My name is Alexander and I’m from Ukraine. On April of 2020 when the pandemic started my boss said that we were going to work from home for some period of time. So I decided to move to my parents’ house and work from there. They live among the Carpathian mountains, it’s a very beautiful place.

So when I went there I noticed that I couldn’t stop thinking and asking myself if I truly loved my girlfriend and I felt horrible that I had these doubts. I went with these thoughts for 2 weeks and every other day my anxiety was growing until I had my first panic attack. It seemed to me that my whole reality had fallen apart.

I didn’t see another way out but confession. So I called to my girlfriend, confessed everything and that night we broke up. I thought everything would be okay after that but in fact it became much worse. After that it felt like my whole life was just one big panic attack. I had no understanding what was going on with me, I had never heard about OCD so I thought that something had broken in my brain physiology and it is never going to release.

The following month I experienced most of the themes because I was fueling my OCD by constant compulsions and reassurance but I thought that I was saving myself and just looking for a way out. It continued until the middle of June. I was completely stuck with POCD along with False Memory OCD.

It was the lowest point of my journey and my life. I decided that my life is certainly over and as I received the call from my boss that we were going back to work, I thought I would be able to commit suicide when I move back to the city.

But just before moving to the city where I live and work, I found out about what OCD is. It gave me a lot of hope. I even felt euphoric understanding that I’m not the only one who’s going through that and people were saying recovery is possible.

So I went back to work and during the next 6 months I was trying to recover using the approach which is common in OCD community: “thought are thoughts” or “you need to cut out your compulsions, do ERP and disregard the thoughts and then you’ll recover in 6 months”. I can’t say it didn’t help me, I could function more or less, but I still suffered a lot. Chronic guilt, anxiety and physical symptoms were always with me.

After 6 months of trying to recover I started loosing hope again but fortunately at that time I found OCD Recovery’s YouTube channel. At first all these ideas going under core fears with acceptance seemed like an impossible task. I thought, “How can I accept things that I’m so scared of and ready to kill myself if they are true?”

But luckily for me I continued watching content that Rob and moderators were doing and I saw that it made more and more sense to me. One of the most crucial points in the beginning of my journey was Nick’s video about the irrational belief “I CAN’T stand it anymore”. He perfectly showed without reassurance why we actually can. So I started slowly moving from the perspective from “all these symptoms are unbearable and it’s impossible to live with it” to ” yes it’s highly uncomfortable but I am still experiencing good moments in my life”.

I’d say that I started actively working on my recovery from February of 2021. I started from the reading list. I also watched videos on the YouTube channel, trying not avoid but face my fears. After a few months when I learned about REBT I started disputing my irrational beliefs. I must tell you that it was not easy, a lot of ups and downs, a lot of mistakes and disappointments. There were moments when I felt like I’m losing a hope. But on the other hand, it’s certainly not impossible and it’s definitely worth it.

Another big step in my journey was opportunity to have 2 sessions with Rob and visiting 2 webinars. It was a price for a second place in a meme competition in Facebook group. These sessions and webinars helped me understand acceptance more deeply.

At the end I would like to describe where I’m now in my journey. False memories are not an issue for me at all. POCD intrusive thoughts can linger from time to time but it happens rarely and it doesn’t effect my life. I still have physical manifestation of anxiety but it’s not even close as intense as it was. Most of the time I forget about it’s presence. The only thing I still have really to work on are beliefs that provoke anger because I feel it more often than I would like to. It’s a progress I reached in one year and for me is like a miracle because I was sure that my life is over. So I ask you not to lose hope recovery is possible but please remember that you should do what has to be done to get better because OCD won’t go on its own. Take care everyone.