OCD FAQ: How long does recovery take?
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- čas přidán 4. 10. 2014
- Recovery from poor mental fitness takes as long as recovery from poor physical fitness. Recovery is the opposite of making your health worse. Hopefully you'll be doing things for the rest of your life to make your health better.
You're my guiding light. Thank you SO so much for doing what you do. I could never express my gratitude or put into words how much you've helped me on my journey to recovery.
Thanks so much! I'm just glad you've found it helpful on the way. You're doing all the work!
Correct, often times people ask me "when will I recover" "how long did it take you to recover" "when will I stop having these thoughts and get my attraction to girls back(HOCD)" and I tell them Recovery is Being Consistent. I bring up the example of the gym how going to the gym once is not going to magically Give you muscle growth after 1 session but rather being consistent on how many times you work out will show Improvement and Growth over time, so when people ask me how long it took me to recover I'll tell em I'm not perfect I'll trip over a intrusive thought once or twice and I'll get anxious but it's about How Resilient you are and how you are able to Cope with the anxiety OCD brings, so yea recovery is all based on how you are able to Be the person you wanna be and not let things get to you that easily in terms of Mental Health.
Great point about resilience. Building up that resilience to handle the slips and keep on moving forward is so useful!
how is it going now?
Wow! This is such an eye opener! I don't think I've ever really thought about it that way! Thanks as always Mark!!
I loved hearing this! I have an anxiety that I am the only real person in the world and everything else around me is constructed and a dream. Sometimes I wish I can go back to times when I never had these thoughts and was certain that everything was real. But this made me realise that I can not know the answer to this and still move on with my life!
Enjoy moving on!
Mark, you are an amazing, inspirational human being. I have never come across another person that can articulate advice on this topic so clearly. Being in recovery myself I couldn't agree with everything you say more.
Thanks, Joe! All the best as your recovery journey continues!
Awesome video. This is something I have recently started to come to terms with. As you know, I was commenting on your videos just a few weeks ago, seeking reassurance... anything to feel better. Then one day I got TIRED of it. Tired of searching. Tired of arguing. Tired of needing reassurance to make it through the day. The truth is I don't have to find the answers to all my brain's questions to live my life. I can do whatever it is I want to do without answering them. With anxiety and doubt and fear. And actually, my fear and doubt has gone down a lot. Granted I am taking meds and going to therapy still, but that's okay! I am learning to accept it. It's not easy everyday, but I have committed to not giving in to compulsions. Occasionally I falter, but I'm proud to say that most of the time, I don't. I'm now doing my best to focus my time and energy on things I enjoy. My family, my friends, my boyfriend, work, school... not OCD. I have OCD, but OCD is not who I am. I may not always feel like it, but by not trying to feel a certain way, sometimes I actually do feel the way I want! Without a million compulsions! It's kind of amazing.
That's awesome, Lindsay! It sounds like you're making great progress with understanding a path forward without compulsions. That's wonderful! It is amazing when we start to see that by not doing all of the things we were doing to try to feel a certain way, we do end up arriving at the feeling. All the best as the journey and the learning continue.
hi Mark , plz dont quit on what you are doing and continue your job, maybe there is a lot of people out there , like me , that you can change their life with your advice and your knowledge ! god bless you and thank you .
Thanks!
One thing I have tried that helps, stop thinking about your OCD! Don't just stop ruminating on bad thoughts, also stop ruminating on the fact that u have this condition. And keep meditating for holistic effects. Distract. Travel.
Man thank you so much !
You're welcome!
Best answer.
Asking when you’ll recover feeds OCD. This signifies that you’re wishing it wasn’t there, which falls into the avoidance and compulsive behaviour territory. It’s best to try and just get on with whatever it is you’re doing, while experiencing symptoms that are part of this condition. Wishing they didn’t exist perpetuates them. It’s the nature of the beast.
Spending your whole life to be a better version of yourself is the solution
Hi Mark, I am new to this channel. I found you through postpartum forum, and I find your videos very helpful. I am pregnat and since last week my anxiety and panic attack had reemerged, after many years of being dormant. I also have mild OCD, but that was never an issue untill now. My mind can't stay calm and racing all night and can't get any rest overwhelmed with intrusive thoughts. Do you have any advise on how to sleep with extreme anxiety ? I have to get this under control without meds
Hi, welcome to the channel. When it comes to dealing with anxiety, whether it's interfering with sleep or anything else, it's helpful to make changes with the things that are causing that anxiety. So learning how to cut out the OCD and panic attack compulsions will be really helpful. Going through a process to eliminate those will involve learning to accept thoughts that pop into your head and not chase them. By learning to do that throughout the day, you'll be prepared when you want to go to bed at the end of the day. What helped me with sleep was learning that how I think and how I act throughout the day is all preparation for having a great night's sleep at the end of the day. Every decision you make throughout the day is an opportunity to teach your brain healthier ways to act.
You mentioned that your mind "can't stay calm", and I once thought the same, but it really is possible to think in different ways. It's just a matter of learning how to do that. Practicing meditation and mindfulness are helpful. If you search on Google for "body scan meditation" you can find some mp3s or videos with a guided meditation that I often recommend to people to try at the end of the day before sleeping. It can help to stop the hamster wheel spinning in your head and calmly bring yourself back into your body.
BUT I would combine practicing meditation with learning how to cut out compulsive checking and controlling throughout the day because that's where our brains learn to get anxious. When we spend all day trying to control every possibility in the universe, it's tough for our brains to shut that off when we want to go to sleep.
Happy meditating!
Hey Mark,
I'm on my third week of exposure for intrusive thoughts but I'm finding that they're constantly stuck in my mind, seeing as I have not been doing compulsions. Is this "normal "? I mean, it seems as if I do nothing, they are never gonna go away . :/ sorry if this seems dumb. Just needing a little encouragement as leaving thoughts like this alone is very distressing . Thanks
That is very normal. But are you working with somebody to structure how you're cutting out compulsions? Cutting out all compulsions at once can sometimes be a lot of extra work. Doing them one-at-a-time can help you see progress more easily. You might want to check out two videos I have: "Killing OCD Monsters" and "The Uncertainty Curve". They're about the experience of stopping the compulsions and handling the thoughts/feelings/anxieties that crave those compulsions. Depending on what the thoughts are, you might also want to check out tools from a type of therapy called Acceptance & Commitment Therapy. I found it useful for doing after ERP. It can help with changing how you approach thoughts and teach you how to stop trying to answer them or give them importance or judge them.
Keep moving along on the journey!
Is it normal to feel worse about the OCD during a relapse even if the OCD it's self isn't any worse? I relapsed about 9 days ago after a much better two month period of feeling a lot less anxious about the obsession and feeling able to greatly reduce my compulsions. But since Tuesday, and feeling out of control of it again, I've felt extremely low and even when my OCD isn't effecting me, the feeling of being consumed by it is overbearing.
how are you now ? i am feeling same
Dwelling on this condition is very much like ruminating too. Forget that u have OCD. Easier said than done, but dont acknowledge any thought that remind you of ur state. Its a trap and our OCD knows which fears to use against us. Dont let it.
I'm *mostly* recovered from my eating disorder- my recovery is contingent on me not weighing myself or not having my dr's tell me my weight. I also just eat regularly. And I try not to focus on the size of my clothes. I put good food into it and I bike daily. Most days I don't even think of my ed unless someone triggers it, in which case, I fight through restriction urges and stay with my healthy behaviors. Is this what you mean by OCD recovery? Cause honestly I could live with that I just worried I'll be having panic attacks all the time and losing sleep over this and continuing avoiding for the rest of my life :(
I see recovery as the ability to experience anything outside of us or inside of us while being ourselves. With practice, you can have a doctor tell you your weight and you don't have to attach any of the judgments or meanings to it that fuel anxiety and compulsions.
Hi Mark,
So I am very confused now about recovery. Will I have the same intrusive thoughts even after recovery? Even after I learn how NOT to care about my intrusive thoughts, and do what I value and live the life I want to live? This is very confusing. I don't know anymore what recovery truly is.
Thank you for your answer! 🙂
If you're not practicing compulsions around thoughts, why would it matter if the thoughts are there or not? I don't experience any of the thoughts I struggled with in the past, but it wouldn't matter if I did, because I wouldn't do the compulsions around them anymore. It would be no different than having a thought about a penguin or a donut or anything else I don't do compulsions around.
Instead of chasing certainty around recovery and checking on thoughts online, it can really help to give that time and energy to life.
Hi I've been suffering from OCD for 3 month ago and I'm 16 and I feel very confused about that .
I don't know how can I cure myself up , about 3 months ago I was studying and suddenly some thoughts came to my mind telling me that I can't study and I can't talk whether my first language or english or I can't remember things which I have studied before or learnt and in fact those thought usually interrupt my thinking and it makes me really don't remember and anxious at the same time.
Could you help me please because these thoughts are handling me from talking or studying
Sorry for my bad English cuz I'm a beginner .
To get over OCD, I find that two types of therapy seem to be very effective: Exposure & Response Prevention (ERP) and Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT). If you can access an experienced therapist in your area or can pick up some workbooks about using those types of therapy for OCD, that could help give you some tools to beat this.
I guess I am looking fir the point where the hard work finishes. Knowing that it's always going to be there like keeping physically fit helps but is tiring because the job is never dine. But just as getting into a fitness routine gets easier maybe working at your mental health may become a routine and second nature is what living in recovery means.? ?
Yes, for me, taking care of my mental health and my physical health are enjoyable hobbies. They've become second nature, but they definitely weren't like that in the past. With lots of practice, I got better and better at them. Now it's very difficult to imagine choosing not to engage in activities every day that support great physical and mental health. But it took a lot of hard work, personal change, and support to get to that point.
Hey Mark , great video and very helpful like always , but I've just got one question . About 4 days ago I had just focused on not reacting to thoughts. I get less anxiety , and whenever I spike ( recently I don't spike as much as I used to ) I'd use minfulness , not react and everything would be okay. I stopped compulsions during those 4days , but the thoughts are still thre , but the spiking has dropped , and whenver I spike it's not as big as it used to and I would get over the spike by not reacting to the thoughts. Thats just what confuses me , Anxiety has dropped , and I have stopped compulsions but the thoughts and a little bit of doubt is still tehre ( although when I doubt , I relabel , refocus , reframe and revalue )
Thanks! That's great you're cutting out the compulsions. The thoughts are going to hang around. You might find it helpful to check out my videos on "Killing OCD Monsters" and "The Uncertainty Curve". I talk a bit in those videos about the time it takes when stopping compulsions for the urges/thoughts to decrease. It's great to stop compulsions for 4 days, but personally, I needed to stop a compulsion for about 9 days before the thoughts started to decrease and I never go back to doing a compulsion again. So 4 days is a huge step, and now try to extend that, and extend it more, and more.
It's also helpful to remember that thoughts and feelings can just be there. They're a bit like clouds--they're just floating overhead. If you react to the clouds and get angry at the clouds and want to make them go away, you can spend the rest of your life on that and get nowhere. But if you bring your focus to the healthy things you want to do to achieve your goals in life, and do those things, it doesn't matter if the clouds are overhead or not. Let them be there. After spending years of constantly reacting to the clouds, it'll be tough to just let them be there, and your brain will keep throwing them at you because that's worked for so long. But as you show your brain what you want to focus on, it'll start to focus on those things, too. But you need to show your brain.
Thanks for the reply and help Mark. I am a person who suffers from low self esteem , and I have also lacked motivation to beat me OCD . but you saying that the 4days of cutting compulsions was a huge step made me feel more hope , even though there obviously is hope to beat this. I have also learnt while questioning recovery and obsessing over if slow recovery is normal or not is part of ocd. Thank you as always Mark
Im trying to get rid of ocd by not doing compulsions and ignoring intrusive thoughts until they go away. But I find this really hard as I get obsessed by the methods that Im using to make ocd go away and i occasionally say to myself in my head what I should be doing, reassuring myself therefore its compulsions which i shouldn't be doing. So what should i do? Do something interesting that takes up my time for 2 weeks to get free of ocd?
+Maximilian Smith What you're running into is very common. It can help to recognize that OCD is about patterns of behaviors, not specific compulsions. And a big part of OCD is trying to do things to get rid of uncertainty and other feelings you don't want. You've probably seen that when you don't want something bad to happen and you do things to try to prevent that bad thing from happening, you end up thinking more about whether that bad thing will happen. Reacting to the fear of OCD is no different than reacting to the fear of having your house broken into, or the fear of getting contaminated, the fear of a partner cheating on you, etc. OCD is in the attempts to control uncertainty, anxiety, and other feelings we don't like. So I think it can help to keep the focus on your values. Do the things that are going to help you be healthy and happy over the long-term. Do things that will help you reach your goals in life. If you're just doing something to distract yourself from OCD, then OCD is still deciding how you live your life.
Do be fair, lobotomy would probably cure OCD for good XD
Hi, thanks for the video! I made some progress with my OCD, but I have question - recently I have problem with obsessive indecision. When I need to make decision about something (even really trivial stuff like doing task at work in way or another, or if to read a book/article, or if to go outside running or not...) my OCD kicks in and I start obsess about what are my true values at the moment (as You often advise) and what do I really wanna do - and I became quickly lost in it. Should I do more relaxing activity, more challenging activity or do nothing, or just stop thinking about it... road goes endlessly and then there is classic spiral: OCD -> anxiety -> stress -> worse OCD -> more stress -> exhaustion. In that times I can not even distinguish what decision is compulsion and what is not. Can You please advise me a little bit on that? And again - thank You so much for everything You do!!!
Obsessive indecision is a really common thing to run into. Every decision is a little candy of uncertainty, and any uncertainty is an opportunity for OCD to butt in, so learning how to deal with this can be really useful because we encounter so many decisions every day.
Personally, my values don't really change. So when you mentioned that you start obsessing about what your true values at the moment, that's not a problem I run into because my values change rarely. Maybe I add one in or take one out every year or so, but they're pretty consistent. And that's the point of having them, they're like this flag off in the distance that I can move towards no matter what I'm encountering in my life. So that's one thing that can help, BUT...
And this is a big BUT: Trying to get rid of uncertainty is what OCD is all about, like you've noticed with the obsessing over decisions. The point of having clear, rarely-changing values isn't to remove uncertainty. When you pick a value, it's actually very difficult to know whether you're fulfilling on it. Your brain is going to question you and throw all sorts of extra uncertainties. And you can accept those and still do things that align with your values as best as you know how. And that's great. Maybe those actions won't lead to the outcomes you wanted. That's ok. Next time you'll try something different.
For me, it can often involve my brain throwing all sorts of questions at me and there's no way I can know the answer. If I react to the uncertainties, then I'm likely going to fall back into the old behaviors that brought OCD into my life. The values are meant to give me a clear choice in a situation with uncertainty. I don't necessarily know what the outcome will be. It doesn't matter what I want to do. In fact, my brain and body will likely be urging me to do something else. My values help me with long-term happiness, but in the moment, it's very likely I want something that doesn't align with my values. I'll be able to think of all sorts of reasons to ignore my values and do whatever I want in that moment.
Does that help explain things?
***** Yea, thanks a lot for such a quick and comprehensive response!
Negative thoughts about god come in my mind and I know that if I start ignoring the thoughts, they will stop coming in my mind. But then my mind tells me that why dont the negative thoughts about your parents come to your mind. Treat god like your parents and negative thoughts about god should not come to ur mind even once. I know thats not possible. Any tips or suggestions?
Mark I just wanna ask...some people prescribe to take magic mushroom so that it can help to cure my ocd. Do you think magic mushroom drugs will be the best one to treat my ocd?
I focus on helping people cut out compulsions and accept the stuff in their heads. I've never taken any drugs or supplements for mental health so I have nothing to offer you about magic mushrooms.
+Mark Freeman Alright...thanks for your feedback.✌😊
I have to say I know Mark was not trying to be negative here, but to say that a person will never recover fully from OCD is not something I agree with, I have met people who had OCD bad and have fully recovered, yes I believe there are ways to fully recover from this insidious disorder.... I for one will not stop until I am OCD free... And I also do not think OCD is a mental illness....
I'm just saying i will not hold in my head that I will never recover from this disorder, I know I will!
It's totally possible to get over OCD. I struggled with OCD for more than 10 years and I don't have any symptoms now. I wouldn't classify as having OCD under any diagnostic test and I had a massive range of symptoms. But after getting over OCD, I realized how that was just a tiny component of my mental health. And the option to go back to OCD and all of the coping and checking and controlling, is always present, so that's why I say recovery goes on. I'm OCD-free now and I want to stay that way, so for me that means taking care of my mental health and constantly making choices to maintain it and improve it.
All the best as you continue on your journey to being OCD-free!
Thank you Mark, love your channel BTW...
I am suffering with a sexual obsession at the moment and one of the most disturbing things about it for me is the groinal response. It really does feel like it may be real and I feel disgusting in myself because of it. I feel like I could let go of the intrusive thoughts if I didn't experience this, it is like that area is WAY too hyper aware and I just feel so uncomfortable.
Have you sought out help from a professional experienced with helping people recover from OCD? Symptoms happen and feelings happen and thoughts happen, but you don't have to let them control your life. It's possible to overcome OCD but that often involves throwing out old beliefs and feelings. It's fine to feel that you could let go of the intrusive thoughts if only you didn't experience something else, but is that belief actually helping you? Seeking help from professionals in your area could be a great way to get started on dealing with this.
I am currently seeing a Counsellor and will be getting CBT soon as well to help.
Thanks :D I am a man by the way ;D
I was hoping it would be in a month or 3 months :(
shaylen sanders don’t stress to much girl I first started getting it in August 4 when it randomly popped into my mind don’t stay at the house to much go outside with friends, it’s been 4 months now with it and it doesn’t hit me since September
Logic Vmg what do you mean it hasn't hit you since September? Do you mean you've been getting better now?
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Hi Mark, first I'd like to sat that your videos are awesome. I have a few questions. Do you still have "intrusive thoughts" even though you are recovered from ocd? If you do, how do you personally respond to them? Do you still get anxiety from the thoughts?
Thanks, Kevin! I have thoughts and other things in my head. But let's back up first to when I was struggling with OCD--it never occurred to me that anything going on in my head was "intrusive" or part of an illness. When my OCD was at it's worst and I was seeing things and just standing in front of the stove watching it and giving up so much of my life to compulsions, I had no idea that was unusual. I went to see a counselor because of depression.
I had no awareness of some thoughts being intrusive and other thoughts being "normal" or some things being OCD and other things not being OCD. It was ALL OCD. From one perspective, that could seem severe, but from the perspective of recovery, it was useful because I didn't get caught up in labeling some thoughts as good and other thoughts as bad, etc. They were all the same.
We can get as caught up reacting to thoughts that we label as "good" as we can with thoughts we label as "bad". That seems to be where people get set on a path to relapse as well because they believe a thought is "rational" or "good" or "logical", not like one of their old "intrusive thoughts", and then they start engage in unhealthy activities and very quickly they're back where they were before and they say their OCD "theme" has changed or jumped. So I find it helpful to throw out the intrusive thought label and instead just treat it all as stuff in my head. Because the stuff in my head doesn't matter. It's how I accept or react to that stuff that's going to impact my life.
So if my brain throws some thought at me, I accept it. My brain can think whatever it wants to think, that doesn't change the healthy things I need to do in my life to achieve my goals and align my life with my values.
I don't experience anxiety from thoughts inside of me, but I still experience anxiety all of the time and that's great. If something makes me anxious, it's totally okay to feel anxious. I don't have to make that go away. Feeling anxious is another thing that doesn't benefit from us labeling it as negative and trying to get rid of it. Learning to feel anxiety has been amazingly helpful for me.
***** thanks for the fast answer. I recall as a child thinking some of my thoughts were bizarre.
***** do you still have thoughts about your old obsessions is what I meant. I seem to get better, then I'll have a momentary thought related to my obsession and I'll think "oh no its coming back"! Or I'll think" this is never going to get better or go away "
Kevin Umstead Sure. But getting over OCD isn't about getting rid of the obsessions. It helped me to recognize that the problem wasn't the obsessions, the problem was reactions like "oh no it's coming back" or "this is never going to get better..." Trying to be certain about those things is OCD at work. But what's great is that those reactions are things you control. You've probably already noticed you don't control the obsessions.Trying to get rid of obsessions doesn't make OCD better. Trying to get rid of obsessions and feelings and thoughts and all sorts of other stuff we don't like is what OCD is all about.
Being afraid of thoughts sticking around forever is like being afraid of it being a cloudy day--it might be a cloudy day, it might not be, you don't control the clouds, and do you really want the clouds to decide how you live your life? You do control your reactions to the clouds. Whether they're there or not, you still have a life to live.
This is so true I'm on medication for my OCD and I have fallen for this trap, you can manage your symptoms but aiming for complete recovery 100percent there's no such thing as you can't be certain about anything in life except death and taxes! 🙄😁🤔
@PMix777 I wouldn't see recovery as being about getting rid of uncertainty, just as OCD isn't about the experience of uncertainty. OCD is the reactions to uncertainty. So it's very possible to drop those completely
@@everybodyhasabrain thanks for the reply I also practice gratitude which I find helps me improve my mental health and accept uncertainty 😀
I'm upset at you for speaking the truth.
:)
don't like the somewhat moking attitude the first minute of the video. Remember Mark, sufferer are only hoping to get better, even though they do not fully understand the concept of it yet, if they are still suffering!!
Btw, disagree on your terminology regarding recovery. It's not for the rest of your life. Being in recovery, still entitles sickness and people are better of then that. People who recover from ocd, are not sick anymore. They become well just as ever other healthy person, who do not experience ocd!