TLDR: I am doing a lot better thanks to the medication. There are some set backs but, I makes greater strides to make up for the setbacks.


The medication I am taking is helping me return to baseline levels. I still get anxiety that I may act out of character and people around me can be a victim, as I still have compulsions to do great harm to those around me. I know it will be a few months before the medication fully takes root into my system.

But, I'm doing a ton better and that's what matters. As long as the compulsions are weak, and the intrusive thoughts are faint in my mind, and I'm not too anxious, I am fine. These three need each other to fuel one another and the spark is me reacting to it with fear and anxiety. As long the medication can keep these three down, I'm good.

My friends ask me "You still having problems (intrusive thoughts and anxiety) even with your medication?" and I have to explain to them that medication like this needs time to saturate into my cells for it to work fully. It can take weeks to months. Then I explain the difficult steps this medicine must take to reach into the brain. Like a tree trying to grow into concrete when a sapling. It has a difficult time ahead.

For those that don't know. I suffer from a sub type of OCD called Harm OCD. It comes in only three forms I know:

1: Fearing you will harm someone. Getting intrusive thoughts that puts your morals and person on blast. Everyone gets intrusive thoughts. A normal persons' mind can dismiss them but, harm OCD latches onto these thoughts, and replays it like a broken record over and over, making the sufferer obsess over it and trying to fight it, fearing the people around them may become victims. Even going as far as researching psychopaths to see if they share any similar traits. Fighting it makes it worse but it cannot be helped without proper treatment like Exposure and Response therapy and medication.

2: Compulsions to harm. Be self or others. Getting compulsions to hurt others or self, and fearing you may act out of character in doing so. (IE. Getting the urges to push someone in front of you into a incoming train or traffic or down the stairs)

3: A combination of both, which I have.

There is a massive difference between want and compulsion. I don't want to hurt anyone, but I have very distressing compulsions trying to make me. Its starts with getting an intrusive thought, and then having compulsions to make that intrusive thought happen in reality. The compulsions and disturbing intrusive thought fills me with anxiety, and the anxiety fuels the intrusive thoughts and compulsions to become stronger and come into my thoughts with fever frequency. The more I fight and become anxious, the worse these thoughts and compulsions becomes. Harm OCD Paradox 101.

What is worse, when the sufferer goes through this, and they're seeking reassurance from friends and loved ones telling them "You won't hurt a fly." "You are a very kind person, you won't do that." It won't help at all. The amygdala does not understand that. All it knows it, it sees the sufferer is distressed about the intrusive thoughts and compulsions and sounds the alarm over and over again.

The only way to treat it, expose the sufferer to things that can cause harm. Start having them hold a plastic table knife, and have them talk with the therapist and joke and try to get the sufferer to laugh. It can short circuit the amygdala in a way that you aren't responding to the danger as "suppose to" and it will mold itself to understand that intrusive thoughts and tools that can cause harm are nothing to fear. But only the guidance of a proper ERP therapist can achieve this.

OCD is a monster trying to make the suffer think they want it, and it could feel like it when the sufferer really doesn't. TBH, That's OCD in a nutshell.