Really, it's just talking to a counselor, getting help, talking your feelings through with someone who is removed from your situation, who's trained to help you deal with these kinds of things, I think is super important and there's really no shame in medication if that is what you need and if that's what's going to help you.
If you have OCD the main thing is you must seek help. Don't keep it to yourself because you can't fight it on your own within your own head because your head is playing tricks on you. So you need to have the calm measured approach of a licensed therapist. You can either do the exposure therapy route or medication for example. I have done the exposure therapy route. The most important thing is you've got to re-jig your reaction or your relationship with your OCD and learn how to live with it and learn how to manage it. Don't try and fight it and squash down on it because then it just gets worse. So yes, a licensed therapist is the way forward.
As far as treatments for OCD, I haven't been diagnosed with a particular OCD, but I've been told I have OCD. I didn't even know it existed until probably about 20 years ago. Treatments have included medication. I was on Paxil for about 20 years and it worked until it stopped working. Therapy, I haven't found helps much. Medication did help. I could live a normal life. Normal is a sitting on a dryer. It's not a normal thing in life.
The best treatment for OCD in general is ERP, which is exposure response prevention. I've never had specific ERP exposure therapy, but I've been to a couple different talk therapists. A word of caution here, sometimes if you go to a therapist who's not trained in helping with OCD, it can make it worse, because one of the very worst things that you can do for OCD is have reassurance, is have people give you reassurance. Like, I'm really afraid that I'm going to kill my family, someone's like, that's ridiculous, you would never do that. It's like, okay, well yes, like they're not going to do that, it's part of the intrusive thoughts, but the reassurance actually makes it worse. I'm not super sure why, I'm sure someone else does, some kind of expert, but like, yeah. So if you go to a talk therapist and they're there for reassurance, like, it's not going to help. But if you go to someone who's trained, like I have, who knows how to handle OCD, they help me recognize the thought patterns I have and then fight against it, and that's been very helpful.
The gold standard treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder involves medication and exposure and response prevention therapy. There are several great SSRIs out there that can help adjust the serotonin levels in a sufferer's brain. I am on 60 milligrams of Prozac with an additional 20 milligrams of Ritalin and that has been the miracle pill for me. I have gone through a laundry list of many medications, some find it on the first try, some have to go through quite a few before they find the right mix. Exposure and response prevention is the core of treatment. It exposes a person to their fear and they refrain from doing their compulsions until their fear subsides.
So, especially if you have a more severe case, a psychiatrist with medications or a psychologist with talking things out is probably the best thing you can do, really. For me, I had, I mean, I used to feel like I had to smile at mirrors, tap doors, flip light switches, things like that. That was in middle and high school, but middle and high school, but I've mellowed out since then. I think it just kind of naturally happens with age, at least for me. But, another thing was that for several of these things, I felt like I didn't want to annoy myself and other people with these kinds of actions. So, I just told myself, I always knew I didn't, these were not necessary, but I just told myself, no, I don't have to. I don't have to do that. And when I told myself that enough times over a few years, I've stopped feeling like I had to do that. So, I don't know if that helps, but that's my experience.
Repeat after me. Get. There. Repeat. I know there must be medicines out there for it. I've never gotten actually, um, OCD medication, but getting OCD specific therapy, so maybe repeat OCD specific therapy, has helped, has changed my life. Has made me, I can do so much more than I ever could before. Just like, even a little bit, just being able to like, recognize the signs of, oh, oh, I'm spiraling. Okay, how do I accept that? Or like, how do I deal with that? Rather than, um, just trying to figure it out in your own brain, because there's so many awesome techniques that you don't know because you don't have therapy. So I really, really recommend it. Even just a one time, it really helps a lot.
So personally for me the best treatment has been therapy, you know I met with a specialist on OCD and he had a lot of really helpful things to say He knew just how to frame things so that I could think about it in a more healthy way Even in a different way, you know sometimes if you just change up how you view things then it can help a ton. A lot of the most helpful things he said to do were like specific actions and kind of exercises I could do to deal with Obsessive thoughts and one that really helped, you know This was kind of my first step in dealing with OCD and in any way was when I felt you know an obsession about whether to do one thing or another to Just flip a coin and make my decision based off of that just to show that you know It's you know, OCD makes you feel like every little decision is a huge deal But just to show that you know Sometimes you can just make a choice and it is what it is and that was a really helpful thing for me