My OCD is killing me slowly. Is there a cure for me?

Mental illness is tough. It's one of the hardest things people can face. But we can face it down. My experiences with depression are likely quite distinct from your struggles, but I am still able to find happiness in this world. I am able to break my apathy and my numb emotions sometimes, and these sudden breaks are always unexpected, and always during the worst part of the episode. The things that help me is reminding myself that I have a different set of standards to be judged against. I went to two separate classes and worked my job today.  Most people, that's a normal thing. For me, it's an achievement. I'm fucking amazing. My medication is making me dizzy, to the point that i am constantly feeling lightheaded and nauseous. But I was able to get up this morning. I was able to pay attention in class, and I was able to keep on task at work. I'm fucking amazing, and so are you. Remind yourself. I was diagnosed in the middle of high school. It was tough to not have motivation to do any homework, and have my parents constantly bitching about it. It was really hard to not be energized by my hobbies anymore. It was hard to no longer have the motivation to even talk to my friends. I don't know your specific struggles, but so far, both therapy and medication have been helpful. Medication is less consistent, however. I recommend consistent therapy with a psychologist that you connect with and feel comfortable talking to. Once a month was good for me, and then I was able to taper it off for me to go to college. Since leaving for college, the biggest help has been being able to talk to my old friends. I haven't found people yet (I've been here for almost 4 weeks now) that I feel comfortable telling about my struggles, but I'm still able to vent and talk with my old friends. I'm certainly not a success story. At best, I'm a work in process. But I'm surviving. And sometimes, that's all we can do. My best wishes.

Actually I have some questions I want to ask: What books gave you these disturbing images? Were there any books that didn't have that affect on you? Were you or were you not reading during the first 6 months of work? Or did you stop reading after you took medication for the first time? Why did the psychiatrist give you medication if you were doing well in the 6 months before you told your parents? Is there anything you haven't mentioned here? Hope to receive your answers. Edit: I think I can help you. Just I would like to know a little bit more. That's why I have a few questions. Hope to hear from you.

As a former anxiety disorder sufferer and a person having a friend with a very similar problem as yours, I fully empathize with you. I can understand how you must be feeling. I've suffered from generalised anxiety disorder and my friend suffered from OCD. These disorders can be disabling. They get into your head with no fault of yours. You feel helpless and hopeless. But one thing I can tell you with certainty, there is HOPE. There is definitely hope that you can get cured. And I say that because I've been cured! One point of time, I felt that it would last forever. But after suffering for almost 4 years, I made a choice. I made a choice to go to a professional counsellor and get help. I was never in favour of taking medicines as I had seen its side effects on my friend with OCD. And basically, all that these medicines do is remove the symptoms(effect) but they fail to remove the cause. They are addictive, disabling, full of side effects and can cause a relapse if you stop having them. It is really more important to eliminate the cause. And that only a counsellor can help you with. And to your surprise, I and my friend went for the counselling that doctors have been telling you that it wont work. CBT. And trust me, its the best form of getting treatment. It took time during therapy and it wasn't easy. It took a lot of effort. There were ups and downs. And in the start, temporarily my anxiety had increased too. But that is just in the start, you have to keep practicing. Though its a bit of a struggle to go through therapy, in the end you'll realize its completely worth it. And today me and my friend have been cured. The problem might not have been completely removed from our heads, but the anxiety level, the thoughts, the guilt you feel about them will be negligible. It will become manageable and you will go on with your life. So I would suggest you to search for a cbt counsellor. My counselling sessions used to be once a week and it cost me 1000 rupees (around 17 dollars) per session. I don't know how much it shall be in your country. You might need some amount of money for counselling, but it will be really worth it. And try out counsellors. Like for e.g. if you find one counsellor, go to him, and have a session or two. If you feel like it, continue. Else you can go to some other counsellor. I was lucky as I got the counsellor that was suitable to me, in the first shot itself. So to sum it up, get some help from a counsellor. You can probably have a treatment too, where you can have medicines and counselling both together. But there is no one-size-fits-all thing in this. So just find a god damn counselor in the right earnest, and feel the change. P.s. : My GAD used to make me feel anxious around people too. But guess what, today, I have so much confidence that i could host a show in front of 5000 people! That is the level of confidence I've achieved. And the truth is, if I wouldn't have had the problem I wouldnt have been the position where I am today. That is because, we people with such disorders, believe that if we can overcome this problem, we can overcome anything in the world! All the best! :)

There are a couple of things you can do.   1. Buy a copy of Brain Lock by Dr Jeffrey Schwartz. His book tells you how you can rewire your brain and deal with OCD yourself.   2.  If you are in Bangalore, go to NIMHANS. NIMHANS has one of the world's  best OCD treatment centers in the world and the treatment (apart from a  small registration fee), is free of cost.    3. Do some self-therapy at home,  if you can. There's a type of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy called  Exposure and Response Prevention, which mentioned. Briefly, list down all your fears and  obsessions. Once you have done that, grade them as per severity. Start  with the lowest anxiety-inducing stimuli first. And expose yourself to  them. After you have done that, try and resist the compulsive behavior  that you are tempted to perform.   Slowly, keep progressing to more and more difficult impulses.   The  treatment requires professional help but if you are averse to seeking  help, this will at least help you to control the smaller issues.   4.  Do not ignore it. I repeat. Do not ignore it. OCD is progressive and it  will just get worse if you do not deal with it at the right time and  properly.   5. Do write to me on snpunjabi at gmail dot com if you want to just unburden yourself.   All the best.

This is a highly personal answer, even by Anon standards. But I wish to tell you that you are not alone. I am responding on the hopefully correct assumption that this is not a troll question.   Prognosis into mental illness that cuts your life down is one of the saddest things I can imagine. By the time it has existed for a decade or so, it is natural that human will-power and good humour, even for the toughest of us, start to break down. At that moment all you can do is feel utterly spiritless and reminisce what your past was and how your present could have been.   These sexual and personal identity-related obsessions can be very frustrating if they linger on for long, since they attack core areas of who you are. Don't presume the society around you to understand, or even accept, that you have problems. You will get a lot of the "it's just a normal thing, we also have it" dialogues by well-meaning but oblivious individuals. The thing is you know it isn't a normal thing at all. So I would advise you to restrict speaking about yourself to people you know you can trust, people you can talk at an intellectual level to. Besides, some of the themes of obsession your mind chooses to torment you with can just be too bizarre to ever be told to anyone.   At the same time, don't straight-jacket your analysis of your own symptoms. Psychiatric illnesses such as OCD are really complex and inter-related and often can't be blanketed into discrete categories. The psychiatric issues you face might interact with 'real-life' dynamic problems, or even other psychiatric issues, and become more amplified in severity.   In addition to medication, which unfortunately sometimes has nasty side effects, you would need http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy (CBT). The weird thing about CBT is that it involves confronting and accepting one's fears. That is the hardest step for many sufferers. For instance I am hesitant about CBT as I could never imagine lowering my defences for a single moment: it would be way too saddening and humiliating. But from what I have learnt about it, it seems to be effective.   If you think you are going mad, don't worry, you probably aren't. That feeling that your thoughts are deadly true and you must be like they insist, that horrible frustrating 'realisation', is unrealistic and fake. Eight years ago, when I didn't know what the heck was happening to me, I got convinced that I would be completely gone by my present age. It turns out I'm still alive. Suffering continually, but alive and overall living life with stability, and certainly nowhere near the suffering millions of people have to endure.   My academics, and employment prospects in my field, have taken a huge jolt owing to my mental issues; so have my relations with people, my self belief, and my will-power, gradually. I don't know what the future will bring and I am uneased by the prospect of having to live several more decades like this, or worse.  But it doesn't really leak out to my immediate environment to whom I'll just appear to live by. I look at the ruin of my life and I give a lunatic chuckle. Shouldn't have happened like this. Not fair. But the world is way too often not fair.   Just give it a good fight. Accept that you have a problem that will probably hamper you for life. Life is finite for everyone and let us all enjoy our qualia for the short span we exist. Cherish the small joys: moments with loved ones, a walk in the countryside, doing things you like. It is important to distract yourself from the gloom even if the gloom feels strangely enough addictive, if that doesn't come to you naturally.

I recently came across something called 'Mary Reed Protocol', proposed by a Naturopath called Mary Reed in U.S. It lays out a plan for completely curing OCD using Herbal products. It claims to have cured 1000s of OCD sufferers. Most interesting part - Dr. Mary Reed seems to offer her advice completely free of cost. And there is no obligation of purchasing the medication from her, you can either buy from her or from some other source. Info on this treatment - Mary Reed's website: http://www.marysherbs.com/heal/heal-ocd.shtml Comments from people who have tried this treatment: http://www.stuckinadoorway.org/forums/showthread.php?t=47686&page=1 (explore the above forum, it has lots of great advice from other OCD sufferers). I've been personally suffering from OCD since past 10 years. My symptoms mainly involve checking doors, taps, stove etc. I've tried SSRI drugs (those that psychiatrists prescribe), Bach Flower Remedies & Homeopathy, but did not get lasting relief from any of them. So thinking of trying this out now.

Hi ! First thing I would like to tell you is that there is definite hope. And since you know your problem and are willing to deal with it, your chances of getting better are much easier. So take a deep breath. The only problem is that medicines do not work alone. There should be a combination of therapy and of medication to take you to a full recovery. As Mr. Rohan here has already mentioned, CBT- cognitive behavioural therapy works the best. It will not be instant if you are expecting that. It will take time but it will decrease your level of suffering hugely. You need to find a good clinical psychologist for yourself and the need for your medicines will also decrease as the therapy progresses. There are many other theraupeutic ways if this isn't suitable to you.. And i can assure you, contrary to popular belief.. Therapy works. If you are in/around Delhi/NCR, I can help you locate a psychologist, or one can always google. All the very best! Do not lose hope.. For you will be back to being the great achiever you wanted yourself to be. Just set this goal with your psychologist and don't lose hope. Let me know if you need any other help. All the best again! :D

Anyone having ocd, pl u must immediately enroll in the art of living basic course.u must follow the spiritual practices like sudarshani kriya founded by Sri Sri Ravishankar ji.the art of living can really save ur life.if possible meet Sri Sri Ravishankar ji personally. He travels across the world and his art of living centers are across the globe.learn sudarshan kriya which is a very effective breathing technique by the art of living teacher. Also u may go to the one of the world's best psychiatrist named Dr. Mahesh Gandhi in mumbai, India. He treats all psycharity patients with counselling and homeopathy. Anyone having ocd or any psycharity problem must immediately show to dr. Mahesh Gandhi. Ur life will change to so much positive outlook and u will feel so free.trust me.just do it and gain back ur life to the fullest.

first of all i would like to tell you that admitting that you suffering from OCD itself shows that half of your battle is already conquered .every person in this world has little bit of OCD / RIGID FIXATION / BLOCKED VIEWS ABOUT SOMETHING because our mind is a very complex thing .this little bit does not hamper our daily activities or social behavior but when this effect your daily life then you must take help from doctor.  travel more , talk to new people , go to movies with friends . practice yoga (preferably in park with yoga groups) . do jogging for min. 2 kilometers.whenever you inhale think that you inhaling god particles and when exhaling think all negative thoughts are expelled by god particles. this helps in all medical problems