Hi my little community :) After a longggggggg journey I finally don't have OCD anymore and I know I will never have it again and I'm writing this post to share the secret to overcome it. I've had existential, HOCD, incest, POCD, contamination, ROCD depersonalisation, zoophilia, false memory, scrupulosity, harm, religious, real memory, somatic, and many other forms of ocd that would make me lose my mind with all the questioning. I've reached too many low points in my journey and at some points I wanted to end my life convinced that I was the worst person in the world. I've had it since I was 5 years old, but it got extremely serious around the age of 14. I finally sought treatment at 19, and fully recovered at 20. I started treatment on my own by watching YouTube until I then decided to do treatment with NOCD. Unfortunately it felt like my therapy sessions were just repeats of what I was learning on YouTube so I stopped and continued treatment on my own. I thought that I could do it by myself, but honestly it was so difficult and I hit so many discouraging low points, until I tried one last thing.....I discovered this man named Eckhart Tolle on YouTube. This man changed my life. Through his teachings, I learned that OCD is no different than anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and other anxiety related disorders. I've learned that they all result from letting your mind and thoughts control your mind. So the secret is: That you must practice becoming the observer of your thoughts, learn to stop interacting with them, learn that you are separate from your thoughts, and live your life through the lens of the presence rather than the narratives your mind makes about the presence. You see, your brain's job is to collect information and perceive it. However, at many times, the brain is just spitting out illogical information based on your fears, experiences, memories, etc. Once you learn that your thoughts are separate from you and your experiences, then will you be able to fully overcome "OCD" and anything life throws at you. Its a concept that's difficult to understand at first, but once you get it, you get it, and it will change your life.

I agree!

Thanks for sharing and I’m so happy for you🥺💗

Thanks for sharing!😊👍

What videos did you watch

These are some of my favourite videos from Mark Freeman, my favourite Youtube OCD therapist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGhx_H9Njmo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h62vlSj0KNg These are some of my favourite videos from Eckhart Tolle, the man that helped me understand everything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTFDfR47dl4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1SvT57oqDU&t=439s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j91ST2gtR44&t=28s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOctI24m_mQ&t=296s ....Notice how all the videos lead to basically the same conclusion, which is that you're separate from your thoughts

@Anonymous Thank you I appreciate you!!

@Anonymous🤷🏽‍♀️ - no problem!! I appreciate you. Win this battle, you got this! E>

so amazing!!! thank you for sharing and shedding some light here

Thank you for sharing!

I’m so happy to hear that you have recovered. I am also glad that you have connected with Eckhart’s teachings. His teachings are very important in helping people open their eyes to the realities of the mind. Having said that, I am hoping your post does not discourage people to find a therapist for OCD either through NOCD or somewhere else. Eckharts teachings, although profound, do not give people with OCD the tools to work thorough their day to day problems. Understanding the mind provides insight, and this is super important, but its not enough for most people. It’s important to learn specific training and exposure techniques that will give people the ability to work through the thoughts and feelings even when it’s hard to connect to the logical part of the mind. So although I recommend Eckhart and other spiritual teachers that are similar, I recommend it as a supplement and not a cure. Believe me, I have read many insightful books, and although they provide insight they did not give me the tools to fight ocd. But ERP and acceptance therapy did.

Hey do what works best for you. Personally ERP and acceptance therapy wasn't enough for me and so I wrote this post to show that there is another way that's easier and will help you overcome nearly all mental illnesses or troubles

Great point. I see the two— my spirituality and ERP— as inseparable from one another. I couldn’t cope without either one, and I think they energize each other. I actually had the opposite experience as OP, I read one of Tolle’s books earlier this year and it set a beautiful foundation (but I was still massively struggling with my mental health) and then I was diagnosed w OCD and began ERP which skyrocketed my recovery. And the ideas in ERP made more sense to me because of the spiritual background I had built with Tolle and also Tara Brach. Without either one, it would be an incomplete puzzle. But in terms of what actually reduced the anxiety the fastest, directly facing my fears through exposures has been the ticket.

@AnonymousA I relate very much with your experience. I really gravitate towards Ram Dass and Alan Watts. And like you said, these spiritual teachers really compliment ERP, because they are about being mindful and accepting what is. They also laid the foundation for me to accept my suffering and not try to resist it. But I also struggled with actually applying it when the ocd would ramp up. I understood the principles but I didn’t know whether my ocd was real or it wasn’t real, and even with my insight, it was still hard to trust myself. But after learning about ocd and actually putting myself through erp my recovery progressed so quickly and consistently. I am much like you, I still use a lot of what these teachers teach and they are a helpful tool in my tool kit. But ERP is my main foundation

This is why pets are so helpful. They naturally live in the Now. 😌