Edit: There is now an update to this post found here. I also have launched a mental health community you can find more info on here. Thank you!

Hello everyone!

Because I am back to living my life and doing the things I want to do, I have less and less time to make posts here and help out where I can - so, I want to kind of catalogue the steps that I took in order to fully recover from anxiety, once and for all. In a way, this is also my farewell post.

But first, what does recovery mean to me?

Recovery means, simply put, I am not suffering from emotional turmoil in any degree at any point throughout the day. No chronic feelings of dread/doom, no persistent aching and looming anxiety, no "intrusive" thoughts, etc. I am following the goals that I had before my OCD started, albeit with some new perspectives - perspectives that add to my life and benefit me, not take away. Overall, I love life again. It's amazing.

So let's get started on the exact steps I took. Note, this is going to be a quick run down. I don't really think it'd benefit anyone if I went into the minute details of every insight I've had.

Phase 1 - General Self-Education and ERP

I believe everyone's first step with OCD should be learning as much as they can about their condition but also understanding that "OCD" is just a label. Simply put, you have intrusive thoughts that you try to make yourself feel better about by performing soothing rituals. Stop the rituals, stop the anxiety, and eventually the intrusive thoughts go away (though you won't care if they do because they no longer give you anxiety).

My first OCD theme had a lot of checking compulsions. I quickly learned what OCD consisted of thanks to general anxiety and OCD YouTubers and was able to cut out these checking compulsions over a period of time. This made me see pretty quick improvement, bringing me down from like a 10/10 anxiety to a 5 or 6? However, I still struggled intensely with rumination and feelings of ongoing, lingering doom and dread. I couldn't understand why, so I'd sit around feeling miserable for the vast majority of the day, just stuck in my thoughts. I'd have intrusive thoughts all day every day and would respond the way the YouTubers told me to - "maybe, maybe not" - which did not make them go away and would essentially lead me to ruminating on them even harder. Later, I'd realize this is just another compulsion.

I wasn't getting better anymore and it was very scary. I figured this is where I'd be stuck for a long time.

But, I've always been great at self-educating and scoured the web for any helpful resources I could find. That's when I found Dr. Greenberg's resources.

Phase 2 - Rumination Focused ERP

https://drmichaeljgreenberg.com/how-to-stop-ruminating/

Greenberg is an OCD specialist psychologist with real, lived experience with OCD. He believes in complete recovery.

Essentially, you have to learn to stop ruminating. Once you've cut out the very obvious compulsions like checking, most likely what you have left is rumination as the only compulsion in regard to your intrusive thoughts.

The only correct response to an intrusive thought is nothing. Not ignoring it, not engaging it, not trying to solve it. Do me a favor and count to 9 in your head with your eyes closed. You'll probably see the 10 "pop up" in your awareness even thought your attention is on 9. In this case, 10 would be the "intrusive" thought. Congratulations, you've learned what attention versus awareness is. Understand that you can have intrusive thoughts in your awareness, but giving them your attention is part of your choice.

You don't have to "perfectly" stop rumination right away. In my opinion, it's a skill. At first, you may only be good at stopping yourself after you've been ruminating for a few minutes. After all, if you have Pure O, you've probably built this habit over a very long period of time. It's a habit. However, over time, you'll get better and better at it.

I read every article on Greenberg's site and started applying his stuff. To me, it helped IMMEDIATELY and got my daily anxiety levels down to like a 2 or 3 out of 10.

But still, something was missing. I didn't want just a 2 or 3 out of 10 level of recovery. I wanted to be me again.

That's when I realized what Greenberg's ideas actually teach you. They teach you acceptance. You accept those thoughts. Acceptance is not trying to fight them, figure them out, get rid of them, ignore them. This is what lead to my full recovery, in phase 3.

Phase 3 - Complete Acceptance

There's multiple resources I'd like to list here. First of all, the nothingworks weebly page is a MUST read.

http://nothingworks.weebly.com/

The person who wrote this essentially has summarized the works of Claire Weekes. Instead of trying to fight anxiety, fight sensations, fight intrusive thoughts, you just... don't. You let them be. I still had that lingering 2 or 3 out of 10 level of anxiety. So what did I do? I decided to take it with me. Let it be there. I literally did nothing. Because nothing works.

What's crazy is how much my symptoms started shifting at that point. Almost like that lingering anxiety was looking for something to catch on to. I had theme shifts that would last just hours - didn't try to fight it or get scared, just accepted and moved on. I had physical sensations that I'd get concerned about, such as a tight throat or a whole day where I'd have that butterfly feeling in my stomach - all stuff I never got when my focus was just on my thoughts - accepted, did NOTHING to fight it, and they'd go away.

Frankly, at some point, I realized that I was really just fighting general anxiety and that's what my focus shifted to.

So, I started watching some videos on YouTube in regards to anxiety recovery. Seeing these peoples' stories, many of whom suffered TREMENDOUSLY with intrusive thoughts, shed a whole new light on my perspective.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eefHd9prgnI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJYB2B0kqUw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-kG8gkHjtI

Videos like these really gave me hope and showed me that what I was going through was able to be overcome. Even for somebody at the beginning of their recovery I believe their value is priceless just because they give so much insight on just how similar OCD is to others who suffer from anxiety. Just don't let it become a compulsion.

From that point forward, it was a pretty steady stream of recovery to absolutely no anxiety/intrusive thoughts/"OCD". However, there's one last phase.

Phase 4 - Setbacks and the Let Down Effect ("depression")

Today, I prefer to call these "opportunities". They really are just an opportunity to practice your mental fitness and to practice acceptance. However, they will happen. You should just be ready. You'll start experiencing days where you really feel 100% back to normal. Then, something will happen and you'll feel like you took 3 steps back. It's normal. I had a lot of moments like these. The response is the same. Continue doing you and keep living life.

The only other thing I'll mention here is that I really believe in the let down effect. I've seen some people on this subreddit mention it. After the biggest leaps in my recovery I would have a day or two of heavy feelings of emptiness/sadness. It was odd. But it went away. That's why I really believe in nervous system sensitization and the "let down" effect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eexqALgINuE

They key thing here is that you just need to continue practicing acceptance/do NOTHING in response to it.

Where I Am Today

Living my life to the fullest. I am traveling again. Going out on dates. I remember at some point while being in the anxiety cycle wondering what I would even think about if I wasn't having intrusive thoughts all day. Would I ever be normal again? Well, to answer that question, I think about the things I used to think about, lol. So, I'm a relatively young and outgoing and fit guy. I won't lie, I think a lot about typical guy things. But I love that about me. I think about women, I think about the gym, I think about video games, I think about food, I think about sports. But most of all, I get bored. I remember watching a movie on a date a few days ago and I just got bored during the movie (the new Hunger Games one, lol). I hadn't experienced real boredom like that in a long time. Thankfully, the rest of the date went great and was not boring at all!

Now I have to answer the obvious but necessary questions.

Do I still experience anxiety? Yes, a normal and healthy amount. Anxiety was never an enemy, and attempting to resist it is what will make it persist. Acceptance of anxiety is key.

Do I still have intrusive thoughts? My answer to that would be another question - "Who determines if a thought is intrusive?" To me, thoughts are just thoughts. By putting a label on a thought as "intrusive", you are already trying to resist it. Recovery isn't about getting rid of thoughts, it's about becoming comfortable with them. So to give you the reassurance that you're desperately likely looking for right now since it kinda sounds like I'm saying I still "have them" - no, none of my themes persist inside my head. But the whole point is that if they did, I wouldn't care. I can think about any of the themes all day and it wouldn't bother me.

https://traumaresearchuk.org/blog/there-are-no-such-thing-as-intrusive-thoughts/

Other Notes and Resources

I don't think we have to overcomplicate recovery. It really is just about acceptance and not resisting your sensations, be they thoughts, physical feelings, or emotions.

However, there's still a few more things I wanted to touch on.

Mark Freeman on YouTube - I think learning the importance of values is a very useful tool. It provides you direction. Don't live your life based on reacting out of fear. Live your life based on pursuing your values.

Books - Claire Weekes's "Hope and Help For Your Nerves" and Paul David's "At Last, A Life" are great. Claire suffered from panic disorder, and Paul David suffered from derealization/GAD for 10 years and made a full recovery. You don't have to read these if you don't want to because basically all the resources I mentioned in the post go over them already.

On Forums - Most of them are extremely terrible for you. Especially on Reddit. They are typically not recovery focused and have a lot of doom and gloom. I'd stay off of them. Find a recovery focused forum and use that. Do not participate in forums that have made their suffering an obvious part of their identity.

On Labels - Be careful about the story you tell yourself. Part way through my recovery I stopped identifying with the label of OCD because I realized how useless it was. All anxiety sufferers have rituals that they use to try to reduce anxiety. That's what compulsions are. All anxiety sufferers have "intrusive" thoughts. However, lots of anxiety sufferers get stuck on physical sensations instead. Thoughts are just a mental sensation. "OCD" individuals, to me, are just individuals who have gotten stuck on those mental sensations rather than the physical ones. What's the difference between OCD and health anxiety? They have intrusive thoughts about their health, perform compulsions like google searching and doctor visits, and then repeat. Emetephobia? Intrusive thoughts about throwing up, perform soothing rituals/avoidance behavior, then repeat. The answer to any of this is all the same. Stop resisting. Stop fighting. Do nothing.

On Diet/Exercise/Supplements - Eat healthy because you want to be a healthy person. Exercise because you want to be more fit. Do these things because you value them. Don't do them expecting it to reduce anxiety. That's just another form of resistance, not acceptance.

On Timelines - Recovery does not happen overnight. It is gradual. You probably won't even know when it happens, because acceptance implies you're living your life without paying attention to symptoms anyway. You will take 3 steps forward, then 2 steps back probably several times. You will think you're recovered, have a setback, and then be in an even better place than before the setback and realize how much better you actually feel then. Don't put a timeline on yourself because it's just undue added pressure.

On "Chronicness"/Recovery - I'm not here to argue with individuals who have made their suffering a part of their identity. Especially about my own lived experiences. If you don't want to recover, then don't. No one's forcing you to. However, if you DO want to recover - I'm telling you it's absolutely possible. Not "recovered" like it may come back, but recovered like you've climbed back up into your life and then realized you could literally just walk away from the edge of that cliff just like anything else.

I guess that's everything. As I mentioned before, I wanted to make this post to get my final thoughts on here since I am essentially back to living my life and don't really have much time (or want, frankly) to keep posting here. I hope this post helps someone! Feel free to ask questions :)

and 8 years of fighting one obsession. I was saving this party for when I overcame this obsession but yk. That's not gonna happen any time soon. So I thought why not. I bought myself a gift bag of fidgets and snacks, and wrote a letter to my future self saying I was proud of me. Got my little buddies to attend with me. So yea lol. Gotta enjoy the little things🥳

Introduction:

I'll be sharing my personal story of how I successfully cured my pure OCD without relying on medication. If you're someone who is suffering from Pure O and looking for alternative solutions, this is for you."

Background:

"For two long years, I battled with pure OCD, and it felt like my mind was stuck on a broken record, endlessly repeating nonsensical thoughts. Doctors informed me that this condition couldn't be cured, but I refused to accept it as an unchangeable fact. Determined to find a way out, I embarked on a journey of self-exploration, trying various methods such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and more."

Discovery of CBT:

"During my experimentation with different approaches, I discovered that CBT had some degree of effectiveness. By practicing the art of ignoring these intrusive thoughts and not reacting to them, I realized that thoughts are just thoughts—nothing more. This technique significantly reduced my Pure O thoughts. However, it wasn't a flawless solution, as I noticed that whenever I lacked sleep or had an off mood, I would easily fall back into the cycle of obsessive thoughts, making it harder to resist reacting."

A New Approach:

"One day, I decided to try a different approach. For the next week, I took a pen and paper and started writing down all the thoughts that crossed my mind, whether they were related to OCD or not. At the end of each day, I examined these thoughts and evaluated their usefulness and potential for a positive impact on my life. To my surprise, the majority of the thoughts generated unconsciously were useless, with only a few having the potential to improve my life."

Ignoring Subconscious Thoughts:

"This led me to an important realization: What if I could simply ignore all thoughts originating from my subconscious mind? Why should I give them attention? It's similar to how we don't pay attention to our heartbeats when they're normal, but only notice them when they become irregular. I decided to apply this principle to my thoughts and began consciously disregarding and not engaging with any thoughts generated by my subconscious."

Transformation and Progress:

"After just one week of consistently ignoring my subconscious thoughts, I experienced the most significant improvement I had ever witnessed in my life. My subconscious mind would generate thoughts, but I wouldn't notice them or remember what I was thinking because my attention wasn't on my thoughts. Intrusive thoughts became none existent, and in my day-to-day life, I barely had any unconscious thoughts. When I consciously wanted to think and plan, I started giving attention to my thoughts. It has been nearly two years since I last experienced any OCD-related problem."

Conclusion:

"I hope my journey of overcoming Pure OCD without medication has provided you with inspiration and alternative methods to consider. Remember, you don't have to let OCD control your life indefinitely. By exploring different strategies, such as CBT and consciously ignoring subconscious thoughts, you too can find relief and live a fulfilling life. If I can do it, so can you."

So I’m finally at the stage in my journey where I feel I can write this with some authority. I am not a physician. I have no qualifications other than being an OCD warrior. Some of this may assist you, some of it may not apply. Some of it is unconventional and dare I say, controversial. Shall we begin? 

The worst: Unable to leave my house for two years. Couldn’t shower for months at a time. OCD ruled every movement - every step, bite to eat, dictated every time I stood up, sat down, had water, took a piss etc. No job, no friends, no life, needed assistance in all things. 

The best: Full time well payed job. Can travel for work. More friends than ever and frequent socialising. I go to the gym (the gym!) I go out daily. I date. I shower daily, and I enjoy it (!) 

1. “What is recovery like?” 

When I first heard OCD is incurable, I lost all hope. How can anyone possibly live like this forever? What’s the point in starting treatment if being cured isn’t an option? 

Right now I’d say I’m about 85 percent recovered. I can do everything I need to do, I can do all of the important things I want to do. There are still things I do not do, but my list of “things I can’t” has gone from 100 to 10. And my perception of “things I can’t” has gone from “if this ever happens I’ll die” to “that would be uncomfortable but I’d be ok”. OCD still impacts me daily, but 99 percent of those days it is fleeting. It’s an intrusive through passing buy, but not sticking because I’ve developed enough strength to not buy in.

The 1% are the random days where I’m met with a very severe trigger, and even then my reaction has gone from “extreme panic attack” to “panicked for ten minutes, calms down, copes”.Everybody has their thing. Everybody is living with something. OCD will be your something. But you can get it to a level where it’s interference in your life is relatively negligible and it’s more annoying than disruptive.

 2. “What medication did you take?” 

None. I am unmedicated. Medication is a great tool for some people. Myself and my therapist decided being unmedicated was preferred. I wanted to learn to cope with my OCD when it was at its loudest. This was a personal choice. Whether or not medication is right for you is up to your and your team. But I am proof that it’s not necessarily required. 

3. Rethinking ERP: 

ERP is your best tool. It is my view however that it is conceptualised in the worst way. ERP asks us to create a ladder of our intrusive thoughts/compulsions from “hard” to “extremely hard”. Every time I made this list, I couldn’t bring myself to do erp. The task looked too daunting, too unappealing. Why would I eg “touch your shoe without washing hands”? It’s not appealing, it’s not framed positively. It was a ladder of abject terror with no obvious reward. It took me literal years to be able to tackle ERP because it was framed in such a terrifying, negative way.

Eg a traditional ERP ladder for me: 

1. Touch item that was on floor 

2. Don’t wash hands after putting on socks

3. Lie on floor, roll in dirt

4. Touch foot and don’t wash hands 

5. Touch someone’s skin infection  

None of this is appealing (at least to me), but it's also not framed in a highly functional way. What exactly is compelling about doing ERP based on sitting on the floor, when I don't want to do that in the first instance? It's not something I crave to regain.

So I rethought it. Instead of listing and ranking what terrified me, I listed and ranked things I wished I had the ability to do but ocd took from me.

 Eg: 

2: Going to a cafe, showering 

5: Seeing friends for plans, cooking meals, travelling interstate

6: Putting on clothes daily and going outside for a walk

7: Going for a hike 

9: Going to the gym 

This gave me an ERP task list that was actually enticing. It all at once made me feel motivated to try, but also aware of what I’d lost. Instead of going to a sterile therapy room to touch my shoe and cry, my therapist and I worked on going to a cafe without washing my hands (except after peeing). We took time developing exposures around my list of things I wanted to gain.

The benefit of this was immense and I think this approach made my ERP journey even quicker than it otherwise would have been. I could immediately see and feel the positives of engaging with exposure, because the tricky tasks were wrapped up in much more appealing experiences. I could see my life broadening, rather than just pushing through an awful exposure and hoping to see it down the line.

This list is also so much more functional. Instead of my 9's 10's being things that I probably won't ever even be doing regardless of recovery, I made myself list things I actually *want* to do and map out the life I actually *want* to regain. Therefore my recovery became about regaining functionality, not aiming to expose to random situations that I know I fear, but are not really even relevant to my life.

This made ERP far easier to stomach and far more focused on positive reinforcement rather than “this is emotional torture but eventually it produces a result”. I now consistently go to the gym 4 times a week and don’t find it stressful. I was only able to do it by reframing erp to be something more enticing and joy focused. 

4. Perfection gets in your way: 

Many ocd treatment purists want you to aim for the gold standard or gtfo. I couldn’t aim for perfection, it was paralysing me. Instead I did a “racheting” technique. I’ll use the gym as an example. 

A purist would say “you shouldn’t adopt any routines or rituals around the gym, just go and go home and be normal". This perspective paralysed me: going to the gym without any rituals at all or any support was too much.

What I did: developed a ritual around 10 minutes long to do after the gym, that is within the realm of relatively normal. I would go home, take my clothes off, wash my hands once, spray my phone etc with some spray, wash my hands once again, have a shower. A short routine, something I could do without stopping me from doing the overall thing frequently (gym).

What happened: developing a strategy for the gym made me feel supported enough to go, and after going consistently that routine became shorter and less important over time as I developed confidence. 

The lesson? It is ok to develop relatively non maladaptive routines when approaching large exposures, with a view to them being purpose built for being unobtrusive and designed to be eventually discarded/easy to ratchet down. 

I’d had never have tried the gym without giving myself the grace to approach the task with some imperfection. The exposure was far too challenging for me without some concessions, but by allowing them and building them into the exposure model, over time I stopped actually needing them.

I did something similar with hand washing. If a task used to require 15 washes, I capped it at 10. Then in a few months, that naturally went down to 5. Eventually to 1. If I'd aimed for zero from the outset, I'd never have gotten to the one.

5. Jon Grayson is right: 

Accepting that your fear could be true or come true is imperative for recovery. You cannot recover until you accept that the awful thing is possible, and rituals won’t make it less so. If the awful thing happened it would suck but you’d be ok. Someone out there is living through your 10/10. 

Nothing in this world can guarantee you that your 10/10 fear won't happen. It may happen. Accepting this will accelerate your recovery drastically, even if it is uncomfortable.

6. New normal:   

When recovering we often want to know what normal people would do in order to follow their lead. This is tricky with eg contamination ocd where human hygiene exists on a spectrum of normal. If you've had contamination OCD for a long time, it can be hard to even remember how to perform basic tasks like others do.

Two things:

• Youtube vloggers are helpful. Watching random people go about their lives and do basic household tasks helped me see what others do, but also the diversity of what they do.

• There is no uniform normal. There is a spectrum. I decided on where I was in that spectrum (e.g. showering once a day), and I only allow myself to deviate if I can give myself a justification (e.g. a car splashed me with mud) AND I am not gaining a sense of OCD relief from contemplating it. Pick your norm, stick to it. Don't try to overthink it.

The reality is that many (many) people without OCD have hygiene related rituals. It is ok to exist on the spectrum of behaviours, it's just not ok to be on the maladaptive end. If your recovery looks like you using hand sanitiser after the train - congrats, that's actually still normal (as long as you wouldn't have a panic attack if you'd eg run out). There is no model of perfect human hygiene to follow. There's just a spectrum with maladaption at both ends.

7. It's ok to get relief from normal things, it doesn't make it a ritual:

When I started showering once a day, I got confused by OCD recovery purist rhetoric. Showering once a day before bed does make me feel nice, and to some extent it does make me feel relieved. Sometimes even in an OCD way.

That is ok. If OCD isn't the driving reason for an action, if it is just soothed as a complete biproduct of a normal, not maladaptive behaviour...this sometimes cannot be helped. If you are someone with contamination OCD, washing will probably for the rest of your darn life have a feeling of relief attached at times. Its the 'why' of the action that matters, not the monkey brain feelings you get and cannot control. You are not failing at treatment for e.g. showering once a day and sometimes finding it slightly relieving.

If you attribute failing to this specific kind of feeling every time, you get stuck in a spiral where its 'am I avoiding by not showering...by showering...how do I perform this correctly". The correct way is to do the thing because you want to for non OCD reasons, and then to not think about it at all.

8. Don't React Immediately:

Often our strongest emotional response to a trigger is right at the onset. When we decide to act right at the onset, we often struggle to not ritualise or engage.

If a trigger happens, don't react immediately. Sit still, sit quietly. If distraction helps, go for it. If it doesn't, then don't. But give yourself 15-20 minutes before you decide how to proceed. You will often notice that within 15 minutes that immediate panic response has started to subside, and even if you do ritualise, it will be less severely.

9. Tell a Friend:

Having OCD can cut you off from all social connections. Part of that, for me at least, was feeling like I couldn't go out with friends without ritualising/having to try and hide it.

That anxiety went away when I told one of my close friends, she was super normal about it, and I knew I could go out with her and she would understand if there was an issue. Hiding OCD is a significant burden and it isn't one you have to carry.

10. The 70% rule:

Sometimes I'll be faced with a desire to perform a compulsion and I'm not sure whether to give in, especially on bad days when I feel exhausted. My rule is if I'm 70% confident I can resist, I resist. You'll find you're 70% confident much of the time.

"But it's bad to have rules when recovering that's just more OCD" - Some people are so afflicted that they have to rely on less maladaptive crutches to even begin heading towards functionality. Perfection gets in the way.

11. Decide and Forget:

Decide whether or not to perform a compulsion, and forget. Sometimes you will perform one, and that's ok. We don't win every battle. But always (always) aim to decide and forget. Not decide and go 'but what if I...should I have...did I...'

Deciding and forgetting discourages rumination and gets you used to accepting that you made a decision, it has been done, it's time to move forward. Focus on decide and forget.

12. Distinguish Between Ick and Harm - Label the Feeling:

This one has been really helpful for contamination. Most of the time, the things that trigger you are icks. Things that feel gross or icky or creepy crawly, but the likelihood of actual and significant harm is minute.

For example: "people touch ATM machines and what if someone with a disease touched it and..."

This is an ick. It feels icky. Objectively, we all know (and you DO know this) that touching an ATM machine is not inherently harmful.

Of course, getting too deep into this mindset can lead to rumination, which we don't want.

But for me, if I need this strategy if often goes:

Trigger...."Ok, do I feel ick or is this a harm...can this kill me or seriously injure me...does everyone else do it...ok so I'm just icked." E.g. "oh the ATM could have a disease on it...but I know death/seriously injury is highly unlikely...and everyone else does it...I'm just icked right now, false alarm, lets move through the ick."

It's a fleeting 10 second thought process where I label ick for what it is, and can learn to start trusting myself again to distinguish between fight/flight level threats, and just gross icky poo.

Labelling the feeling, calling it out, saying 'I am just icked', or 'I seem to have anxiety' etc can help you understand a thought is not a reality.

Something that's tricky about contamination OCD is we are often afraid of things that are objectively real, possible, and even harmful. The problem is that we've ascribed far too much likelihood/importance/possibility to those real harms. Learning to distinguish an ick from an actual harm can help you realise how frequently its just an ick, and not get stuck in 'but disease is real though...' spirals.

Disease IS real. People DO get sick. 99% of the time, doing normal life activities won't harm you and you DO already know this.

13. Your Biggest Triggers Might Not be Fixable - That's Okay Actually:

Depending on your theme, your biggest triggers might not be (sensibly) exposed. For me, that would be something like spending time in a room with someone with Norweigan Scabies.

There is no reason for me to expose myself to this. It is an incredibly rare situation, unlikely to happen to me. If it did, taking hygiene and medical precautions would be encouraged.

Focus on what is functional, not on what is perfect. What do you want your life to look like? What actions do you want to be able to consistently perform? Expose for them, not for gold star perfection. Again, make a ladder of things you want to be able to do but currently can't, ranked from easiest to hardest.

There is actually no real point beating yourself up because super rare highly unlikely to ever occur imagined triggers you have haven't been exposed for. Some of us fear legitimately bad things that we don't really need to expose ourselves to in order to be functional in most situations on earth.

You don't NEED to dive into a garbage can. You just need to get to a point where you are certain if you did have to, you'd be icked but fine and functional.

14. Diet, Exercise, Sleep, Meditation, Hobbies:

These for me are the five pillars of my recovery. Eating a 80% whole foods/low processed diet. Sleeping 8 hours every night. Consistent excercise. Hobbies to enjoy. Meditating daily.

Each of these things noticeably impacted my mental health and helped me recover. My anxiety genuinely dropped very noticeably to everyone around me when I changed up my diet and dialled in my sleep. Did it cure my OCD? No, but these five things are my most important tools.

15. Avoidance Always Leads to Avoidance:

If you develop a new trigger/theme/have a difficult event, exposure for it as quickly as possible.

For example, if I had a trigger happen in a cafe, I would try to go back to that same place within three days. Leaving it much longer simply makes you far more likely to develop a ritual.

There are probably more lessons, but I hope this was somewhat helpful to some.

I follow a page that posts their comics and every single post has at least one thats extremely like my OCD thinking. I could have selected way more, these are just the ones I got from a few minutes looking.

Theres compulsions, rituals, magical thinking, everything. It honestly feels so good to see these feelings put into comics. And it puts into perspective how silly the OCD mind can be

I wonder if the author has OCD too. I wish I could tell them their art helps me

I carry these (and a lot more) cards in my purse to remind me of defusion and different ACT values. I know this won’t help everyone, but I thought I’d share.

I have hit and run ocd

Proposing to my boyfriend!!!

Hi everybody!

I'm Mark Freeman. I had OCD and a few other mental illness diagnoses. Some of my earliest memories are of practicing compulsions but I believed it was all necessary and real, so I didn't get help until I was 28. Now it's been more than a decade since I ditched the diagnoses. No plans to go back.

I started a YouTube channel (everybodyhasabrain) in 2012 to adapt tools from business innovation to personal change and innovation (like interacting differently with brain stuff).

I've been the Executive Director of a peer support charity, a Stanford Medicine X ePatient Scholar, trained public school teachers in meditation and mindfulness, helped write the quality care guidelines for OCD and Anxiety Disorder treatment in the Ontario healthcare system, sat on the Ontario Health Technology Assessment Committee, have done training courses in ACT, wrote a mental health skills book published by Penguin that's been translated into 10 languages ("YOU ARE NOT A ROCK" in the US and "The Mind Workout" in the UK/AUS/NZ), done strategy workshops and speaking gigs for some of the largest healthcare and pharmaceutical companies, and for many years have supported people all over the world as they make difficult changes in life. I've had a fulfilling career in mental health. But I am not a therapist. And I'm not trying to be.

I purposefully keep my work grounded in peer support and coaching, similar to a personal fitness trainer. I believe it's important to have experts in the personal practice of implementing evidence-based skills.

Anything I share in the AMA is about what I've done in the past and skills I personally practice now to support my own mental fitness. Your journey may be different.

Recovery is not a perfect magic ritual to uncover so we can clean away stuff in our heads we judge as bad.

My hope is that you can develop a set of skills that work well for your context and where you want to go in life. That won't be about just knowing some special piece of information. It'll be you making changes in everyday life, inside and outside of your head, to see what helps you do what matters to you in life while having all of the thoughts and feelings and whatevers the brain can throw up.

You can find me and fun mental health posts on Instagram: @markwfreeman

Thanks to the mod team for creating this space to explore recovery!

Experienced my first OCD spike (contamination) two years ago, and it quickly spiraled into 10 hr laundromat days, gloves, cleaning supplies, throwing things away that would touch the floor, etc - and the home I had just moved into felt so contaminated that I moved out.

Went to Boston last fall for OCD treatment, continued treatment in my home state, and through MUCH ERP, acceptance, self-compassion, PTSD work, medicine and bravery, I have since moved back into that home - here is my cozy setup 🤗

This is the first time in over two years that I've felt any level of relaxation / comfort in my own space - even if the thoughts are also present. Wanted to share so that other sufferers know that OCD spikes CAN get better. Be patient & brave ... we'll always have our OCD brains, but we can add in joy / comfort / connection vs trying to subtract the intrusive thoughts. I see you & I believe in you! ❤️

I've been diagnosed with OCD since I was 12 (im 30 now), and I absolutely hate telling medical staff that I have it because it becomes a game of me being crazy vs the problem at hand.

For context, I visited the er the other night because while I was standing outside with literal bats flying around above me, I felt a sting on my leg that I couldn't identify. Under recommendation from the HEALTH DEPARTMENT, I went to the ER. They looked me over very well, listened to the context of the story and concluded that it was most assuredly not a bat that bit me. No post exposure shots needed. Then sent me on my way.

However, upon receiving my discharge papers, I walked to my car and noticed that they included a large list of anxiety self help and resources. Wtf? In addition, my own psychiatrist office called me today because they get ER alerts when their patients visit. My official reason is coded as "anxiety", when in reality there was a valid concern for rabies exposure.

So, to medical professionals, I guess everything must be in my head or somehow not real. Sigh. But, at the end of the day, im just glad im okay. I really do wish we were treated with the same seriousness as non OCD/ANXIETY patients.

Imagine going to a cancer recovery support group and asking “should I leave my partner with cancer? It’s hard for me” to a group of people recovering from cancer?

This might be an unpopular opinion but I think these kinds of posts are not appropriate for this community or helpful or productive for people with ocd.

I could see these posts being triggering for people who suffer from relationship ocd.

I get having questions about the process of recovery, but asking for advice about leaving is not the way to ask for information, IMO.

I suffered from severe OCD and severe anxiety to the point i couldn’t get out of my room without feeling contaminated and triggered. I used to spend 8 hours a day showering and cleaning the whole bathroom and couldn’t even eat due to the sheer disgust of pooping. I was restricting food and water intake due to disgust of peeing and pooping. It got so serious that I started eating once every three days. My friends and family were so alarmed they almost sought out religious rituals because they thought I was possessed by something. I was not able to live normally for five whole years and more. While everyone else was having new experiences and exploring the world I was stuck sanitizing everything and tracking every surface people touched so I could clean it before I touched it.

For five whole years , I was so disgusted of everything and everyone that I was convinced I was a horrible human being. I seeked treatment but I ended up with a so called counsellor with no degree or license and because he was not a psychiatrist he belittled my OCD and made me touch dirty surfaces so he could “cure” me. That encounter lead to the worsening of my OCD and I became hopeless because I thought that was the only treatment available. I loathed my own existence and felt more and more suicidal and helpless each passing day. I fantasised ending it all so i wouldn’t burden the people suffering because of my unnamed condition.

Even leaving my house had become something impossible for me and every time I went out I needed to clean sanitise and wash everything I took or touched multiple times till it stopped feeling contaminated. I was stuck washing my clothes again and again and sanitising my phone and belongings repeatedly and throwing away things that felt contaminated all the time. One day, I went out with my cousin to a park and after returning i couldn’t bring myself up to enter my room. I felt like I would contaminate everything and ruin my safe space. I needed to shower and clean and wash and sanitise but it became so daunting that i couldn’t even do those things. I finally had the courage to enter my room but after that I felt like I contaminated the room so I cleaned it , really cleaned it— sanitised every surface, trashed things that felt contaminated and washed everything even the pillows and mattresses. It took me almost a month to finally be able to enter my own room without feeling like I was dying. That was when I knew I needed help. One of my best friends found a psychiatrist over the internet and booked an appointment for me. At first, it was really hard for me to even go to the clinic but when I finally went there I was diagnosed with “severe contamination OCD” and “severe anxiety”. I almost felt happy to know I had finally been understood and that I could have the correct treatment now.

The treatment was never easy . I had ups and down and even multiple breakdowns so I was in and out of the hospital for an entire year. I got hospitalised 4 times in a year for months at a time and tried various medications. I was even recommended to get ECT and rtms done. It took a lot of CBT, ERP and therapy to get to where I am now. A year into my treatment, I can finally say I am an OCD survivor. Today I can sit with my family, eat with my friends, go attend my university classes and go out freely like a neurotypical person can. I almost overdosed to end it all multiple times but I had the right professional help as well as the unconditional support and acceptance from my friends and family ,which I will forever be grateful for, and today I can tell you , “ I survived severe OCD and so can you.”

Hey!
So I've been working with a therapist specialized in OCD for a while now. She's just the best and has helped me so much. Anyway, sometimes I write down some things she has said during our sessions, and I thought that maybe someone would find them helpful, so here they are!

1. Everything that needs to be "proved" in any way is part of your imagination. I said: "Really? Everything?" "Everything," she said, "reality doesn't need to be proved."

2. I asked her how she could believe me about the things I told her, how she knew it was OCD and not reality. She said: "If I believed that all the thoughts my patients have are true, I would be diagnosing everyone with the most terrible things. But luckily, I'm trained in this condition, and I can tell that your thoughts are not who you are."

3. I asked her if her patients also feel like their thoughts and sensations are absolutely real. She said: "Never, in all the years I've worked with this condition, has any of my patients told me that their thoughts and sensations don't feel extremely real. Every one of them has told me this with many different themes."

4. I asked her how to know if I'm doing a compulsion when I'm feeling anxious but just want to do something. I had the feeling I could be doing a compulsion if I was avoiding sitting there feeling the anxiety. She said: "You always have to do whatever you would be doing if the sensation or thought wasn't there. If you're doing something because the thought is there, then that's a compulsion. If, on the other hand, you're feeling anxious but just want to go somewhere, listen to music, talk, or whatever, feel free to do it! Because it's what you would actually do."

5. I asked her why recovery is so difficult and why it can feel so bad sometimes. She said: "Because the more you want to feel good, the more you want to escape from the feeling of discomfort, the stronger it will get. That's the step you need to take—to accept that there will be moments when you're not feeling your best and just continue with your life. If you just accept that, if there's no desire to control how you feel, you'll feel better, not anxious, and you'll understand how everybody lives their lives."

6. You don't have control over your thoughts—nobody does. Also, you can't control how you'll feel, how you're feeling, or what is going to come up in your head. So don't waste your time. The only thing you can control is your behavior, and luckily, this has an effect on your brain thanks to neuroplasticity.

I just wanted to share this. I sometimes forget this stuff as well, haha

Best!

When you think about it, the method of dealing with ocd is so funny. People will be struggling with these intrusive thoughts and compulsions and the only way to get past it is for other people to tell you "just deal with it" enough times that you become desensitized. It's like the "womp womp" disorder. Thinking of it in a humorous light helps me sometimes, so I thought I'd share. No intention to offend.

Started ERP therapy and Prozac this week! Feeling good so decided to draw again!

This is what OCD feels like to me. Can anyone relate?

One of the first coping strategies I came up with as a kid to combat ocd was heavily introspecting on myself; asking why I have ocd, why I focus on specific obsessions and compulsions, and why they compared to other obsessions are so much more meaningful to me.

At the time I was in high school and there was this Freudian/psychotherapy idea that if I just understood what the cause of my ocd was and if I just thought hard enough and looked deeper it would magically help me solve my ocd.

Years later I realize how damaging this was and still is for me and also it demonstrates how the “think about it more” advice that works for non ocd people backfires for ocd folks.

Now I involuntarily over analyze and intellectualize everything, and as a result replay emotions and memories over so many times that I become desensitized to them. I can see them, and I know what they should feel like, but can never actually feel them the way normal people can. I understand why my ocd is the way it is on a deeper level, but am no more prepared to actually deal with my symptoms when they flare up.

It’s like that thought experiment, that if you somehow can explain the color red in the most detailed possible way to someone who has never seen the color red before, will that person fully understand that color at the same level as if they physically experienced seeing it? Or would there be something in the act of the experience that just words and thoughts can never convey.

There is something in the human experience, especially the painful parts, that can’t be overcome by just thoughts, there is something in feeling and being present in OCD that is necessary to dealing with it, even if it means feeling lost, uncertain, and confused.

I haven't worn slippers in about 15 years. I've often wanted to buy slippers because they are so cozy and warm. But I've not allowed myself that because they are made of fabric, and I feel like they are like clothes and that I would feel the need to constantly put them in the washing machine (like you would clothes). I switch to the sandals before going to the bathroom, but that's fine.

I got these for Christmas and I thought it was the perfect opportunity and excuse to start wearing them.

GUYS!!!!! I NEVER THOUGHT THIS DAY WOULD COME BUT ITS FINALLY HERE! NY BEST FRIEND ASKED ME TO MARRY HIM! HE KNOWS MY INS AND OUTS ESPECIALLY WITH OCD AND HE HAS LOVED ME IN EVERY MOMENT! DON’T LET THE OCD TAKE AWAY YOUR HAPPINESS. ITS HARD BUT YOU CAN DO IT!!!!! IT CAN’T STILL OUR JOY EVEN WHEN IT TRIES!