Living with OCD

In today’s world, screens are everywhere—phones, tablets, and computers have all become big parts of our kids' daily lives. And as research has come out

Understanding obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) can feel complicated, especially when there’s so much misinformation about the condition. You might find

Aly Raisman was team captain of the gold medal winning U.S. Women’s Gymnastics teams in 2012 and 2016, with three gold medals to her name. A leader on and

We're incredibly proud of the therapists in the NOCD network. While all of them are trained in delivering evidence-based treatment for

While it’s difficult to predict when or how OCD will worsen, stress, comorbidities and life circumstances can all play a significant role.

It’s normal to want a little reassurance in a relationship every once in a while. You want to feel secure and make sure your partner feels the same way.

“I often think about killing people. I don't enjoy these thoughts, and I’d never want to cause harm—much less death—to anyone. Despite that, homicidal

Ellen DeGeneres, best known for hosting "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" for 19 years, is updating fans on her physical and mental health in “Ellen DeGeneres:

As a therapist specializing in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), I've worked with many children and their parents over the years. Whether families came

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) sound like they might be the same condition. But despite the

These incidents continued to happen throughout my fifth-grade school year. I felt compelled to do many things, many seeming completely random, but they stuck and made day-to-day tasks almost impossible. “Write directly on the line, if you write over it you will fail the test” resulted in papers with holes in them from erasing so frequently. “Wash your hands every time you see a sink, or you will get yourself and others sick” meant I was developing eczema on my hands. “When you are in the car you have to say ‘That’s a cool car,’ or that car will hit you,” this meant I stopped leaving the house. “Count your steps. Make sure that you get somewhere in 4 steps or a multiple of 4 steps, or you will die” made me cry walking room to room in our house. I was only eleven years old.

The Struggling Warrior is a 26-year-old Electrical and Electronics engineer with OCD. Throughout his experience with this detrimental disease, he found himself and his passion, to raise awareness of OCD and help people who suffer from it on a daily basis. He believes that through knowledge, education, and understanding of the sheer nature of the disease, people will jumpstart their recovery process and reclaim what OCD took away from them.

The biggest thing I’ve learned with therapy is that you cannot unlearn all that you have already learned. OCD will always come up with one more “What if?”, “You HAVE to”, “I demand you do this or XYZ will happen”. You will have the tools in your toolbox to know how to deal with it. You will know how to be one step ahead of it. If it trips you up, it's not a failure. A lapse is not a relapse and recovery isn’t linear. You are not a terrible person and even thinking about wanting to get better shows how strong and courageous you really are. OCD will always want to keep you stuck. ERP is how you become unstuck.

I feel like people living with this disorder are the most resilient, strong, and compassionate of people. That makes me happy and hopeful. The biggest lesson I have learned so far from this journey, and this is something I have to give all the credit to my therapist Tara for, is that I can truly deal with all these difficult emotions. I don't have to run away, I never needed to run away.

My mind, like many others with OCD, works like a sticky fly trap: it catches every little thing that floats by, even when (especially when) it’s not beneficial to my mental well-being. This means that every insult from a classmate growing up, every melancholy tale I accidentally read, and every scary movie I sneak-watched as a preteen has clung to the walls of my brain until this very day. But what makes the disorder so unbearable at times are cycles of severe intrusive thoughts that bring up those memories, presenting themselves as words, phrases, or images that play in my head.

I recently became a NOCD community Alumni Member. I volunteer and help others who are struggling with OCD to regain control of their lives. I am spreading education and advocacy about this disorder. I am realizing that so many others struggle with similar problems. I am not alone. I am surprised by how quickly I was able to recover. I attribute this to allowing myself to truly give ERP a chance and throwing myself into treatment wholeheartedly. I want others to know that OCD can play the worst head games with you. I try and help friends and family understand what OCD is really like and how much of an impact it has had on my life. OCD is chronic and I want to spread awareness. Even though it is often chronic that doesn’t mean that you will always suffer or be debilitated by it. There is hope. There is help.

Slowly, more and more parts of my life became affected to the point where I was weary about what I was doing and avoiding those parts of my life to the best of my abilities to avoid this distressing feeling in my chest. As my life became more and more engulfed in this, I knew I needed help. This led to a diagnosis of OCD and eventually ERP.

At first, OCD started as a way to provide relief, a means to control things that were out of my control. But then it morphed into something that took over my life and does the opposite of soothing me. I was stuck on my compulsions for 15 minutes, then 30, then an hour. It just kept growing and growing into something bigger and far worse.

I spent my childhood thinking that everything needed to be perfect. This manifested in a variety of areas in my life, but the largest, most debilitating area by far was education; straight A’s were my ticket to perfection.The importance of A’s had been drilled into me from a young age – not from my parents or teachers, but from my OCD. I worked tirelessly to be a stand-out student. Anything lower than 93% would send me into a full panic and meltdown.

For the longest time, I thought that OCD was this ‘big and bad’ thing that couldn’t be stopped. But now I know how to break the cycles and fight back. I have a lot of support and I am thankful for that. ERP no longer seems as daunting to me. It became easier with time, practice, and commitment.