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Hey guys and girls, decided to read back to my very first few threads I made back in 2016 when I joined up again after many years of respite, I have to say they made me quite emotional, I was in such a bad place but reading them made me feel very proud of myself and absolutely thrilled at how far I’ve come, I’m like s different person. I remember feeling I was going to be stuck like that forever at one stage, lots of ups and downs in between but I’m now finally on an even keel, no longer depressed, more energy, happy to wake up in the mornings! I just thought I’d share, for those of you still suffering and in the throes of OCD, recovery is possible, life will not always be so hard, we all have in within us to fight and win the battle. I am not ignorant to the fact that relapses are a possibility but the fight is worth the good times in between and in many cases a relapse will not happen if we manage to stay on top of our game and implement the tools we have learned. Good luck everybody, you can all do it! Xx

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Thanks guys! I’ve been reading posts recently that weRe touching me as I feel for people that are clearly struggling badly and so I thought the fact that I no longer related to them in the present but was thinking “I remember feeling like that” was such a shift in myself that I thought I’d read up on my old posts and when I did that I thought I’d like to share that we all can definitely get ourselves into a better place and for those struggling it would be nice to hear it’s very, very possible! Took a while but got there in the end and each and everyone with OCD can do it, albeit a very difficult process. I just wish the best for everyone on this forum and everywhere who are struggling so much.x

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8 minutes ago, lostinme said:

This is great news wonderer :yes: you’ve done so well and achieved so much, you should be really proud on how far you’ve come :cheer:

 

And you Lost! Ur doing so fab! Thank u!xx

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It's so wonderful to see positive feedback. 

Recovery takes knowledge, commitment and patience - it can take time to reprogramme our thinking, changes don't miraculously happen straight away and people lose heart when they were actually on the right track. 

But when people stick at it and believe, well, this is what happens :yes:

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Thanks snowbear and Roy! If my post gives even one person a little bit of hope then I’m happy with that! I still have a little bit of panic disorder to overcome but I am so much more strong and am gradually beating that too, it’s little things I’m noticing each day, for example, today I ran upstairs to grab something and caught myself on that I actually bounded up those stairs two at a time because for a long time consistently high anxiety levels made me feel extremely dizzy and unbalanced and I’d take the stairs carefully for fear of fainting on them! Just tiny things that are happening that show I’m well on the way to myself! Next big thing is to get into town for a little shopping by myself, I want to do this as soon as possible, possibly next week on pay day :) I can’t thank this forum and all the people in it who have given me lots of advice and encouragement over the last couple of years, it has been truly invaluable.xx

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Just now, Eamonalight said:

Great to hear! What specifically do you think helped you recover ?

Hiya, thank u! Well I suppose lots of things really, my biggest compulsions were avoidance, reassurance seeking, confessing and rumination, I had 14 cbt sessions that taught me to look at my obsessions differently, to just see them as thoughts and nothing more, much easier said than done! I gradually started exposing myself to anxiety provoking situations, anything that OCD made me avoid I literally had to bring myself to face those things, I had to learn a lot about anxiety to be able to face those so that’s where therapy came in to play too, learning that anxiety is very unpleasant but ultimately harmless was a good thing, I just had to accept the anxiety and tolerate it, I even got to a point of asking anxiety to do it’s worst in my head because it made me feel more in control. I refused to give into asking for reassurance from anyone or confessing things and educating my partner and family on this was important so they knew not to give into any sneaky attempts by myself to get some reassurance! The hardest was rumination, but to be honest I’m not sure how this really lessened, I think as I did the exposures and began to tolerate anxiety that the rumination just sort of got less and less because I was less afraid of the thoughts so didn’t dwell on them as much. I had quite a few bumps along the way, there were better times but u knew I wasn’t recovered because I still had the thoughts kind of banging on in the background, this is when I was kind of waxing and waning for a good year, I would say I’ve been completely free of OCD now from around Christmas time. It’s very difficult, some people will nail it within weeks and others it will take years, so it’s always important to be kind to ourselves and not beat ourselves up if it isn’t happening quick enough or if we get well and then slip a little. I also found that during the days where I was just far too emotionally drained to do anything that I was kind and loving to myself and made a promise that I’d try again the next day, which I always did. I also try to minimise stress in my life as much as possible and to try and have a relaxed attitude in general to everything now.xx

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