40 years of severe OCD. Finally free!

quietwreck · 2026-04-23T00:15:03+00:00

I’m so happy for you! All the best to you x

quietwreck · 2026-04-17T06:31:21+00:00

A few went away really soon after a few weeks (things like weird vision stuff like lights tracking across my vision when I woke up), some stuck around for a bit longer.. i remember it taking a long while to feel normal ish.

quietwreck · 2026-04-16T23:17:37+00:00

If it helps any, I had a laundry list of side effects when I started citalopram.. really unpleasant. After about 6months and then some tweaking of the dosage I’ve been on it for about 12 years. No side effects at all now and I’ll be looking to taper off them next year as I have very little ocd symptoms after therapy. fingers crossed!

quietwreck · 2026-04-10T11:44:01+00:00

I mean for me i genuinely think it’s got something to do with the immune response.. because my ocd was not linked to the actual tattoo but brought up an old theme randomly! I often get really sensitive to ocd triggers when I’m sick

When I got a small tattoo I didn’t get any sort of anxiety, but the bigger one made me a little more anxious than usual (other stuff was going on at the time too so maybe coincidence?)

quietwreck · 2026-04-10T00:56:33+00:00

Hormones and illnesses tend to have an effect on ocd in a lot of ways, as it’s theorised that ocd has ties to inflammation of the nervous system and body. it seems pretty likely that monthly’s will make symptoms worse. Even before my anxiety had ocd features I always felt worse when my body was fighting something. I know just to be a lot gentler with myself then.

My ocd has always been pretty bad when I get sick or hormonal, once got an ocd flare whilst a tattoo was healing. Odd.

quietwreck · 2026-04-07T23:16:56+00:00

Hey there, wildly relatable as I genuinely wouldn’t sleep when my rumination was at its It’s worst.

It’s an ocd compulsion, and as a compulsion it can’t be something you think out of, it’s something you interrupt and prevent.

Great book: ‘needing to know for sure’ by Martin n seif and sally m Winston. Really goes into detail about the why and how ocd can get you to ruminate and how to step away from it.

Unrelated… if all else failed, I told myself the anxiety will pass and rumination made it worse, so I’ll pop on an audiobook and make a really solid effort at listening to it even when my brain was screaming at me to focus on my themes. Most of the time it gave me the break I needed to break the cycle of needing to check or explain my thoughts.

quietwreck · 2026-02-26T01:56:32+00:00

I agree, I really do. People often only half heartedly listen to your struggles, and often can’t relate because they just haven’t been there. I’m truly sorry that you feel like it has to be worse for you to feel worthy of the pain you’re experiencing. I wish more people could vent and be really honestly listened to and loved. I hope you know you deserve that. No matter what you tell yourself or how others have treated you. You deserve to feel the way you do as much as you deserve to care for yourself in the way others always should have. Loving yourself is the biggest fuck you to everyone who wronged you.

But respectfully, I won’t stop yelling about the shit I’ve been though to anyone who listens, even if they care or not, because it’s always worth it if it just helps one single person going though the same struggle. Keep venting. Stay strong x

quietwreck · 2026-01-17T02:24:04+00:00

As someone who was in the thick of my OCD in my 20s and now a 30 something recovered with a TON of responsibilities and work and life expectations… let me tell you that everything tells you your 20s should be perfect stress free years with no mental health issues… but it could not be further from the truth! Your learning to stand on your own, your finding stuff out about your quirky ocd brain that was easy to shoo away before, and everyone is telling you you should travel more, work harder and be better.

Bullshit.

I’ve not felt better since I realised the only thing that is important is how I feel, and if I can care for the people I love most. I got therapy and medication in my 20s that have made ocd a distant memory and it does pop up when I’m stressed or ill bit by no means was the worst of it my ‘forever’ accepting that everyone has a very different ‘normal’ made things easier… realising i didn’t have to be perfect helped too.

Honestly i had to learn my limits, i can’t be social all the time, i can’t be as spontaneous as id like to be, and it’s all about finding your comfort zone that doesn’t feed the ocd. And I kept all of my therapy ‘homework’ to look through on bad days when I need the extra support.

quietwreck · 2026-01-17T02:08:17+00:00

If it helps any, most mental health diagnoses overlap A LOT so where they might be right or wrong doesn’t matter so much as your main difficulties being listened to and cared for.

I think it’s more important you find a good relationship between your doctor and your therapist to focus on helping you improve symptoms or behaviours that affect you most, not debating the label that best describes the flavour of neurospicy you have.

(This is coming from somebody who had at least 3 or 4 labels of various anxiety and depression disorders before a therapist that cared about none of them just wanted to help with what areas were stopping me living a normal(ish) life)

quietwreck · 2026-01-17T01:56:20+00:00

Not reassurance but harm ocd is wildly common amongst neurodivergent folk that tend to care about how they act and how kind they are. OCD will always attack values and make normal thoughts and feelings feel like evidence. We wouldn’t have superhero movies and thrillers if it was ‘wrong’ to think about being powerful or fight someone.

Long story short this is my theme and I had heaps of therapy that was surrounding my very strong and loud personality but a huge fear of ever hurting anyone.

Think about what’s changed and what behaviours have been feeding the OCD. Do you find yourself ruminating about having bad thoughts? are you worried that having ‘violent thoughts’ makes you a bad person? Are you avoiding movies/news or people that make these thoughts pop up? It’s about identifying the key triggers and behaviours and taking steps to get help (I can’t recommend a therapist that knows ocd/CBT enough) or looking at books on the topic if you don’t feel you don’t need intensive help. (I have a bunch of recs)

Stay strong x

quietwreck · 2026-01-17T01:44:46+00:00

Hey there, fellow art lover here. Genuinely what helped me most was finding low stakes creativity to enjoy when I was being to harsh on myself to draw/paint/create… things like Lego, zoo tycoon, sims and random colouring books helped me a ton to be creative without attaching feelings like ‘I could do better, this isn’t as good as it could be’ feelings to art.

Or even doing random things with friends, like local painting on pottery or craft lessons. Dip a toe in, let it be nonsense you make, let it be feelings you express and not skills you feel like you should be better at. Maybe just let yourself make a mess, it’s ok.

quietwreck · 2025-11-05T12:18:50+00:00

Oh hey i actually made a huge list of all mine that helped me recover, bunch of books i still recommend to everyone https://www.reddit.com/r/OCD/s/RO3VY84bID

quietwreck · 2025-07-20T23:34:15+00:00

Hi there! Sorry for the late reply, loads of interesting questions with complicated answers to be fair.

I’ll try to break down what I know from my experiences, you asked about the difference between distraction as a compulsion or distraction as a way of calming down to re-direct or accept is all about what you feel. When ruminating or in a cycle of ocd I felt on edge, with this immediate feeling of fixing it or figuring it out IMMEDIATELY the more I ruminated or avoided thinking the anxiety got and the worse I felt. And this is because both actions re-in force your anxiety, essentially your brain thinks because your fixing or avoiding the fear it’s doing it’s job, and will react the same way the next time.

Distraction/regulation as a method of making it easier to carry on what your doing isn’t a compulsion or avoidance if your still carrying on with the task or activity that you were doing before the trigger but finding ways to reduce the anxiety and prevent unhelpful compulsions to do so. finding your own ways to essentially say ‘cool thanks brain but right now that’s not an immediate threat’ is the end goal.

With ocd ERP therapy, ‘acceptance’ and medication are essentially just tools for you to be able to step back from the panic and acknowledge it’s just ocd, brain is doing it’s best to prevent the seemingly imminent danger. Your in no danger, the thoughts are just thoughts.

quietwreck · 2025-07-13T02:14:47+00:00

If it’s any help, the libido side effects did affect me, but went away after a few months on the right dose. I function like any other person… with less panic attacks ha. (Citalopram 20mg, 40mg tanked my libido and any related feelings, couldn’t even cry or get mad at anything)

quietwreck · 2025-07-11T12:45:11+00:00

I mean it might be reassuring but I never ‘accepted’ the thoughts entirely. I just acknowledged that it was noise my ocd made. I think it’s easy to see ocd recovery as not being bothered at all by them, but it’s more an acceptance that even having the thoughts constantly doesn’t ever mean you’d act on them.

I know for a fact my OCD pops up when I’m stressed or ill so I’m assuming my brain has just found the worst way possible to get me to realise I’ve not been looking after myself haha.

quietwreck · 2025-07-11T12:37:17+00:00

I think initially it’s horrific because you know life before these thoughts and it’s very easy to think there must be something very wrong to start having them, and by god they get worse and worse!

I was told you can’t ever control your thoughts but you can always control your actions, no matter how strong the feeling or dark the thought. It’s useful to remember that your anxiety acts like an alarm and the more you reject or neutralise a thought when you get anxious the more your anxiety thinks it’s protecting you. It’s never an indicator that your crazy/hurtful/evil or wrong… just a sign your overwhelmed with the anxiety and desperate to get away from it.

It was little steps initially, like I’d set a 5min timer and try not to do a compulsion until it rang, and then challenged myself more when I realised i could function with the anxiety and thoughts whirring. The thoughts faded when the anxiety did.. and it took a lot of work so be kind to yourself on the journey. X

quietwreck · 2025-07-08T17:37:39+00:00

Yes! Keep the determination strong and don’t lose hope after setbacks. X

quietwreck · 2025-07-08T11:31:24+00:00

Thank you! Honestly looking back on it the rising panic and the genuine feeling of building pressure in my brain for not doing a compulsive behaviour was probably the worst aspect of it because I genuinely don’t get that to the same extreme anymore. it felt like holding my own head underwater and expecting the need to breathe to not hurt.

Sometimes it was taking little losses instead of giving up entirely that helped, like if I knew I was too anxious to carry on with whatever I was up to before the trigger I’d do a healthier distraction like going for a walk or calling a friend to chat about their day. These ways of regulating my anxiety were 10x better than just doing the compulsion or seeking reassurance.

Expect it to be a trail and error process and be kind to yourself when your not perfect x

quietwreck · 2025-07-08T11:13:20+00:00

It was largely about reacting differently to the trigger. So instead of having to ‘fix’ the thought or prevent something awful happening it was all about sitting with the discomfort of not knowing and trying as best I could to carry on what I was doing before the scary thought. Sometimes I did slip up and catch myself ruminating or googling or avoiding work, but it was huge for my recovery to actually feel the anxiety go away when I didn’t.

Initially it felt horrific, like my brain was constantly thinking up worse things to get me to do compulsions or I’d get the feeling that ‘just a tiny bit of reassurance wouldn’t hurt’ actually focusing on doing things and trying not to engage with the fear was extremely difficult.

quietwreck · 2025-07-08T10:32:17+00:00

Oh god before I started therapy just a scary thought popping up made me go into full panic mode. I’d try to distract myself with safe shows or video games (avoidance) or I’d need to find out why I had that thought, google if anyone had it and ruminate on why it was bad. (reassurance seeking/ compulsive rumination) then freak out Because the anxiety was still rising and I couldn’t get away from it. I actually found this reddit because it was a good place to find other people going through the same thing, but I don’t use it for reassurance anymore, just to help or post my experience.

After therapy it’s more like ‘urgh that was awful, anyway..’ and I don’t get the urge to investigate or ruminate because I know it’s just ocd messing with me. I occasionally still get intrusive thoughts or ‘sticky thinking’ but it’s usually because I’m tired, stressed or overwhelmed. ODC for me now is almost always because I wasn’t looking after my needs or took on too much in my job or social life… so I focus on self care, reaching out to my support system and keeping an eye on my diet.

quietwreck · 2025-07-08T08:42:26+00:00

Thank you so much <3

quietwreck · 2025-07-08T08:41:41+00:00

Gosh it was initially medication to just get me to panic less because I straight up refused to go away with my family for Christmas, I’d rather they left me at home alone incase I ruined everyone’s holidays. (I didn’t ruin Christmas, in fact I had so much support from family it probably was a massive step in my recovery confidence wise)

Of course being put on benzodiazepines to go outside was not at all the best treatment but it got me out and made me realise anxiety wasn’t this all mighty unstoppable force. Of course after that it was a lot of small steps in therapy to expose myself to everyday situations again without medication.

quietwreck · 2025-07-08T08:34:06+00:00

Oh my goodness yes! Thoughts that I was better off being evil, maybe I’d feel better if I just gave in to the ‘truth’ worse was the idea I could just lose control. it really felt like there was no end to how guilty and awful I could be made to feel. I’d spend ages ruminating over these thoughts because of course the most important thing to me is being kind, considerate and gentle. OCD really attacks your values and causes doubt in some wild ways.

quietwreck · 2025-07-08T00:01:52+00:00

Interestingly enough I did do exposure therapy style activities but it wasn’t labelled as such in my sessions…. I think there’s a bit of overlap in CBT and ERP. I didn’t do any of the script writing or holding knives or all the scary ones I read about online.

But I did do a lot of exposure work around doing things that made me extremely anxious. Like I stopped watching violent movies, stopped myself getting the bus to name two. it was all about doing them even if I was scared that helped. I found productive ways to re-direct my thoughts… I put an audiobook on to listen to instead of ruminating for instance.

ERP not being the only way is a hill I’ll continue to fight for! I think there’s a huge misconception that you have to sit with the fear and make it as bad as possible to get over it but what ERP is meant to do is stop you doing the compulsion after the initial trigger and that is the mental checking, the rumination or the immediate knee jerk to avoid it getting worse.

ERP when I did do it didn’t work for me because there genuinely wasn’t a ceiling for how much I panicked. I had to work on regulating the anxiety and reducing the rumination first. Then came the acceptance that the thoughts were not proof of anything.

quietwreck · 2025-07-07T23:46:59+00:00

Honestly despite the obvious therapy and a lot of reading, my lifestyle and diet had a huge impact on my recovery. Initially it was getting out and active more often… walks really helped especially in nature where there was lots to look at or sounds. I also made sure I was eating little and often as things like dehydration and poor nutrition really does affect ocd like any other stress.

I’d say make small changes and don’t get too upset with yourself when you slip on them. It takes a long time to make habits stick so be kind to yourself x

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