OCD- medicine

[Nea54]

hi. I’m about to start on medication in hope that this will help with my ocd. I developed ocd after my first child was born. How long did it take for you before the medicine started to kick in? I hope that someone has found help in using antidepressants.

Hello @Nea54 I remember feeling it would never get better also. I had intrusive thoughts. At first I thought I didn’t have compulsions but as I gained more insight I realised that my compulsions were internal - checking mentally, compulsively checking through my memory. I also had lots of avoidance behaviours. When I was at my worst point with the illness it felt like I would never again ever have any respite from it. Now, I will sometimes have moments where the OCD thoughts still come into my head, but they also leave my head more easily. I think that’s the main effect of the medication for me - it’s like it has reduced the power of the thoughts. I would recommend CBT alongside it if you can - I found the medication took the edge off enough quite quickly for me to engage with the CBT which is another benefit I found. The CBT gave me insight and has also helped me to recognise unhelpful thought patterns I have and challenge them eg feeling overly responsible. I really hope you get some relief from it soon and that you have good support from those around you.

@JL47 thank you so much, and that you share how the OCD took control over you. I have so many thing that I avoid and I don’t understand how I can ever think «nah» when the thought comes. It just question everything I have to do in a day. I have to do it a specific way, or nothing at all. I have gone to therapy for a while now and learnt about CBT and ERP, but I just can’t do it and that makes me so angry at myself because I know what to do but I just can’t. I’m so glad that the medication did help you, and still do so many years after. I hope it will work out for me too, because if I loose my family and my baby because of this I don’t have nothing. And I love my baby more that anything, and it scares me if I will continue to be like this because then I can not be a good mom.
thank you so much:) Both my families my and my husband is tired of this, and I don’t know how long I will have my husband because he can’t live with me if this continues.