You’re Not Alone.

On my own personal recovery journey, I leveraged many great (and often, free) resources to help me understand OCD and what techniques worked best in addressing it. I never saw a professional therapist nor did I ever take any prescription medication during my own recovery - everything I learned was from others who had similar experiences with OCD, and were willing to share their own knowledge and experience.

Having a therapist or trained professional may help you, but it is certainly not required; myself and many others have all made huge strides in beating OCD through shared resources, knowledge, and information that you can easily find online. I would recommend reading my blog to get a flavor of what worked for me in recovering from OCD, and then checking out some of the resources below which I used during my own journey.

Note/disclaimer - I am not affiliated with any of the resources below, nor do I receive anything for referring people to their websites/social media accounts/etc… I am just collecting a list of resources that have truly helped me with my own recovery journey.

Mark Freeman - one of my favorites. He has a Youtube channel, Instagram account, and has published several books on OCD, such as his most recent one You Are Not a Rock. In my experience, his techniques tend more towards the ACT spectrum, although he also emphasizes ERP as well.

Robert Bray - he is quite active on his Instagram and regularly posts helpful tips, guidance, and holds Instagram Live sessions doing Q&A with his followers.

Ali Greymond - her YouTube channel (YouHaveOCD) was one of the earliest resources I began watching when I first realized I had OCD. She tends to focus strongly on ERP techniques and has many videos dedicated to specific OCD topics and themes.

The OCD Stories (Stuart Ralph) - a really well-produced podcast hosted by Stuart Ralph, which has weekly episodes where Stuart interviews both mental health professionals and OCD sufferers on their experiences in dealing with, and treating, OCD. I would love to be on his podcast someday!

ACT in Context (John Dehlin and Jennifer Plumb) - another podcast co-hosted by John and Jennifer, two Ph.D. students at the University of Nevada, Reno (when the podcast was originally recorded, anyways) focusing on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy principles. It is quite a long listen (about 20 hours across all the episodes) but it is a wealth of information.