- Contamination
My OCD Journey
Something that has helped me along the way is no matter the content of the intrusive thought/feeling, I will ask myself “and then what”....you see, the story must go on. Play it out. Play out the worst case scenario. And then what happens… it always comes back to I just don’t like how it feels, and we know that life will go on.
Stacy Quick, LPC

Your journeys are both powerful and empowering
OCD can feel really isolating. We want to highlight the real experiences of members of the OCD community, so that no one feels alone. Have an experience to share?
Let us know.
Member Stories
Showing 10 of 68
What if it could turn out better than you ever imagined?
Ben
I was once tormented by OCDs “What ifs” and left in a state of panic, despair, and ruin, wondering if I would ever get my life back again. While I am not here to say that your life will always be sunshine and rainbows, I will tell you that with hard work and perseverance, you can live a completely healthy, and normal life.
How having OCD helped me help others
Emily
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 story behind the struggle
The Struggling Warrior
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.
I’m a mom living with POCD
Michelle
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.
Looking fear in the face and not running
Sebastian Valdiviezo
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.
Idiosyncrasies: Navigating an Obsessive-Compulsive Mind
Morgan Eastwood
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.
OCD is just radio static in the background
Christian M.
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.
Distressing the Distress
David Kedeme
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.
OCD felt like a death sentence
Kelsey
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.
My journey with ERP and Santa Claus
Jessie B.
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.
Your journey has an impact
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