Hi everyone; I’m new here, so I thought I’d introduce myself. I’m a 27 year-old man living with OCD, depression, and anxiety.
OCD has been a lifelong illness for me, as I first remember experiencing symptoms as young as five years old. Like so many sufferers, I was embarrassed of my condition, and never let on to my family the nightmare I was living. It wasn’t until I was 21, and experiencing a particularly debilitating spell, that I broke down and told my Mom everything. I was officially diagnosed a few weeks after my confession.
My OCD has evolved over the years, originating from one fear, and continuing for others. I’ve experienced multiple facets of OCD (many times simultaneously), including checking, symmetry, and contamination. Lately, emotional contamination has been my crux.
I wish I could say that I’ve learned to manage my OCD after all these years, but everyday life is still a struggle. I know that medication works for many people, but it didn’t work for me. In fact, it worsened my situation. And while I’ve found talk therapy to be helpful, for me, it’s financially unsustainable. I often lose sleep at night thinking about the relationships that my OCD has ruined, the experiences that it’s robbed me of, and the time I’ll never get back.
I do, however, take comfort in knowing that I’m not alone in this (a concept I once refused to believe). My hope is that I can find some inspiration in this community, and perhaps help others find a little light as well.
I would like to welcome you the OCD Support Network.
I am sorry that you went through a difficult time.
I struggle with lots of checking rituals.
Basically, my checking is severe.
I am on lots of medications since many years, but nothing has helped me either.
I just take them to feel stable for daily living.
I suffer from depression and anxiety also.
Talk therapy does not work for OCD.
The therapy which is used for OCD is called: "Exposure Response Prevention" (ERP).
It is to sit with the anxiety, and face the feared consequences of resisting checking, or any other ritual.
You are not alone in this journey of living with OCD.
We are here to give each other advice, suggestions, support and share our similar experiences.
I wish you the best in life.
Take Care.
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Thanks so much. I’m sorry to hear that you’re struggling as well. I see a psychologist every now and then, and while her methods do involve a little bit of ERP, it’s not enough to really create an impact in the quality of my life. I have hope that one day things will get better, though.
Best of luck on your journey and take care as well.
Welcome - I am new here myself. I started taking medication when I was about your age and it helped quite a bit (after a couple decades of hiding and denying my symptoms). I'm sorry medication hasn't done the same for you. Have you tried different ones? I responded better to the second one I tried (fluoxetine) than the first, and was able to eventually cut most medication out for awhile.
However I still have relapses and flare-ups and the latest has been bad enough to go back to a higher dosage and try some therapy, which I've never done. Up till now I've relied on self-help books, like Brain Lock, Stop Obsessing!, and Tormenting Thoughts and Secret Rituals, which have actually helped a great deal. If you've never tried the "DIY" approach with a book, you might give it a shot.
Overall I've found my OCD to come and go over the years. I wish I'd done more to fight it during times it was bad, because, as you said, there's a lot of time wasted and opportunities missed. I hope you're able to make some progress - remember that the real enemy is your anxiety and not the things it tells you to fear.
Thanks so much for your response; I always find it so helpful to hear what others have gone through and the different tactics they’ve employed to help manage the illness.
Originally I was prescribed Buspirone and Cipralex by a psychiatrist. They kind of watered down my symptoms for a while, but with major side effects, including weight gain and lethargy. With every visit, he would increase my dosage (because I wasn’t seeing significant improvement). About two and a half years after my diagnosis, he also prescribed Latuda. That drug, in combination with the others, left me in a completely zombified state and ultimately created adverse effects from that which were intended. My anxiety surged and my depression returned in full force.
I made the decision to stop the medication at that point. I figured it would take a while to deconstruct the meds in a safe manner, and I was prepared to do so. However, my psychiatrist didn’t necessarily follow protocol and would significantly cut my dosages in very short time frames, which lead to another set of devastating side effects and turned me off of the medication path indefinitely. We later found out that other patients had raised concerns over questionable practices of this particular psychiatrist, so of course it could have been a doctor problem and not a medication problem.
All that said, I haven’t tried any other medications since, but I’m glad that you found one that works for you. I hope you’re finding therapy helpful as well. I’ve seen a psychologist on and off for the past few years, and it helps in the short term, but lacks the jolt I require to really change my behaviours. It doesn’t help that each 45 minute session costs $200 either! I haven’t read the books you mentioned, but I love reading and self-help, so I’ll definitely give those titles a try; thanks so much!
You’re right, anxiety is the real enemy here and I’ll try to keep that in mind going forward. Thanks again for your words of encouragement and I wish you all the best!
I’m of course not a doctor or a psychiatrist but that does seem like a haphazard choice of medication. You might seriously try one of the other SSRIs under a different doctor. My wife described my reduction in symptoms after starting medication as ‘miraculous.’ To me, it made the obsessions much easier to battle through ERP techniques. Good luck.
I’d be open to that for sure. I definitely don’t want my previous experience with SSRIs to dictate alternatives that could help. Thanks again for all the info and good luck to you as well.
As another person said, talk therapy is generally not effective for OCD. It can even make it worse. The gold standard for OCD is Exposure Response Prevention therapy. Not all therapists are trained in this. It works. It is hard work, but by all accounts it really works.
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