A short YouTube video/transcript by Danielle Thornton (an anxiety and OCD recovery coach) describing six signs that someone is close to the recovery stage from OCD. Key signals include greatly reduced compulsions, intrusive thoughts causing little anxiety, quick recognition of OCD-driven thoughts, proficiency and confidence using ERP (exposure and response prevention), growing pride and focus on progress, and more realistic expectations and reduced perfectionism. The video closes with a preview of a follow-up on signs of being in recovery and a CTA to like/subscribe and check the description for coaching links.
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Welcome back. My name is Danielle Thornton. I'm an anxiety and OCD recovery coach. And today we're going to talk about six signs that you are close to the recovery stage. So, number one, you are very clear about all of your compulsions. And your compulsions now are very, very low. And in fact, at this point, many of your compulsions are going to be zero. And there may be some in the 5, 10, 15, maybe 20% range. Most of them are going to be zero. Many of them are going to be very, very low. The lower your compulsions get, the better you are going to feel. So one of those signs that you are very close to the recovery stage is your compulsions are very low and you're feeling good.
Number three is the intrusive thoughts that you've had before really don't bother you much anymore. Now, it all might kind of still be there a little bit, but if the anxiety was an 8, 9, or 10, it's probably now like a 1 or a 2. It's not going to feel like anxiety anymore. It's just going to feel like, oh, this thing's kind of bothering me still, or it's kind of in the background, but you're able to let it go pretty easy and not give it attention. So. So essentially, the things that used to bother you, many of them may not be bothering you at all. And the few that are left are probably bothering you very, very little. The next sign that you're close to the recovery stage is that you're able to easily recognize when new thoughts or old thoughts show up that are caused by discomfort, uncertainty, or imperfection. And you're pretty good at applying ERP almost right away to these thoughts. The immediacy of that is really important, and you've gotten a lot better at this. So most of the time, ocd, you don't get caught up in compulsions and you can't see what's going on for hours or days. You're able to recognize it pretty quickly, and you usually use ERP in response to it pretty quickly. The next one is you feel very confident about erp. Now, we're always wondering, is there another teacher out there that can teach me differently? Are there skills that I don't know yet? ERP wants? I mean, sorry, ocd one, Certainty, Right. Perfection and certainty. So OCD is going to have you questioning, well, maybe there's skills out there that I don't know. Maybe there's a teacher out there that's better. I want you to understand that ERP is Actually not that complicated. People can learn it pretty quickly. There aren't a ton of different ways to do it. There is a little bit of variety with it, but generally, if your OCD is getting better and better and you have a handful of ERP techniques to use, you're good to go. That's really all you need. So if you feel pretty confident in getting a thought that causes uncertainty and applying ERP or being in an uncomfortable situation and applying exposure and response prevention techniques, then you are good to go. The next one is similar to the last one and that you have a lot more confidence, but you also have a lot of pride for yourself. You're feeling really good about the work that you've done and the progress that you've made. And you're learning to focus more on the positives and the progress than you are focusing on what's wrong or what's not working. And this is a crucial skill because if we continue to focus on focus on perfectionism and things needing to be a certain way, then we're feeding the OCD cycle. So learning to focus on what's going well and have patience with the process and feeling that pride and focusing on the progress that we have made is a sign that you have the right mindset and you are getting really close to being in that recovery stage. And the last one is that your expectations kind of leading from the last one, your expectations of yourself and others are a lot more realistic. You no longer have that perfectionism mindset, and so you're not expecting so much of yourself and other people. You allow yourself to be imperfect. You allow the journey to be imperfect. You allow other people to be themselves, even when it's not exactly the way that you want them to be. All of these steps and processes are things that are going to help you so much. But. But there are things that have helped you along the way and some of the reasons that you know that you are getting very, very close to that recovery stage. And in the next video, we're going to talk about six signs that you are in the recovery stage. So we'll definitely talk to you. Then again, if this video was helpful, please like and subscribe. So I know this was helpful for you and I can provide you with more information just like this to help you get to that lifetime recovery stage. And if you want my help to get there, check out the description with the link.
