How To Stop Ocd?

How can I stop my OCD?

• I have really bad OCD, it's like if I step on a certain step on a path something bad will happen, or if I don't touch something 3 times in a row something bad will happen, or even to like picking a cloth up off the floor in a certain way.. And recently if I don't do the things my OCD is telling me to do in my head, I feel like screaming. I don't even know. It sounds stupid, but it feels like there's a demon inside me or something.. What should I do?

• Answer:

  Don't take the advice of the person who suggested pills. Pills can't help you truly get over this. The suggestion of therapy would be more likely to work. But you've made a good first step in realizing it's becoming a problem for you and starting to interfere with your daily life. When you realize this, that's the first step to figuring out what to do ;) I myself went through a similar situation at about 9 or 10. I had to pick certain "special" things up with only my left hand, and "non-special" things with my right. I also got to the point of having to walk more steps with my left foot than my right and either step only directly on cracks in the sidewalk or never step on the cracks. Disruption of this made me upset. So I know how it is (only I never told anyone of this issue then and dealt with it myself). I had an aunt that was a nurse and began working at a mental health hospital where she was treating OCD people, and it came to a point when I realized this was a problem and feared being in a mental hospital for it. My particular strategy was to force myself to defy the impulse. Initially I kinda became OCD about being OCD. But with continued effort and forcing myself to try and not care about what foot steps where, what hand picks up what, how many steps I took, etc. I was eventually able to overcome it, but I would say it took 2-3 years and I occasionally had to suppress an OCD thought for maybe another year after that but much rarer than before. I've completely lost the impulse now and haven't relapsed once. I understand not everyone can get past these impulses on their own, and support would certainly help encourage you to success. So if you feel therapy or at least letting people know and help you out on your journey to living without OCD would be the better strategy, I would go for that. Just keep in mind you're going to have to stay determined and exercise will power, which is going to be hard at first.