What’s holding you back from starting therapy?

Thanks for the reply. Let me offer a few counter arguments. 1. Starting younger is great as it allows less time to get certain compulsions to be really ingrained. 2. I bet your thoughts will feel even more complicated as you get older. 3. OCD therapist are rather used to hearing all sorts of things so the chance that we would think that you are disgusting is amazing low (I would say zero but then someone would call me on that and say that there is no 100 or zero percent). So, to me, no time like the present.

OCD will always say that you have the worst thoughts in the world. I have heard that from people for 25 years. So far, none have made me run for the hills. And, yes, they feel real. They have to feel real. If they did not feel real, then I do not have a job, as no one with OCD would even care about them if they did not feel real. But, feeling real does not mean they are real (think of virtual reality - it may feel as if you are standing at the edge of a cliff and even look like it, but take off the goggles and you are standing on a flat non-cliff surface). We can be easily fooled by our thought and images and urges. If you are at a point where you want to learn how to not be overwhelmed by the way you think or feel or behave, reach out to us at NOCD and let us help you take that first step to living the life you want to live, and not the life OCD wants you to live.

@Patrick McGrath How do i reach out for help on nocd?

@spelamarela - You can click on the therapy button on the NOCD app and it will guide you to book a call with our care team! Or you can go to NOCD.com and book through the NOCD website as well. We hope to hear from you.

@Patrick McGrath Thank you!

Well, there are great books out there to use for self help and our webinars and podcasts can be helpful as well. I hope that you will be able to find the resources that you need to be able to get the help that you deserve.

Our billing team will be willing to work with you to let you know what your co-pay will be. That way you can make an informed decision. We do ERP for OCD and we do work with other conditions as well. BFRB's, Tics, Hoarding, and even trauma! We have a set of therapists trained specifically in that area. It would be an honor to work with you and help you - know that we have therapists that are willing to help. I hope that you will take the risk that OCD tells you not to!

@NOCD Therapist - Patrick M. This was extremely helpful. Thank you for taking time out of your day to respond! I really do want to begin therapy with NOCD soon, and this definitely eased a few of my worries! :)

@Patrick McGrath My partner suffers from severe ocd. like when she sees children she thinks she has done something bad to them and she is exhausted, her head makes her think the worst things. She has been in cognitive behavioral therapy for 6 months but it seems to have gotten worse. She can't understand this therapy. please help us

@maufabi - Thanks for reaching out and sorry you are all dealing with this. A general CBT is likely not going to get you the help that you need. Exposure and Response Prevention therapy is actually the treatment of choice for OCD. Unfortunately, a lot of therapies teach safety behaviors to people who are dealing with OCD, but those often just become compulsions. So, I would encourage you to consider the gold standard of care for OCD, which is ERP.

@Patrick McGrath my partner had made an appointment with one of your therapists but the appointment was cancelled and she was not contacted again. I do not want this therapy to be postponed. how should she start

Challenge accepted on the never dealt with your theme - I just do not believe that to be true. As for affordability, if you cannot work on therapy at the moment I hope you will take advantage of self-help options and our podcasts and youtube channel for some great learnings.

OMG! I feel you!

Glad to hear that you have some hope for it now. Be sure to use an evidence based treatment - that will likely give you the best results.

Based on insurances and if we take them or not, this could be possible, but know that we are committed to getting more and more insurances to cover NOCD and we will continue to push to do so. It is common to fear that you will be misdiagnosed or not diagnosed with OCD - a typical OCD scare tactic there actually. But, even if it is not OCD I bet if there is anxiety that ERP can still help.

Thanks for reaching out. Cost can be a big issue, and why NOCD continues to try to get more and more insurance relationships. One thing to note for NOCD - if you match with a therapist and do not feel that the relationship is the right one for you, we will help you find a therapist that is your match. We want the therapy experience to be an A+ for everyone!

@Vladimir-from-ekb Scrupulously can be tough but I do enjoy working with it because it is treatable. OCD may tell you all sorts of things so now you have to decide to believe it or not. If I were to tell you that the next time you said the word ‘building’ the moon would explode, would you believe me? If not, why? What makes what OCD tells you more credible than what I say? Or do you pick and choose on what you believe based on where you hear it? OCD will always throw things out to see if they stick and when they do, it will just drive and drive that until you give in and do a compulsion. Now you have a choice to make OCD louder with compulsions or quieter by not doing any compulsive behaviors. I hope you choose the latter.

@NOCD Therapist - Patrick M. - thanks for the answer!

I appreciate your reply and applaud you doing all that you can do to get the help that you can. I hope that the Wednesday Webinars on the NOCD Youtube page are helpful, as well as the Get to Know OCD podcasts that we have recorded. Never let OCD convince you that you cannot get better. That is just OCD wanting you to do more compulsions, because OCD wants to stick around and not go away. I say BOOO!!! to you OCD.

hi, I think there are a lot of different themes of ocd and if you have intrusive thoughts, you can be diagnosed with ocd, but of course you must be diagnosed by a specialist. Even if it's not ocd, you can try psychotherapy to overcome anxiety and depression. A professional must know how to distinguish ocd from other illnesses, so maybe you don't have to remember every detail of your mental compulsions. Can I ask you a question? Is your native language Russian?

No one remembers everything exactly - but OCD says that you should. And, I hear this a lot in OCD treatment where people want to spend hours and hours telling me EVERYTIHNG about them because they fear if I do not know something then it could have a negative impact on the treatment we are doing. But, therapy is a process and we learn along the way. NOCD has a language line that we use if there are language concerns. That does not have to be a barrier. Also, one of the biggest fears that I hear is that I will not be diagnosed with OCD and that must mean that I am just awful or terrible. So, hoping it is OCD is better than finding out it is not becomes a typical OCD mantra. There is no typical OCD subtype and there is no perfect way that an OCD subtype appears either. OCD comes in all shapes and sizes and an OCD therapist is ready to help you. We would be happy to help you if you are looking for assistance and you can click on the therapy button on the OCD app.

@Vladimir-from-ekb No I’m Italian

We do have therapists who work in Canada. Please reach out to our care team to get some information. You can hit the therapy button on the app to be able to talk to the team to get you linked.

@NOCD Therapist - Patrick M. Oh thank goodness thank you!

@Amber. S. Why does anyone have to know? There is no rule that you have to tell anyone, even an employer and you are not mandated to take meds either. So these fears need not stop you from getting help.

can I ask what themes do you have, what symptoms and how old are you?

@Anonymous Challenge accepted!!!! This is a common OCD fear and keeps people from getting help. It is a lie OCD tells to stop you from treatment but I refuse to believe it.

There will always be people who may not match well with a therapist and that is why we allow for people to switch until they they find the right match for them. We hope that you will consider this when deciding to go into treatment, as you deserve to have the therapy experience that you want to have.

I bet you will hear this in medical school, "I put off the test because I did not want to find out if it was cancer, because it was not a good time to know if it was." I will ask you a serious question - would you suggest to delay medical treatments to people if they were afraid, or would you suggest they do what they can as soon as possible in order to get healthy? I bet tons of money you would use your amazing motivational interviewing to get people to start now. Remember this - there is never a good time to start therapy according to OCD. There is always an excuse not to do therapy according to OCD. My advice? Never believe OCD.

I am sorry to hear that people are undermining your confidence in treatment. That can be very defeating for sure. Not only is OCD against you, but to feel that your support system is as well could be devastating to your confidence. But, all is not lost. I would encourage you to still be active in therapy and if adding a medication to the mix can help to improve things, then so be it! Nothing says that you will have to be on it forever, but if it can be helpful to you to get over a hump that you need to, then might there be a chance to give it a try? Remember that you are ultimately the one to make the decisions. Do not let OCD, or others who are not as supportive as you would like them to be, drive the bus!!

@NOCD Therapist - Patrick M. Thank you!!! Is,it difficult to start medicine and get off it?

I hope that you will go to the NOCD youtube channel and watch some of my Get to Know OCD podcasts! You will see that we do not call the police on people for OCD here at NOCD.

Many years ago a woman I worked with took a big step after therapy and helped to write an article about her POCD. I will try to find the reference and put it in here, but she talked about her fears of harming her child and not touching her child for the first 6 months of her child's life. I was there the first time she held her son. It was one of the best moments I have ever had as a therapist. I know that people can get there - I have seen it myself! I hope you will give yourself the chance.

We are really only going to try to help you live with doubt and uncertainty. Let me ask you this: When you walk down a flight of stairs, do you have an 100% iron clad absolute guarantee that you will get to the bottom safely without falling and hurting yourself? I would say that the answer to that is no, and therefore you are willing to take the risk every time you walk down the stairs. Why are you willing to take that risk? Wouldn't it be terrible to get injured or even potentially pass away from your injuries? And yet, you still take stairs. This tells me that you are OK with doubt and uncertainty and risk. If that is the case, you are just not applying that evenly in your life. All things are a risk of uncertainty. If your goal is certainty, then OCD wins, because you will never be convinced enough - I have never had anyone with OCD tell me that they had done enough research to finally get a definitive answer. It just does not happen. So, I can not guarantee that you will be or not be any particular orientation, but I would bet a lot of money on the fact that you could handle any outcome.

I'll probably die broken cause I'll never afford healing

@bokang Panic attacks every week. Crying myself to sleep cause of my horrible thoughts

@bokang - May I recommend a great self help book called, "An End to Panic."

The goal is not to stop the thoughts, images, or urges. We have not figured out how to do that. The goal is to learn that you can handle them. Once you try to control them, OCD starts to win. We do not want OCD to win, so we do not want to play into the hands of OCD. Therefore, if you really want to get help, work on accepting that the thoughts, images, or urges are there and move on. If you need help with this, hit the therapy button on your NOCD app and we can help set you up with a great therapist here at NOCD!

The what if questions will always be there to try to stop you from getting help. I may be trapped in my basement for the rest of my life if I think, "What if I trip on the way up the stairs and fall and fracture my skull." It could happen, and if I let it, it will stop me from living my life. I hope that you will bring this up in treatment and make it a part of your therapy work - it could lead to great changes in your life.

Is the problem you mom will know you are using the insurance, or is the issue that you think she will know what you are talking about in treatment? If that is the fear, and you are over 18, you would need to sign a release of information to even know that. In some states, that age may be even lower. So, if that helps you to feel more comfortable with getting treatment, then I hope you will look into it. As for being a bad person, I wonder if you think that people who write horror films are bad people, as they sure do put some gruesome things out there in the world!! You can always do a free call with our Care Team if you want to ask some of these questions and if we can help you to get some answers, that would be great.

An easy place to start is to just hit the therapy button here on your NOCD app. We would be happy to meet with you through our care team and see how we could get something set up. As for making the thoughts stop, I wish we knew how to do that! There are some thoughts I would even like to never have again, but I do not even know how to make them stop for myself. Instead, I continue to work on accepting the thoughts and images and urges that appear and just allow them to be there. The other thing that I see you said here is that you "feel like" you are always cursing God, but what does that really mean? I am wary when people say "feel like" because everything could seem real if it feels like it is. Just because we feel like we are cursing a deity does not mean that we are or we are not, but since it feels like we are, we lean into the idea that we actually must be doing it. I have no idea if you are offending a deity or not. What I do know is OCD will attack the things that are the most important to you, and if your faith is that important to you, the that is what OCD will bring doubts into. Our goal in treatment would not be to convince you that you are or are not offending your higher power; it would be to help you learn that you can deal with anything that pops into your head without doing compulsions as a way to manage them.

@NOCD Therapist - Patrick M. Can you please explain or perhaps give some examples of what you meant when you said OCD will go after what you love? I understand the religious,aspect. (At least I belueve I do. I am Catholic and I think I got what you are sahing.) Could you maybe confirm what you meant ago it attacking your religious beliefs, etc but also could you provide another example of a different thing OCD might go after??? Thanks in advance!

I hear this fear a lot. People are very afraid if it is not OCD, then that means they are a bad, awful, horrible person. This is a common fear that OCD throws out to people to try to prevent them from getting help. But, I just do not see it happen that people find out that they do not have OCD and instead are terrible people. Most of the time it is OCD, and if not, then it us typically something else that is treatable. But, OCD wants a 100% guarantee that it will be OCD before you go to find out that it is OCD. How could this even be possible? It is not, of course, but remember that OCD need not make any sense at all. Further, sorry to hear that your therapist was cancelling on you. If you are still in need of help, our Care Team can get you in touch with a therapist who will do all they can to help you. Just hit the therapy butt on the app and you can get the process started.

For the first part, please see my answer above. For the second part, I always ask people if they would go to physical therapy after a surgery if they needed to do that to be able to walk again, or would they say that they were too busy? I fear that OCD throws this idea out there to you and convinces you that you have no time so that you will not go and get therapy, as OCD sure does not want you to get therapy at all!!!