In Treatment IOP

Hi,

I’m currently in treatment for my ocd. I’m in an IOP program that is 6-8 weeks and tomorrow will be day 9. I’m feeling better. The thoughts still come, but there is way less emotion attached to them. They fade out pretty much on their own. I was wondering if anyone has done an IOP program and what the result from it was. Not looking for reassurance, but this probably is a good sign. As you would suspect, the therapy is basically all ERP and it’s for 3 hours a day for five days a week. Getting out of bed was super hard say a month ago, and now I’ve got much more energy to actually do things. One thing I’ve gotten out of it is we all get weird thoughts, we just obsess about them. The content doesn’t matter because every theme is the same when it comes to ocd. Show ocd that you’re not scared. I had to drop out of nursing school last fall because my mental health was not in a good place. Now I can say that I would be able to do nursing school even though my ocd is still there (and I plan to in the Dall), but as mentioned above it has gotten better. I have depression and anxiety as well, but the Zoloft seems to be helping a lot. Thoughts are just thoughts. They don’t say anything about you or reflect your character. Still not where I want to be with this ocd, but I know I’ll get there. You are way stronger than OCD which isn’t even real.

Wow that's all great to hear! I'm really glad for you.

wshupe wrote:The thoughts still come, but there is way less emotion attached to them

Yes.

wshupe wrote:One thing I’ve gotten out of it is we all get weird thoughts, we just obsess about them. The content doesn’t matter because every theme is the same when it comes to ocd. Show ocd that you’re not scared.

Yes, yes, and THAT. Showing OCD who's the boss reduces that emotional investment in having the intrusive thoughts.

wshupe wrote:Thoughts are just thoughts. They don’t say anything about you or reflect your character.

And that! For our purposes, within the context of OCD, we are not our thoughts. We have to be able to separate ourselves from every single thought that comes along, because they are not all representative of us.