malina

I'm not trying to make some sort of point about whether OCD can be cured or not, perhaps my phrasing was misleading. The OP has said that she has been through therapy and symptoms disappeared and they have now reappeared, but she believed that she had been cured and is now doubting that this is OCD to begin with. I was trying to point out that the pattern of symptoms can reappear throughout your life, that going through therapy doesn't necessarily mean that you will be symptom free forever and that, if symptoms do reappear, you shouldn't doubt that it is OCD because it is a chronic condition.

Life can be pretty cruel, you are right. Bad things happen to good people for no reason. The trick is to deal with the good things you have and try to cope with the bad things. Your family are devastated right now and I'm sure they will still miss him as time goes on. Yet, they pain will eventually lessen and they will find pleasure in the things they did before and something good may even happen to make them happy. This is very typical OCD thinking, whenever there is uncertainty, no matter how small, we think we are the ones who are going to be part of that 1% that the bad thing does happen to. The hard part is that, in order to overcome this, you have to accept this uncertainty. There will never be a 100% guarantee of anything, so you have to learn to be satisfied with the 99% and move on. You have to practice and train your mind to think this way, it isn't easy. You have to put the 1% chance of it being true into the bin alongside all of the other 1% chance things that are likely to happen but you don't care about (winning the lottery, being a victim or a terror attack and so on and on). Accepting this uncertainty is really difficult, but you have to do it. You have to take a leap of faith. There is something nice that I read recently on this forum, with uncertainty there is indeed risk (the 1% chance something bad will happen), but the biggest risk is you not getting better. So surely it is better to take the risk of ignoring this 1% possibility and getting better rather than fixating on it and allowing this illness (OCD) to take over your life. You may feel that way, but it doesn't make it true. You have listed "evidence" in many of your posts on this forum, yet it really hasn't been evidence of anything at all other than you being really distressed and anxious. This is my point exactly. This is why you shouldn't take what this guy said to heart. It sounds like he has a lot going on mental health wise and you honestly don't know the circumstances beyond the information this guy has provided. You have to be careful because there is a lot of unreliable information out there and if your mind latches onto this 1% idea, then bad information can really cause you a lot of distress.

I don't think you can really be "cured" from OCD, it's a chronic condition, it can come and go, but you can learn to manage it. When you're describing is def OCD. It sounds like you're doing well with the compulsions though!

It's natural to feel this way. When I started ERP with my current therapist I started thinking he was the one who was nuts. You've just got to have faith and keep going even if it doesn't always "feel right". It's important to communicate this to him as well though, just be open about your doubts so he knows what you're feeling.

That's great Black, happy to hear it went well!!

Take it from me, my first therapist was absolutely AWFUL (as in just not a very nice person as well as being a bad therapist) and yet it didn't make me worse. I doubt anything dramatic will happen today, you will most likely just have an introduction, talk about yourself etc. If you feel that it's not a right fit for you, fair enough. Just have faith in yourself. You've been down this road before and got better on your own, one person can't just make you 10 times worse just by saying the wrong thing.

But this is the problem, in trying to show OCD that you're the boss, you're still giving it so much relevance and your mind can't turn away from it. You can't approach it like some fight where you have to win, it's more about understanding that the threat from these thoughts isn't important and learning to live your life alongside them. The problem is that you are still giving so much significance to this phrase. I understand why you do, because you are religious and this is part of your belief. However, you have to try and see that it is just a sentence and that saying something doesn't matter. This is why your therapist was telling you that you need to say this phrase as part of your exposure, you need to say it until it loses its relevance.

Good luck Black!! You'll see that it will go well and that there was nothing to worry about. The guy is an OCD specialist, he will understand. I had initially had some bad experiences with university counsellors who didn't understand OCD, but when I first met a specialist, it was a game changer. It's really a great feeling to tell someone all the things in your mind that you thought were crazy and for them to understand and not judge you. No therapist will tell you that you're a terrible person, and if they do, they are clueless! Just have faith in yourself, go in there and be open. Let us know how it goes!

I think this happens to a lot of us, I had a conversation about this with my therapist too. I think that it just takes time and practice. Your brain can't change itself instantly, it takes a while for it to sink in. So in the absence of triggers, your mind just looks for something to keep itself busy with. Eventually, the goal is to learn to apply the same techniques to all these different fears because they ultimately all have the same root. You seem to be on the right track though, keep it up and you'll see that it will pay off!!

Hey Leif, I think you're doing great and should be proud of yourself for all your work! You're really trying, even if the odd compulsion comes up every now and again. I feel like there are different steps in ERP that we can take. For example, you start with small steps and gradually expose yourself to more challenging triggers. I think the next step is learning to cope with the random triggers that appear in everyday life. It's only natural that you cope better when a trigger is expected because you can prepare yourself. Rather than seeing your reactions to these random triggers as a setback, you should view them as the next challenge. It's okay that you're not able to deal well with them yet, you're just not at that step. Maybe you should start keeping track of these random triggers and how you respond, note when you're successful and what you did well and also where you struggled and did compulsions. My therapist has been encouraging me to analyse my anxiety (like how does it feel physically, what am I thinking etc) and encourages me to raise my anxiety when I can. So when my anxiety is high, I try to view it as a learning opportunity rather than a setback or something bad and that has really helped me cope. Anyway, I hope you're doing well, hang in there!!

Thanks a lot for your replies and support everyone, it means a lot

Hey hereforhelp, I have struggled with this quite a lot both in my current relationship and previous ones too. I'm in therapy now although honestly haven't discussed this very much as there are other things that bother me more. However, I have found that CBT has helped me in everyday life and that the anxiety has generally gone down. I think that you first need to identify what compulsions you're doing here. Are you ruminating, analysing your feelings, feel like you need to confess to your partner? These are the things to start with, don't let your mind go down this route.

Thanks a lot GBG, I think I just needed to hear some nice words!! I also believe that there is hope, some days life feels good but you're right that OCD does take a lot away.

Hi guys, Sorry, I just need a minute to vent. I've been doing quite well lately but I had a massive rush of anxiety just now and I feel really frustrated. My main fear is around harm, knives etc. So I was chopping up a salad for dinner and the thoughts just hit me and felt very real. Anyway, I didn't do anything, I just continued making my salad and let myself feel the anxiety. I've been working on mindfulness so I tried to focus on how it actually felt physically. Avoidance is my big compulsion so I'm proud that I didn't run away. On the other hand, I am feeling very shaken. Since I fell into a relapse over 6 months ago now, I have felt so uncomfortable in my own skin and my own life. I've made a lot of progress and I'm feeling better, but I just can't relax and enjoy downtime anymore. I miss just coming home and relaxing with my boyfriend or even spending time alone when he's not around. I just want some peace. Sorry guys, I just needed to let that out.

Hey DK, I am so sorry to hear about your family member. I think you just need to give yourself a break, people deal with grief in different ways. I've gone through most of my life not feeling anything when something bad happened. All of my grandparents passed away and each time, I felt absolutely nothing. I experienced a traumatic event when I was in school and felt nothing. Yet, our feelings sometimes manifest in different ways and I would often feel the effects of things much later, in ways that I didn't understand and couldn't make a connection. I think we sometimes unconsciously try to protect ourselves from pain and so it seems that we are feeling nothing. This is one example of a single person that this happened to, out of hundreds of people who suffer from OCD and have this sexual theme. Firstly, you read a post on a forum, you don't really know the full story or what else happened in their lives. You don't know anything about this person or whether what they are saying is even true. Now I might be guilty of reassurance here, but if this person claims that he was in denial for so many years and was convincing himself that he didn't like these desires, how do you know he truly enjoyed them after acting on them? Maybe he was completely disgusted with himself and is now convincing himself that he enjoyed it as a way to justify what he did. You are willing to take this story to heart, over countless others where the fear didn't turn out to be true. This is a very common phenomenon, your are processing information in a biased way here, but you need to be aware of that if you want to get better. I honestly think that you need to be careful about reading things on the internet, especially on these kinds of forums. You can't believe everything strangers are writing about. You are more than wiling to debate with us about what we are saying (which is fair!), why not apply that same mentality to these other things you read too? How did it prove that all this was true? Because your list for it being true was longer than your list for it being untrue? That just reflects your way of thinking, like in every single post you are essentially writing reasons why the fear is true. This is what you think about day in, day out. It shouldn't come as a surprise that the "true" list is long, because you are constantly compiling "evidence" for it being true. The point is that you should work through this list and try to challenge some of these reasons or re-interpret them. The act of making a list doesn't isn't enough, I think the exercise needs that extra step of discussion and thinking about how to challenge some of your ideas. Did your therapist actually say this? The more I read about your first therapy experience, the more shocked I am, no wonder you mistrust professionals! My first therapist was a complete disaster too. Seeing someone like that can really have negative consequences, but eventually I found someone who was good at their job and understood OCD and they really helped me.