feelings, thought the same thoughts, and got through it when they thought they wouldn’t. i feel like i’m drowning in it. another thing is i think about how my mom knows a surface level understanding to this form of my ocd, but if she knew it all, i’m scared she’d never look at me the same. i’m scared she’d be scared of me and think i need psychiatric help. IM TERRIFIED.
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