svr

Today I sent an email to a therapist for help with OCD after many years of not seeing a therapist. It is for milder OCD, but I used to have severe OCD and I wanted to kill myself when I was in college. But I found a therapist who was able to help me get my OCD to a better place and there is a HUGE difference between severe OCD like you seem to have an mild OCD. You say that your therapist was trying to explain your OCD. While that is okay on its own, please know that successful OCD therapy relies more heavily on an action-based approach. I'm sure you already know this, but of course if your therapist is not practicing CBT, you need to look for a different therapist. I feel like there can be reasons for OCD but that OCD can just find its way into fears in us. OCD should be treated separately. I hope you and your OCD therapist is able to prioritize your OCD treatment to get you out of a state of depression that is this bad as quickly as possible, because that will help. I saw my therapist twice a week, and she said that if she wasn't able to help me, the other option was to go an inpatient setting, which can also be an option. (I am in the US.) You seem like you are dealing with a lot, though, and I am really sorry to hear about that. I also want to emphasize that when I saw an improvement with a therapist, I was also taking medication (Prozac/fluoxetine), not even a high dose most of that time. Medication can be used in conjunction with OCD therapy (CBT or ERP) to take some of the edge off and just make it easier to make progress. I would recommend that. From what I heard, the type of medication that helps is SSRIs. Please, please try to fight. Please take the different avenues. Therapy from a psychologist who successfully treats OCD with CBT and ERP, doing the OCD work with the therapist that you're supposed to do (which is really tough, I understand that!), going online and finding a better therapist if this one isn't helping, medication!. It is better when you get out from severe OCD.

I also am not sure what you're talking about. But if you are talking about doubting whether you have OCD, yet going back to being stressed about it, that's a classic thing of OCD haha. OCD like is doubt. If you even have a hint that whatever is bothering you is OCD, just try to get help, try a few psychologists who have experience in OCD, and never ever be ashamed to talk to a psychologist or feel like they won't take you in - that's their job. And if anyone tells you you don't have a problem and you obvoiusly had one enough to come to them, then they're a bad psychologist and not doing their job. Just IF that's what you meant haha

Okay I sort of agree with PolarBear in the sense that just hang in there and keep ignoring and keep thinking positive and don't keep asking for reassurance. Be your own reassurance. But it's great that therapy is coming. It definitely helps. Sometimes it takes seeing a couple or a few psychologists to find the right one but you are on the right path of relief. But outside of that keep resisting OCD and thinking positively. Reassure yourself that it's okay and find within yourself why* it's okay! Also, all of the stuff you said is 100% OCD. And what do you do with OCD? My psychologist always tells me, do the opposite, haha. (You know what I mean - in your case it wouldn't be hitting your cat lol it would be letting yourself think whatever you're afraid of thinking until you can logically realize it's wrong and it goes away.) Or ignore it and just do mindfulness (close your eyes, notice the anxiety, what you're feeling and thinking, and let the feeling pass by). You got this. KEEP doing it. That's how you get better.

Hi Amc, It makes me sad someone said that. There are a lot of uneducated psychologists in the world I guess :(. For OCD, you need to treat it behaviorally one way or another - either stop doing compulsions yourself or get help from a therapist to do that. Maybe medication will help you be brave enough to get better at OCD, but if you're like me, you will likely sometimes need someone to push you. My therapist and my psychiatrist say that CBT is the main thing about treating OCD, actually doing the actions. So no, the advice your psychiatrist gave you is 100 thousand percent wrong. That was dumb of her to say. You can take it from me, an almost fully recovered OCD suferrer, my psychologist who has had a track record of treating many many people with OCD, and even my psychiatrist, who has treated people with OCD with medication. Now how you do that, that I cannot answer because I'm from the US where we're lucky not to have a list It looks like snowbear had a really good answer for that. I completely agree with him. And I would agree that you shouldn't be scared of being removed from the list, definitely take control of your treatment. I've had an experience with a non understanding psychologist - they're out there. The only good thing is that the right medication you find will take an edge off your symptoms, but CBT is the most and fastest effective. I don't know if I've ever heard of someone recovering from OCD just from medication (who knows maybe, I haven't researched it,) but I definitely heard of people recovering from CBT, sometimes with the help of medication. You can tell your psychologist that a "friend" (lol me, just a forum user but shh) recovered from CBT and the psychologist uses CBT as the accepted form of treatment and everyone she treats gets better at OCD.

Those were good points, Ashley, snowbear, and taurean. I looked at the main portion of this website and there is a lot of good information about OCD. I'm not sure yetttt just becuase I haven't looked deeply enough if it would cause the past me to get help but it's possible. (It could even be that it was updated since when I was struggling with OCD, which is great!) Since my goal is to help have resources about OCD on the internet, I will certainly read over this website more and if I have any suggestions I'll pm or let someone know what I think. I guess the main reason I wanted to write my website was because it takes so long for a person to get help on average for OCD (the info here was something like around 10 years. which is believable to me) that I wanted to expedite that process and I felt like if a website had more in depth information or helped me shed doubts faster it would have been very helpful earlier for someone like me, before the horrible severe OCD kicked in. I also see a lot of people on this forum questioning whether they have OCD, when all of the people I saw definitely do and I wish there was information online to kind of "convince" people (only those that HAVE OCD) that they should indeed seek help now and ask multiple professionals. Also, I just noticed just how effective OCD treatment can be (if you or a psychologist just keeps pushing you). I just want to stand on a mountaintop and shout "Refrain from the OCD action! Repetition! Do some exposures to get better faster! You WILL get better!" Haha. Anyway, I'm done babbling on. I'll still write my blog as you guys said just bc the more ones out there the better. (By the way my website/blog is http://ocdresource.blogspot.com/ - just a draft right now.) And I might look over and pitch in some suggestions here. I also do recognize that where I'm from OCD treatment options differ from in the UK. So this website is definitely way better suited resources wise for people in the UK than someone from the US could provide.

Thanks, snowbear! I actually already wrote most of it. It's not about my personal experiences. And I have a lot of facts in my mind that I learned, so I wrote them down without sources but I can find sources if needed. The thing is when I was suffering from OCD, even websites like this or the IOCDF website didn't help me get help. I noticed a lot of people here are doubtful of their OCD. So in my website I have a page dedicated to helping people figure out if they have OCD (the main part of it saying if you think you do you probably do kind of thing). And then I have a page detailing the treatment - exactly what you said CBT and medication. Then I also have a page listing resources. Even though sources are not cited, I feel like it's different from websites that exist out there, but I could be wrong. Did websites like this one lead you on your path to getting help for OCD? If this is what it takes for most* people, it could be that a website like mine is not needed. (I just know, again, for me, even this website didn't do the job of helping me find a therapist or be completely sure I have OCD. It did provide support though, and guide me along the path.)

Thanks Poirot! I actually am a decent way through writing this website which is technically a blog. And if you ever wanted to look it over or add information that helped you, feel free to send me a pm and I'll link it to you. I'm only one person so I can only write it from one person's perspective so it might not be well rounded ...or well written. XD At least so far.

Also, I am wondering, if I did make this website, would I be able to post a link in a topic to it, or is linking to external sources against the rules here?

Hi everyone, I hope I'm not posting this topic in the wrong forum. But believe my my goal is to help people. I am someone who used to have severe OCD and recovered from it. Now I only have a little bit and I'm working on it but my life is awesome. I wanted to make a website about OCD to help other people with OCD understand if they have OCD and guide them to get help. When I was researching OCD I remember there was very little info online about it that actually helped me. So I wanted to make that website that just gives you a lot* of relevant information about OCD and tells you exactly what to do to get help. It's been a few years. Do you still find that the internet doesn't really help you much with figuring out your OCD or how to get help? Would you find use for such a website? Thanks, Svr

My goal is only to help people. I used to have severe OCD and now barely have any and it just hurts me to see people still sufferring from it because the solution isn't that difficult. But I'll respect this forum's rules.

Hi. I used to have OCD really bad but with therapy I got wayyy better. Compared to how I was before I'm practically OCD free. At this point I could probably put "ex-sufferer" on my profile, but I'm still seeing a psychologist and I'm hopful that any OCD can go away even more hehe. Anyway, when I did have OCD a lot though, I noticed how hard it was to figure out if you yourself have OCD with society telling you you're fine in stupid subtle ways and to find a psychologist, and how little resources there were online to help you with any of this. I've been wanting to make a website that basically helps people who have OCD come to the realization that it is OCD that they have, and guides you on finding help in realistic and effective ways. I feel like all that's out there online is just one page articles telling you washing your hands a lot is OCD. That's not OCD. OCD is a lot more. I want to make a comprehensive website for people who are undiagnosed or under-treated, where people who have OCD but don't fully know it yet can use it as an actual resource. I'd definitely keep the website open minded, and I'll include things like how it's not about what* symptom you have, OCD can be any symptom, and I'll include resources on finding real help for OCD. Maybe I can even check in to get ideas for what people would like on the website. I guess I just wanted to ask on here, would people like it if I made a website like this? Also, if anyone who has OCD needs some advice on finding help feel free to PM me.

Pleasee get help. :'( I had OCD that made me feel this way. Like just a year ago it was like that! And I got help. This help was from the third psychologist I tried. But I got SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better. There are people out there who can help you. (And if you want, the trick to beating OCD is not doing OCD things that you do, but also repetition of this and not just doing that once, but continuing to do so and your anxiety goes away. But a psychologist can help you organize how to do that, and if you have it as bad as you seem to describe, medication helps a lot too. But you need to find a psychologist and/or psychiatrist(medication one) who has had experience with OCD because like I said there's a certain way to treat it, it's not about talking about your problems.) Feel free to message me if you want to talk by the way!!

I don't know if brining up threads again is allowed here haha, but I just wanted to "bump" this one because I can't say this better. People who think they have OCD need to get help, and if someone they found doesn't help them, they should try again. And then if that happens again try again, because there ARE psychologists out there, in your area, who can help you. Some psychologist just don't know how to treat OCD which is very stupid because there are many people out there who suffer from OCD and it can be a real disability. Anyway, when I wrote this thread, I was better because I started seeing someone, but now I'm even* better haha. I'm still getting treatment with my psychologist, and my OCD symptoms bother me very little right now. Like 1% of what they did a year ago. I went from taking 4 hour showers once a week a year ago to probably half hour ones when I wrote this post to like 15-25 minute ones that don't even cause me distress, right now. Pleease search for help if you think you have OCD and it's making things hard. You don't have to take two hour showers to have OCD. OCD manifests itself in lots of different ways for different people. Once again, if you want to talk or try to find out if you think you have OCD (which is probably YES if you already think so but I still can help you figure out why) please feel free to message me on here!

ps: yes i did say "recovered" to get your attention but trust me, compared to how I was before I might as well be. it's not black and white. I'm happy* now. I can go out. do stuff. when I do have OCD symptoms they are mild in severity. I'm working on it of course, so it should get even better as I'm trying to make sure to find a job near my psychologist. I'm actually in a good place right now. (like metaphorically haha)

I realized like why you don't see people on this thread often who say they've gotten better. Like I used to have such bad OCD I'd want to kill myself often. But I finallyyyy like after years got help from a psychologist who was actually decent at treating OCD. And for some reason I started having this like natural seeming reaction not to check back on this forum, I don't know why, like I thought if I got better I would come back and give support, but I guess it just makes me sad to see people are still suffering from this and OCD is not extremely popular although it's pretty common like some psychologists don't even know how to treat it. But take it from me. I went through two psychologists who were just stupid no offence and made me angry - one was good but she pretty much gave up on me. Then a third psychologist I went to (technically, fourth, because I saw another one for one visit haha) was actually good at helping with OCD, and trust me, I got SOO much better. I also took medication. It's only been a few months so I'm still working on it of course, but it's really not black and white. Getting better with OCD can make you feel so much better that you can actually be happy (because the strength of your OCD symptoms is much smaller when your OCD is less). This is my advice: keep looking for a psychologist if your OCD is making you feel pretty much depressed, find a psychiatrist. even if you don't find a psychologist yet medication can make it a lot better. sometimes it takes a couple tries. for me my first medication ended up working for me. Do it because I see the types of posts that usually seem to fill up the forum, and if you're on here, you need help, trust me. You deserve it a lot. Try to find help for yourself. Also, if you want to talk or want to ask about my experiences, please just ask me anytime! I would love to help, or just talk about anything. love, svr