Does OCD Go Away on Its Own?

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Welcome back. My name is Daniela Thornton Gianni. I'm an anxiety attachment and OCD recovery coach. Helping people eliminate these from their lives for good so you can have amazing relationships and a wonderful, happy life. Life. Today we're going to talk about whether or not OCD can just go away on its own. There are a lot of people, especially when OCD can show up as a teenager, that experience some anxiety and OCD that does eventually go away, but it's not actually going away on its own. That person is using exposure and response prevention responses. They just don't realize that they're using that, which is why ERP works so well. And sometimes we have to be taught how to do it more systematically in order to tackle ocd. Ocd. But OCD doesn't just come and then go on its own. For somebody who has experienced an OCD theme that has just faded away, it is because you have chosen, either consciously or sometimes unconsciously, not to give that thought any more attention, not to do anything about it. Maybe it was a time in your life where you went to college and you became focused on that and so the thoughts faded away. Maybe you consciously chose not to give this topic attention anymore. These are exposure and response prevention techniques. Sometimes at the beginning, they're easy to do. We all do ERP all the time, whether you have OCD or not. When somebody without OCD has an uncertainty or a worry, they choose to accept the uncertainty, which is the exposure, and no longer give it attention or worry about it, which is response prevention. They don't realize they're using this technique. And there are more specific techniques for recovery that are going to work very, very well. But you already use ERP with certain uncertainties and worries in your life. It's just that there are other topics that your anxiety and OCD attaches to that you have to more consciously practice exposure and response prevention techniques. The reason why I push people so much to learn exposure and response prevention thoroughly is because if you're not learning it thoroughly and consciously using it, and you struggle with anxiety or ocd, these themes are probably going to continue to come back. And eventually they can get worse and worse over time. Once you know how to respond differently to thoughts that cause uncertainty and doubt and anxiety, or even annoyance, you can keep these themes from coming back. Because every time you have uncertainty or imperfection in life and you apply exposure and response prevention techniques, it's going to fade away. I haven't had any issues with OCD for a few years because I now know what to do in response to any sort of thought or feeling that causes discomfort or uncertainty, annoyance, doubt, nothing sticks anymore. I've gotten really, really good at it. But there was a time in my life where I continued to relapse because I didn't understand what all my compulsions were. Most people have at least 15 to 20 and I wasn't using the techniques as consistently as I should. So learning it more systematically is going to be very helpful. And OCD isn't just going to go away on its own, most likely with someone who had OCD or pieces of OCD in their past. These anxious tendencies and compulsions can come and go and oftentimes get worse over time. So if you're struggling, check out the link in the description below. Our programs can help you with this. The techniques are quite simple. They're not overly complicated. It does take time to learn to recognize what's going on in the brain, what you're doing that's making it worse, and what to do to make it better, and to learn to apply this. But I teach you to do this as a way of life. It's not something you're just going to do when you're down in the rabbit hole feeling really bad. It's something you're going to do as a way of life in response to uncertainty and doubt and discomfort and imperfection in life so that you don't end up spiraling down that rabbit hole. We'll talk to you soon.