I still don’t have OCD.  I haven’t regressed.  I haven’t taken medication for many years.  Life has been good. There is life after OCD.  There is life without OCD

I still have slight compulsions.  I recheck car doors twice at night to see if they are locked, but I don’t suffer from the compulsion and I am not obsessive about the doors at other times in the day.  Except for the pure-O’s, I think OCD has three components:  obsessions, compulsions, and suffering.  I only have a slight issue with one of the components and none on the others. 

I remember googling OCD and it said that there is no cure for OCD.  I used to believe this about a year ago when my OCD was so minute, but now I am beginning to rethink this.  Like I mentioned, OCD requires three things.  I only have a slight problem with one of them.  So technically, I may not have it.

I meet OCD suffers often, and I try to help them.  To some of them, I represent hope from OCD.  Some of them remember what I was like before my recovery, so they got to see the before and after.

So how did I do it?  I changed my lifestyle.  I had to change how I looked at life, and I changed my behaviors. Whatever irrational thoughts I had, I rejected them.  Whatever compulsions I had, I didn’t start them.  Whatever fears I had, I confront them. 

My thinking now is very different than my thinking when I had OCD.  I still confront my fears. I actually go out of my way to confront my fears to keep the OCD at bay.  When I have a twitch to do a compulsion, most of the time I stop myself from doing it.

Even with my personal experience with OCD, I sometimes get frustrated trying to help OCD suffers.  (If it is frustrating for me, you can imagine how frustrating it is when a loved-one is trying to help them.)  Suggesting to change their lifestyle is one thing, but convincing them to do it is entirely different.  Just getting them to confront their fear is a tough sell.  Suffers are extremely reluctant to confront their fear.  I tell suffers that confronting their fears will be terrifying.  Confronting is not going to be easy, and there is no easy way around it.

That is about it for now.  I just wanted to update people regarding my OCD status.  There is no quick fix. Recovery from OCD is a long road.