ROCD Recovery is Possible

Hello and welcome to ROCD.CO.UK a resource blog for people with ROCD. ROCD Recovery is possible and I hope to help you by telling my story.

I began my journey with ROCD 20 years ago after realising that something was very wrong with what was going on inside my head. Believing all of my 'synthetic thoughts' though, made me feel like I was going absolutely crazy and I was distressed on a daily basis. For me, it was like the Greek story of Prometheus.After stealing fire and giving it to humans Prometheus was bound to a rock by Zeus. An eagle was sent to eat his liver during the day only for his liver to grow back overnight in time for it to be eaten again in the next day and so on. No matter what I did, however hard I thought it out and resolved to stick at a 'new' pattern of thinking I would always end up back in the same situation, day after day, month after month, year after year. I was very unhappy but I was also very determined.

My first breakthrough came with a meeting at the local Drs who said that he thought what was going on with me sounded a bit like OCD. He couldn't be sure though because at that time, Pure O was not something that people spoke about. There certainly wasn't any literature that I could find that said that compulsions could be carried out mentally and so with the absence of a visual compulsion, my diagnosis was uncertain. However it was enough to prompt my first NHS funded round of CBT. I felt a lot better after completing the 6 week course. I didn't feel cured and that was what I was looking for but I did feel better. The first book I read that made sense to me was  'Brainlock' by Jeffrey M Schwartz. It was a bit of a game changer and I decided that I did have OCD even though it was a peculiar variety as it seemed mainly based around visual artefacts of my partners and that I was carrying out compulsions in my head to try and make myself feel better.

I should also say that about this time I undertook a buddhist course and this was invaluable at developing a sense of being able to watch my thoughts come in with no judgement. I stopped reacting emotionally to the thoughts I was having after a few months of dedicated mind training and the anxiety lessened again. I was awash with fluoxetine at the time as well, but from subsequent prescriptions and impartial observations I finally found that it didn't do much for me. I wouldn't like to say for anyone else how efficacious it is as a treatment for OCD as we are all made differently but from what I've read, forms of OCD such as ROCD are more stubborn with SSRIs.

I would definitely recommend Ali Greymond's 'OCD Recovery' E-book. It helps you understand just why compulsions, whether they are mental or physical are just so bad for you and keep the OCD cycle going, and you end up getting worse. Also Dr Guy Doron's apps are essential for beginning to realise that there is no control, there is no such thing as a perfect partner and ERP has been an invaluable tool for me personally, reducing my fears, in fact making my fears laughable and enabling me to get on with my life happily, on the whole. It is a good idea to do ERP with a trained professional but if you don't have the money to be able to pay for a therapist and you feel that you are capable then its possible to come up with your imaginal script for ERP on your own and to carry out the exposure yourself. I did this myself and it was personally fantastic - I could really see within the first day that it had made such a huge difference. It was definitely a Eureka moment. Anyway this link here shows you how to do them. If you are doing it right, it will be be unbelievably horrible and scary to start with and that can be too much for some people so go carefully. If you are able to stick with it though, you will notice that your fear reduces quite quickly.

I believe that ROCD and possibly most forms of OCD are essentially part of you and there is no real 'cure' as such but there is a way of living with it so that you can feel peace and happiness and can manage it successfully. In a way it is like an alcoholic or someone with an addiction. It is believed that once you have developed that part of you, it is always with you and a relapse is always on the horizon at moments of weakness. I think of my ROCD in exactly the same way and feel that a self help group once a week with like minded individuals would be incredibly helpful. This would keep alerting you to the fact that you have OCD (I have spent many years believing I had it, then I didn't, then I was cured, then back to having it again and so on) and for mutual support and to hear about new ideas in therapy. A regular reminder and to carry out the steps to stay healthy is really important to maintain the recovery in my opinion.

It is possible to find peace with OCD. I have felt too horrendous for words for long periods of my life suffering from it and I now live a happy life. If you would like to get in touch if you want further information or support (I am currently running a free mentoring service) then please just drop me an email at rocdrecovery@gmail.com.

Best wishes, Jasper