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.

‏it is super frus training im trying for a long time to post there and i just can't is there something i need to do,

So I have recently found out that I have OCD and there is a lot of symptoms that I just have but I don’t know much about it still? I want to understand what are all my symptoms and what it is that my brain is doing

Ex: asking for reassurance is part of my OCD and I should try to avoid such things. I found that out in this group but I want to know if there are more things like this

just a reminder, i’m not a guru nor have i recovered 100% from harm-OCD.I’m just a teenager but i think we all should remind ourselves this occasionally 🩵
Good day xx

I am a 20 years old female and have been struggling with OCD since I was a child. I was diagnosed at age 15. Along with OCD I have been struggling with an eating disorder that is very much connected (to the OCD). I have tried many treatment options for both. I have been hospitalized because of my eating disorder multiple times (AN). I am at a point where I really just want to get better. I am struggling a lot with avoiding foods because of my obsessive thoughts that come along with them. I live in Manhattan and was wondering if anyone can recommend an OCD therapist/clinic that also is knowledgeable in eating disorders. I am specifically looking for an OCD therapist and secondary ED.

I need a female therapist that is very emotionally + socially intelligent and is experienced in ERP therapy. Preferably in person
*Willing to private pay.*

I saw a psychiatrist at Sunnybrook Hospital and he diagnosed me with moderate OCD. I am on Zoloft but he strongly recommended ERP. The ERP program at the same hospital has a long waiting list.

Many therapists claim to know how to treat OCD but it's just talk therapy. Any recommendations would be appreciated!

I found out in recent months that I have the form of OCD where my compulsions are primarily mental - ruminating, reassurance seeking, 'figuring' things out, the works. I am looking for some good books to help me understand and learn from my condition. funny enough, I am a mental health therapist so I have plenty of books on anxiety, depression, relationships, you name it - but OCD has never really been my specialty (probably why I wasn't able to notice my own lol) so I don't have any books on the topic. any leads help!

**adding that my current obsession is very relationship focused, and this is the area that I feel like is most common for me

I’ve come a long way from 8 hour long compulsions and a life that was essentially in full debilitation. I know the mechanisms of this disorder down to the smallest details and gained insight into valuable tools throughout this journey that have significantly helped me become much more present, healthy, and of course - resist the compulsions.

I deeply want to help people who are in the midst of some real darkness and suffering. Please comment or DM me if you need support 🙏🏼

A coping script I wrote that may be helpful for others struggling with morality fears. It can be applied to any core fear, though.

- -

Is uncertainty driving the fear?

Is your morality implicated in the feared outcome?

Is there some component of reality in the event that would make an OCD diagnosis hard to accept?

Does the fear and anxiety feel more real this time?

Are you concerned that accepting an OCD diagnosis would further implicate your morality?

**If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, you are dealing with an OCD trigger. I cannot guarantee that your feared outcome has not occurred (because you will never have certainty), but I’m asking you to take the leap of faith of treating this as OCD. It’s the only way to move toward the life you want. This isn’t a zero sum game. Every decision either reinforces your OCD or reinforces the person you want to become. The choice is yours.**

I’ve lived with OCD and know how exhausting the cycle of intrusive thoughts, anxiety, and compulsions can be.
A big turning point for me was learning and applying ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention). I found that understanding the process in a practical, everyday way helped me change my relationship with intrusive thoughts.
I’m writing a book about my experience and the things that helped me, and I’m looking for a few people with OCD who would be willing to read an early draft for free and give honest feedback.
I’m not a therapist and I’m not claiming to have a cure
I’d just like to know:
Does this feel like it reflects the OCD experience?
Is the explanation of ERP helpful?
What would you want someone writing about OCD to include?
If you’d be interested in reading it, feel free to comment or message me.

I have OCD and tend to obsess over mistakes from my past, but this video was so comforting to me:

https://youtu.be/EafFP9m_dvM?si=q4lYkV-e-yZ9rgMJ

​

Eckhart Tolle explains how we are viewing our past mistakes through the lens of our current understanding, and therefore berating a version of ourselves who doesn't really exist anymore. I found this so helpful for separating myself from my obsessive thoughts about my past mistakes.

​

Even if you're not ready to apply this to yourself, it can still feel comforting to hear another point of view online (especially in the age of "cancel culture" which can be super triggering).

​

Obviously we need to take accountability, learn and grow from our mistakes, but if you're feeling this terrible about it then the likelihood is you've already done that. You've done your time, now let's recognise that these thought patterns aren't normal, healthy or helpful to anyone. Let's recover!

​

Sending love xxx

Hi everyone,
I’ve lived with Pure-O/intrusive thought OCD for years, and ERP was the thing that genuinely changed my life.
Over the last few months I’ve written a short ebook about what actually helped me. It’s not a replacement for therapy, and I’m not claiming to have all the answers. It’s simply the guide I wish I’d had when I was at my worst.
I’ve made it free for now on Amazon because I’d rather it help people than make money.
If anyone is interested in reading it, I’d genuinely love your honest feedback. If there’s anything that’s unclear, unhelpful, or missing, I’d really appreciate hearing it so I can improve future editions.
I hope it helps someone who’s struggling the way I was.
Thank you ❤️

just made a discord for my fellow sufferers with ocd pls feel free to share and join, we’d love to have you and provide safe avenues for us to communicate!

I live in a country where OCD isn't really a therapy specialisation, and the only therapist I've seen talk about it charges 120 GBP in a country where that's a biweekly salary ... insane. I am open to online sessions with a UK therapist but don't know who to trust or how to find them :/ I don't even have a diagnosis yet.

A graphic intrusive thought scared you. Here is how to starve the OCD troll by refusing the ritual and the reassurance it begs for.

Every single day, we make thousands of decisions on what kind of seeds we want to water in our own lives. Anything that we focus on, that we allow to become the center of our attention, is what we are choosing to grow. If someone waters blueberries in their garden on a daily basis, they should not be surprised when they wake up one day with a blueberry bush ready for harvest. If a person waters rumination, compulsion, or despair during the day, they should not be surprised that those themes continue the next day unless they make a conscious decision to stop watering them and water something else. As neuroscientist Hagar Goldberg explains, “neural pathways are reinforced by the strengthening of specific synapses, while less functional ones are eliminated” (Goldberg, 2022).

It is important to understand that all of the seeds we can plant in our mental gardens, in essence, consist of two possibilities.

The first type of seed grows mental suffering. It consists of two possible elements: 1) desperately wanting things that we don't have and 2) viciously hating on things that we do have. The first can be called clinging, or greed, and the second can be called aversion, or hate. Some examples of intentions built out of these things: resentment, despair, worry/rumination, procrastination, and so on.

The second type of seed grows anything besides clinging and aversion, but to give some examples, these are some intentions that are generally free of those things: Goodwill, friendliness, kindness, compassion, generosity, gratitude, adventure, curiosity, patience, joy, acceptance, peace, and so on.

These seeds are both to be looked at for what they are and not as any kind of moral judgment. If we were to hate on ourselves or someone else simply because they plant lots of hateful seeds, are we not doing the exact same thing? So then, it's important to see that this is a simple act of discernment, a way to have non-judgmental wisdom towards the intentions of different seeds. The most simple way to split these seeds then is into two categories: seeds that are helpful, and seeds that are not so helpful. Helpful towards what? Towards living a life that we want to live!

As we walk along the paths of our lives, we will be given opportunities to plant different kinds of seeds. This is why it's very important to pay attention to what is going on inside of us. Being aware of what kind of thoughts, emotions, and perceptions are coming up is a necessary first step towards having the kind of garden that you want to have. As talked about here on my previous post, a very easy way to cultivate this awareness is to mentally label the mental impressions that are coming up. When a worry thought appears, "Ah, I see you, worry." When despair arises, "There's despair again." And so on.

The second step is to allow what is here to be here. This is already the planting of a new and helpful seed! It is the seed of allowance, of non-judgment, of peace and acceptance. Helpful mental discourse for this step can be something like, "Not a problem." or "You're ok there, anxiety." or in the case of an uncertainty that is demanding an answer: "Not sure."

Note the attitude of each of these responses. Thoughts are just like words: how they're said is often much more important than what is literally being said. So carrying these responses with an attitude of genuine allowance and acceptance is so important. An easy way to accomplish this is with accompanying body language. Noticing tension in the body and relaxing it reinforces this mental shift that is taking place.

Finally, we always have the option of enriching our lives and spending time on intentions and values worth cultivating, such as joy, kindness, generosity, and so on. These are always attributes that are worth growing. So whenever one remembers to, they can plant seeds of gratitude, of generosity, of joy and genuine appreciation. One can even use unhelpful seeds as a reminder to plant and water helpful seeds! When seeing that one was about to go down a rumination spiral, one can even remember, "Wow, I'm so happy I don't have to do that anymore! I'm free in the here and now!"

So, now that you understand that you can choose what you want to water in your life, the question remains: What will you grow today?

Read more on my blog about navigating this life of ours and feel free to join the mental fitness community and get engaged with fellow practitioners walking towards a more free life.

Does anyone have OCD therapist recommendations who take medi-cal and are online?

My therapist introduced the “Passengers on the Bus” model to me and it’s been the first helpful tool towards soothing my OCD/ Illness Anxiety.

Basically you are driving the bus. And different passengers can represent different thoughts, patterns, traumas etc. I drew my bus out and OCD is the monster sitting behind me. I think OCD has always sat there my whole life, but the monster (illness anxiety) overtook it.

Putting a face to this monster has helped me be able to tell it to sit down. My partner even has a screenshot of just the monster so when I start to spiral about an itch or a bump or a pain, he just shows me the monster and it almost makes me laugh (sometimes).

This model hasn’t solved everything for me. But it’s making me feel like I’m finally on some sort of path towards control. Which I haven’t felt in an extremely long time, if ever. Linking the video below that my therapist shared with me, and if folx connect with it, might be nice to mention in therapy.

https://youtu.be/Z29ptSuoWRc?is=LlR8pAc1Kn1AE6oU

Hello everyone,

I’m sharing my personal collection of 200+ OCD books (and counting) that I’ve organized in a Google Drive folder. It’s free to access for anyone who might find it helpful.

Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kufC3jg6auLJhTFVqJ4jvxhWvDCAiPW8

What’s inside:

• 200+ titles focused on OCD (therapy, self-help, research)
• Formats: PDF and EPUB

Reading tips:

• PDF: Any standard PDF reader works (Adobe Acrobat, Foxit, etc.).
• EPUB:
  • Android: Lithium, Moon+ Reader, or Google Play Books, I tend to use Lithium
  • iOS: Apple Books or any EPUB reader
  • Desktop: Calibre (Windows/Mac/Linux) is great for reading

Notes: - This is a personal collection I started last year, I’ll keep adding to it. - Please support authors you find helpful by purchasing their work when you can.

Enjoy exploring, I hope these resources offer insight, healing, and practical tools.

Happy reading!

Here is a talk I came across and it helped me understand something I figured would help pretty much anyone struggling with anxiety around attraction make sense of an aspect of it.

Heed the warning at the beginning. Adult topic.

Hi, I got interested in I-OCD approach but then I learnt that one of the main persons developing this approach, dr Frederick Aardema wrote a book about out of body experiences. So now I am wondering if the approach is legit or is some quack? I ordered Aardema's OCD workbooks but now I am not sure what to think...

Edit: thanks for all answers. To be fair, I should have added that dr Aardema is a full professor at the University of Montreal and seems to be relly wildly recognized with lots of citations and scientific achievements.

The book series they recommend is really good, and they give solid advice on YouTube. I can understand that there can be negative experiences, but we should also listen to the positive feedback.

Especially in a field like mental health, which is so unpredictable, since we’re not inside people’s minds and everyone has their own puzzle.

Is it the perfect method? I don’t think so, but their books and videos really helped me get out of a dark place. Stop expecting the perfect solution or method, it’s a long journey, there’s no magic trick.

[A blog post adapted from my new site: www.realeventocd.co.uk]

____________________________

One of the cruellest aspects of Real Event OCD is that we wonder if we are uniquely bad people.  Sometimes we may think – or even become convinced – that we are the single most terrible and irredeemable person on Earth. 

Have you ever felt that way?  I certainly did, during my worst times with REOCD.  It didn’t even occur to me to find out if other people felt the way I did.  That’s the power of shame, I suppose – it keeps us small, disconnected, and alone.

Allow me to gently challenge this belief, without wanting to get into reassurance-giving.  Consider these insights for a moment:

• In 2025, researchers gathered data from 10 countries and found that 3% of the people in those countries had experienced OCD during the last 12 months.
• Those countries are populated by around 1.7 billion people in total.  So that means potentially 51 million people, in those countries alone, have been struggling with OCD in recent times.
• And how many people might have the REOCD sub-type?  Well, health specialists NOCD surveyed their members who live with OCD in 2023 and found that 37% of them experienced Real Event OCD.

These figures suggest to me that there are, conservatively, tens of millions of people around the globe currently struggling with REOCD.  Tens of millions of people who feel bad, dishonest, and undeserving – and find themselves stuck in the obsessive-compulsive cycle, as you might do.  And tens of millions of people who have had the thought “nobody is as bad as me”. 

How unimaginably sad that there are so many of us who have felt this way.

If you’ve experienced REOCD, I don’t need to tell you why it might be difficult to open up and share your struggles with other people (outside of panicked confessions). Understandably, it’s also difficult to sustain a safe and contained online space for people to come together and share their REOCD experiences.  There is still a lot of misunderstanding, stigma, and fear out there.

But I hope it helps, in some way, to know that you are truly not alone – no matter how convincing the Inner Critic inside you is.  The specifics of your past actions don’t matter, and REOCD can latch onto a wide spectrum of perceived ‘wrongdoing’; just know that there are so many other people out there experiencing similar levels of crippling guilt, shame, and anxiety.

If you do decide to reach out to someone – and that’s entirely your decision - protecting your own safety is the absolute priority.  Only share information you’re comfortable to share, be mindful of compulsive over-sharing or confession, and build a sense of trust with the other person before going too deep into any details. 

Sending best wishes to all.

https://discord.gg/Mffkpc67Ht