Danielle Jhiani, an OCD recovery coach, argues that "relapse" is the wrong word for OCD. She frames it as a cycle you're either in or out of, and says ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention) gets you back out when triggers pull you back in.
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Welcome back. My name is Danielle. I am an OCD and anxiety recovery coach. And today I want to talk about relapses and whether they really exist with ocd. So you might have heard people talk about relapsing and that they started to struggle with OCD again after maybe feeling better for a while. And one of the things that I teach my clients is that I don't believe in relapses, right? And this is because a lot of people with OCD tend to have this destination, right? This. This perfect destination where OCD is gone. And while that is possible for some people, and it has been for me, it doesn't always happen. OCD can come and go, and I don't know what's going to happen for me next year or two years from now. So when you've reached a really good point with your ocd, let's say you've learned ERP really well, you are in the recovery stage, you're doing really well. And let's say a trigger comes up, okay? And you end up struggling again and you end up falling back into the compulsions. The way I want you to look at this is that you haven't relapsed. You have not gone backwards, okay? It's not like you're going forwards and all of a sudden you're backwards and you're right back where you started. I know that it can feel that way. I have been there before in the past, last year, actually. So I know it can feel like you've gone backwards. It can feel very discouraging. And I don't want to discount that feeling when you are struggling again with ocd. But what I do want to do is have you look at this from a different perspective. So a relapse insinuates that there is a forward movement and you're doing better and better and better. And then if you end up struggling again, that you've gone backwards and that you're back where you started. That is actually not the case. When you have ocd, you're either in the OCD cycle or you're not. And sometimes you've got one foot in and one foot out, but there's no forwards and backwards. There's no destination. The idea with recovery from OCD is to learn how to get out of the OCD cycle and stay out of the OCD cycle as long as you possibly can. So if you have a big trigger or if you're struggling with something again, you may find yourself moving back towards being in that ocd. Cycle. But the good thing is once you get the proper treatment for your ocd, you know how to get right back out of it. And so if you look at difficult times as either I'm in the OCD cycle or I'm out and all I need to do is use ERP to get myself back out. And the sooner that you do erp, because if you're not doing erp, you're doing compulsions. So the sooner you go right to your ERP skills, you can get yourself right back out and you don't get so deep into the cycle or the rabbit hole of ocd. Okay? So I want you to stop using that word relapse. Again, it insinuates that we've gone backwards and that is just not the case. And if you want additional support, if you want to learn ERP really well, I am always here to support you through that. I have an amazing nine week program to help people get to the recovery stage of ocd. I do a lot of education on your ocd. I help you identify all of your compulsions so that you can make sure that you're not doing them to keep you out of the OCD cycle. I provide email support in between sessions. I go above and beyond in my program. So if you are looking for that extra support, you may have gotten a little, a little ways in your recovery. You may have learned a few things, but OCD is pretty sneaky. So I always provide that additional support to people, that additional education. Because you don't know what you don't know, right? And you can find the link below in the description section to set up a free call with me to find out how I can help you with your ocd, how I have recovered from OCD and everything it entails.
