Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Support Group

Alright, I'll give it a go. I've had OCD since I was probably 9 or 10 and resisted treatment (but was in therapy) because of overwhelming anxiety until I was about 16. I was diagnosed with major depression and treated for that, not OCD, with psych meds when I was 14. Depressive "episode" finally broke about 6 months ago (I'm 19 now) and I've started treating the underlying cause, OCD, in therapy and with psych meds. Seroquel and Zoloft are the combo that seems to be working for me now. My advice is, scary as it may seem, you should trust at least one mental health professional with the stuff you deem dark and scary, because once it's out of your mouth they can help. I used 5 years of manipulation and distraction of mental health professionals before I was comfortable enough to talk, and I wish I'd done it sooner.

Thanks. I agree you will get help once you feel that you are done living in misery. Thanks for your story.

Rollo,

nice post but one problem you have is believeing there is an "underlying cause" to your OCD. Complete falsehood. If you think that you are going have a "eureka" moment where your OCD was caused by mommy or daddy not hugging you enough or some other explanation, you will be sadly disappointed.

THERE IS NO KNOWN CAUSE OF OCD!!!! IT IS A NEUROBIOLOGOGICAL DISORDER! The only answer to OCD are MEDS and ERP.

Is it possible that if you have a sub-clinical or mild level of OCD that 1,2, or 3 years of psychotherapy (talk therapy) could help? Yes, it is possible but not a certainity. If one has a moderate, severe or extreme level of OCD will psychotherapy help? No, not at all. You can talk until you are blue in the face, and it will do absolutely nothing. I guarantee it. Unless the "therapy" you wrote about is ERP, it is worthless for OCD.

Remember, the meds that are helping you, are just treating you. They are NOT CURING you where you will be able to go off of them someday and feel as well as you did while on them. The only non-drug treatment of OCD that has long lasting results is ERP.

RIDETHEWAVES,

Yes I have only started treatment in July, but I know for a fact that you are exactly right. That is why I think it is important to educate others so they won't have to climb a mountain that you scaled years a go. I'm sure it wasn't easy. I also agree that meds help the process, but ERP and looking at anxiety in a different way is the key to learning to live with it. Thanks...and hope you are feeling better.

Thanks RLBT.

To Rollo: I just reread your post and if you meant that your OCD was the underlying cause of your depression, you might be right. Many OCDers have depression that is caused by their OCD. However, everything I wrote on my post above is true. Hope it helps you or some one out there..

RLBT;
I do not have all of the answers; we have been fighting OCD in our home for the last 2 1/2 years, fairly succesfully. As the others have mentioned our course is CBT along with medication. I am always looking for hope and positive stories, since my daughter was diagnossed at 9 years old. She has a lifetime ahead of herself, so I do want to focus on the good and the positive. Take a look at these two links, especially the "Voices" one.
Good luck to you, it can all be so much better, just believe in yourself, and don't be afraid.

http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/st...

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009...

I've read many successful stories from a Chinese website(http://www.ocdcn.com/), which is a forum focusing on all ocd therapies and exchanges of ocders personal experiences and successful stories. the most successful therapy I noticed from the site is Morita Shoma's method. The essences are:

* Accept your feelings - Accepting feelings is not ignoring them or avoiding them, but welcoming them; Vietnamese poet and writer Thich Nhat Hanh recommends we say, "Hello Loneliness, how are you today? Come, sit by me and I will take care of you." Morita's advice: "In feelings, it is best to be wealthy and generous" - that is, have many and let them fly as they wish.

* Know your purpose - Implicit in Morita's method, and the traditional Buddhist psychological principles which he adapted, is an independence of thought and action, something a little alien to the Western ideal to "follow our whims and moods". Morita held that we can no more control our thoughts than we can control the weather, as both are phenomena of most amazingly complex natural systems. And if we have no hope of controlling our emotions, we can hardly be held responsible any more than we can be held responsible for feeling hot or cold. We do, however, have complete dominion over our behavior, and for Morita, that is a sacred responsibility. "What needs doing now?" is like a mantra in his methods.

* Do what needs doing - One can feel crushed and alone or hurt and homicidal while pulling up the weeds in your garden, but one wouldn't be doing it at all if one hadn't intended to raise flowers. Morita's way of treatment is very different from the Western diagnosis/disease model. Morita's methods lead his 'students' through experiments, and in each assignment, the lesson is not explained by a master, but learned first hand, through the doing or 'taiken', that knowledge gained by direct experience.

I have some books about his method but in Chinese.
It did work for me. and It might be confusing for westerners as this method is strongly influenced by Zen Buddhism.

I will tell some of my personal experiences if you are instructed.


P.S.
OCD is a global phenomena, not just in the West, and it's been there for hundreds years or more. What I want to say is we are not alone.