A first-person testimonial by Jade about living with OCD and the benefits of treatment, particularly the Path membership run by Danielle Jhiani. Jade describes how OCD is all-consuming, notes barriers to seeking help, and highlights practical strategies learned (imaginal exposure, choosing not to engage, avoiding distraction) and shifts in understanding avoidance versus recovery.
Sam.
I think the thing with, with OCD is it can be so all consuming and affect so many different areas of your life and.
The fact that there is treatment out there to get on top of it and learn how to manage it is amazing and just so important to do. Even though there can be a lot of barriers to doing that. I think it is.
The best thing that you could be doing for yourself and a great investment for your future and quite empowering as well, even though it can be anxiety provoking at first. So yeah, I think Danielle and what she does for this community is really important considering the lack of support there can be and lack of understanding there can be around ocd. So yeah, I think take the leap and you won't regret it.
So I did the Path membership. It was a more affordable option for me at the time. I think the thing I liked about it most was like the practical kind of tips and strategies for managing ocd. I think I'd done another course before this and have had general OCD for quite a long time. So I feel like I had quite a good understanding already of my OCD patterns and kind of how my OCD shows up in my life.
But I was getting kind of stuck on the more subtle like sneaky kind of compulsions in particularly how to like I knew that ruminating was a compulsion and it wasn't good. But I was really struggling to actually kind of stop myself doing that as well as kind of things like checking feelings and yeah, that kind of thing. So I think some of those practical strategies like imaginal exposure and.
Choosing not to engage rather than distracting myself. Yeah, it was probably what I got most out of the course.
And also it was a good reminder around.
Not trying to get rid of the thought and the feeling. I think that clicked for me while I was doing the course. I think I was. I didn't think I was trying to get rid of the thoughts and I thought I was trying to overcome the thoughts. But then there were times where my brain was playing tricks on me and I realized I was actually doing avoidance.
Rather than trying to actually work through and choose, like I said before, choose to not engage in thoughts. Yeah.
Sam.
