Are we with ocd condemned on using antidepressant for the rest of our lives?

I dont feel condemned. I actually love taking meds because I feel so much more like myself (my mental illness didnt manifest til my late teens/20s) I feel more carefree like I did as a child. I would do anything to feel fully like myself again. That's where ERP is gonna help, I guess

Lexapro worked okay but I had a lot more side effects. Zoloft has worked well with hardly any side effects.

Possibly, it’s much better than the alternative! Unfortunately, we have a chronic condition, that depending on our biology, requires some of us to be on meds permanently to stay stable. ERP + Meds can be a powerful combination. The med doses can be lowered during more inactive OCD periods and raised during flare ups....similar to insulin for a diabetic.

So what meds work for everyone? Prozac made me manic and Paxil turned me into a zombie

It depends. I don't take meds and Im okay with just ERP

Sometimes people need meds to help them while they're working on Erp or other therapies. Or getting the tools they need to cope. Sometimes if those therapies are successful you don't need the medications. Others May find a lot of success with medications and so it makes sense to stay on them. Regardless I would say go for whatever works for you the best.

Dr. Jonathan Grayson says that some people will respond to ERP to the extent that they will no longer need meds, but people whose OCD is very biologically active may always need meds in addition to ERP. He says people hate to hear that and don’t want to be on meds, but “your biology doesnt care what you want”.

I would never advise anybody to not take medicine if they feel like it's working for them. That being said I don't necessarily believe the biology aspect. Because I feel like if it was biology they would be able to test something. I feel like they could see that the serotonin levels and some people are generally low. I mean if I have diabetes they're not going to just say oh you're fat you have diabetes. They're going to do a blood test. That's the problem that I have with people who say it's just biology. I feel like if it is then they need to come up with and use a test so that we don't have to go through all this jumping through hoops.

It is a mixture of biology, learning, and behavior. Also, most experts believe that it is not necessarily a “shortage” of serotonin that causes the problem, but it is rather entire brain systems that sends faulty signals. For whatever reason, for some people, high doses of SSRIs (sometimes combined with other meds) promote changes in those brain systems that lead to a reduction in symptoms. I would venture to say OCD may have similar symptoms among sufferers, but they could be caused by different reasons. That would explain why meds work for some and not others. It is not entirely biology, but biology plays a major role for many sufferers.

I do think it runs in family. I would buy that we don't know exactly how it works. I'm just not of the type to trust big Pharma for the sake of trusting big Pharma. To me I feel like it's runs in my family but I also feel like therapy is the only thing that has helped. For me medication hasn't. Of course I know there are people who benefit from it.