- Date posted
- 4y
- Date posted
- 4y
Traditional talk therapy does not work for someone with OCD. It does more harm than good. You need to find a counselor who understands OCD and specializes in ERP. I've been where you are. I've had OCD since I was 8 and never knew thats what I was experiencing. OCD wasn't even on my radar until last month. I was diagnosed two weeks ago at age 45. ERP is terrifying and uncomfortable. Resisting the urge to do a compulsion is tough. But it works. My therapist through NOCD is amazing. I pay a $30 copay per session and the rest is covered 100% by my insurance. I've made more progress in 3 weeks than I have in about 10 years of talk therapy. It will take hard work, but recovery is possible. I'm not there yet, but I have made so much progress already.
- Date posted
- 4y
Thank you so much for this encouragement. I deeply appreciate it. I’m going to ask my counselor for her advice (if she knows someone who specializes or if she thinks I should just go through here) and I just have to trust that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you.
- Date posted
- 4y
While your main point here about ERP is valid, I would like to point out that EMDR is *not* traditional talk therapy. It's a more trauma focused tool that can be very helpful.
- Date posted
- 4y
It should make you feel better to know your not alone. I feel the same way as you do. Know that tomorrow is a new day, Your struggles will only make you stronger. 🙂
- Date posted
- 4y
EMDR saved my life honestly. It's not a bad thing to stick with it. But think of it like a different tool. EMDR is a wrench and ERP / OCD therapy is a hammer. Both of those tools can be of great help repairing your home. I just finished 4 years of EMDR recently and am using ERP to help fine tune things to get more healing. You've got this!
- Date posted
- 4y
Oh my goodness!! That is genius! Thank you so much for offering that piece of advice. I honestly thought I would have to choose one over the other. Thank you so so much.
- Date posted
- 4y
@anonymoose Not at all. Just understand that they both serve a purpose, and both can help you heal in different ways. This will hurt like hell, but you will be ever stronger for it. Genuinely wishing you well on your journey to healing and peace. You will find your way out of this hellscape!
Related posts
- Date posted
- 21w
Please help. I have felt so off/wrong all day. I constantly worry that the “bad guy” is going to get me. I have awful thoughts and I constantly want God to know that I don’t mean these thoughts. I am at a point in my therapy where I need to choose to use my ERP but it feels too scary. I then do compulsions, which makes the OCD worse, which makes me want to use ERP less. And the cycle goes on. I am currently sitting in my car crying because I feel so lost and exhausted. I’m not supposed to figure out my thoughts, but today I just went into a spiral of sadness and depression, thinking that I will always feel like this. When my thoughts got really bad at the end of the day, I tried to use ERP even though I was shaking and not believing my responses and I ended up feeling like I missed something and that I gave into the “bad guy.” I have no one to talk when I’m not doing therapy twice a week. I am alone and have no one to talk to when I am like this… please help
- Date posted
- 20w
Hello, I’m new to this app. I’ve always had an anxious brain, and I’ve had coping mechanisms for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, from as early as I could spell, until I was probably early teens, I would constantly write words in my head along to the beat of music. It’s such a vivid memory because I never stopped doing it. The word had to perfectly match up to the lyric and I loved that it kept my brain busy. I grew out of that, but felt like good context. My anxiety increased drastically around ages 17-19, and I began therapy. I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety and panic disorder, due to having a panic attack nearly every day at that time. I overcame that as well, and now the panic attacks are every now and then, but the anxiety is constant, and some recent symptoms have led me to believe I might have some form of OCD. Maybe not. I’m trying to understand myself and get better so I joined this app to make sense of things. Lately I’ve been having really intense intrusive thoughts. I’m really embarassed and they make me feel like a bad person. Thoughts pop in my head seemingly out of nowhere. It will be an image of me harming myself or someone else in a really bad way. (Trigger warning) for example the other day I couldn’t shake the image of me putting a knife through my own forehead, although it’s not something I want to do. Or I’ll imagine someone killing me. I imagine my loved ones dying often. The thoughts feel so out of my control it’s insane. I hate them. Another persistent issue that isn’t as new is replaying social scenarios. I’m a hairstylist so this one is difficult since I meet a bunch of new people every day. I obsess over how I act and if people like me. I will impulsively say things all the time and they will haunt me for weeks. I question even my closest friends and family who show their love. I find myself so angry and numb and like I have so much built up emotion and a busy mind always. While doing my job I spiral really badly if any little thing goes wrong and it’s embarassing. I know there’s more but I can’t think of it now. I just want to feel better and like I’m not constantly battling my mind.
- Date posted
- 15w
I’m kind of frustrated because for YEARS I’ve been trying to express my concerns. For about 6-7 years I’ve been concerned about having OCD. I’m not diagnosed and I want to talk to a professional to confirm whether or not I have it. I have been struggling with several symptoms over many years of my life and it has been absolutely distressing. I’ve expressed my concerns to two doctors. One of them pretended like they didn’t hear me and the other did give me scenarios that I experience. When I said yes to the ones that applied to me, she said “well it’s very normal for people to wash their hands a lot and check door locks” well yeah but what I experience is so much more than that and it’s been absolutely horrendous. I have super bad compulsions and intrusive thoughts, at some point I broke a TV because I felt like I had to throw these little coasters at it for 5 times. And then after those 5 times, the way I threw it didn’t feel right, so I had to do it again and again until it felt right and then it broke :/ The doctor later told me that they can recommend me to professionals but my mom didn’t want me to because of fear that I can get medicated. But I just want to talk to a professional to be able to express my concerns about it. I also feel bad about talking about what I experience because I don’t want people to think that I’m trying to self diagnose myself. I just want to be able to recognize my struggles and try to overcome what I go through. All I want is help. At some point I went to therapy and I had three sessions and then my mom pulled me out. But in those sessions I haven’t talked about my struggles with OCD yet, I was talking about other issues and my therapist was still trying to get to know me. :( Sometimes when I’ve talked to my parents they don’t really try to listen. Sometimes they tell me “well everyone has a little bit of OCD”. Okay, well I’m not talking about everyone, I’m talking about ME. And back when I struggled so much with violent intrusive thoughts, it was also a time where I felt like I HAD to tell my parents about every thought that I had. And my parents were concerned and thought that I was just in general violent. But I’m not violent, I don’t believe these things. And they STILL don’t want to hear me out on my concerns after all of that. I just want to feel validated with what I go through. I am convinced that I struggle with OCD, but I want to be SURE. I don’t want to feel like I’m self diagnosing. I want to KNOW what I’ve been experiencing all these years. I really do like this app because I feel like I finally relate to other people and that I can REALLY talk about my struggles while being understood. Whether or not if I do have it, I feel really understood and I really understand and relate with others. But anyways I hope I can figure this whole thing out one day😓🙏
Be a part of the largest OCD Community
Share your thoughts so the Community can respond