Do you ever look back at how far you’ve come?

At one point, maybe 4 years ago now, it would take me literal hours to convince myself to take a pill. Even something as simple as Tylenol. I would check it and check it and check it. I would often end in tears and in pain because I couldn't treat my ailments. Now I can take my regular daily pills with barely a thought. I still have my struggles, but I beat that one.

Six weeks ago I was terrified of being home alone and this week I was able to work one day from home by myself!

I sometimes look back and think, what if I had just not worried? The big things that ate me up never happened. None that I recall. All that time spent in agony and anxiety and stress . . . over stuff that didn’t happen. Wild. Makes you think, maybe I should actually learn from the past and just decide to worry less, not because I care less, but because I know that it doesn’t produce fruit. My worrying did not make those things not happen (I know, magical OCD might ignorantly argue otherwise). It didn’t help me logically process things. I look at the more recent past and see that at times I’m able to see an OCD fear coming up and tell myself to go against it, to not obsess over it or perform a compulsion over it. Because I’ve gone against them, literally doing the opposite of what OCD tells me to just to test the waters. And after doing that several times, I find that hey, you know, the world didn’t explode. It just kept going. So I would say sometimes the battles are still intense, sometimes they take up a good deal of a day and night. But I’ve been better at recognizing it and better at resisting it. God is good.

back in august-december i could obsess and confess over any mistakes or regrets in my life. i thought i could not live with guilt, but here i am living. the panic comes here and there, but no where as intense as before. back then i thought id never get better, but i did 💕

A year ago, I was afraid to leave my house because my OCD was very severe. I believed that people could hear my thoughts and that they would think I was a bad or inappropriate person. I couldn’t even study—my thoughts were so intense that my academic performance dropped. Then later, I achieved excellent grades, which felt like a miracle. Now I can study more calmly and I’m able to go out of the house. It’s true that I still have some fear of being judged, but I trust that I will be able to handle it in the future.

I used to not look forward to Fridays because that meant I didn’t have anything to occupy my mind during the weekend. Work provided a distraction for me from being locked in my head. Now that I’m retired I’ve entered into a new chapter in my life. Rather than being distracted I choose to disregard all the OCD chatter that kept me from living life in a constant state of ruminating. I could go on and on. These days I practice what I’ve learned from ERP on a daily basis.

Throughout college I was stuck in rumination cycles, so much to the point that I look back and I don't remember a whole lot of good, I was gripped by anxiety the entire time and could barely see clearly what I wanted out of my education or life. Now im so much more clear on what I want and what's within my control and what's not and gaining confidence day by day. I can accept that I was struggling a lot back then and I still did some amazing shit (even if small) despite the ruminations and anxiety I was dealing with. But im also so proud of how far I've come out of that headspace. I couldn't keep living like that.

Yes. A year ago, I just had just started getting better. Now, I go some days and barely think of OCD. Obviously, some days are not like that, hence why I am on the app. However, you can certainly get A LOT better.

I’m on day 3 of meds!

A year ago i would even avoid driving and now today a took a different way to get to work just to push myself out of my confront zone. A year ago last year I would have been been able to cook without thinking about harm or needing reassurance

I used to have to hide a hand held mirror I would use to do my makeup. Leaving it out in the open in my room meant opening a spiritual portal for demons to come into my room. Now it’s been like a month of that mirror being out in the open of my room face up 24/7. For many months the sight of this would bother me or make me uncomfortable but with this constant exposure plus the practiced ones, I don’t even think twice about it anymore. It’s just there and it doesn’t mean anything anymore. That’s not to say it won’t or can’t come back in the future but I know I’ve overcome it before and I can do it again

You know what, let me tell you what happened recently, so I was on discord in the monster truck beamng server and I seen the chat, and my kind was like *oh you gonna be that certain person to someone random in the server?!?* For a moment I got a bit worried, then I fired back at my thoughts going "alright, if you think I'm like that, prove it, go on do it, what you waiting for" then guess what, my thoughts were scared and I felt the bit of worrieness again, but then I started laughing, because I proved it wrong that I'm not that person, and this time I realized I'm a bit more experienced now with my ocds than before, there's a victory story right there if I do say so myself

I would say for me when I look back and I just see how far I come from waking up and having such intense thoughts to being able to wake up and just think about random things and I start my day and sit at my vanity and do my skin care and to do homework and sit on the bus without having to distract myself or do things and sit alone when I having to distract myself of course there is sometimes I’ll just get random anxiety and little panic attacks here and there but they move on and I really say thanks to my strength for being able to actually go to therapist and getting help and getting on Zoloft and I’m on 100 g now and it really changed my life and it really helped me a lot like my dad used to be very scary to question my identity my sexuality and that really because I was gonna be able to perform at school I wasn’t able to work and I was just so alone like I just felt like I had nobody but eventually I woke up and got help and of course I still have so much more progress, but I’m super proud of myself for being able to live life again