Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) can take all the fun out of life. You feel like you’re stuck in an endless loop, doing rituals to try keep distressing thoughts out of your head. But they keep coming back, and fighting with OCD seems to make it stronger. It’s exhausting, and peace and happiness seem out of your reach.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
I specialize in helping people reclaim their lives from OCD using exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy, the evidence-based therapy for OCD.
- I provide ERP therapy to clients with OCD in the state of Georgia in the US (via online therapy due to the pandemic).
- I write books, including Is Fred in the Refrigerator? Taming OCD and Reclaiming My Life and Everyday Mindfulness for OCD.
- I write three blogs about how to use ERP to tame OCD.
- I produce the free Shoulders Back! Tips & Resources for Taming OCD email newsletter.
To help you manage OCD during the COVID-19 / coronavirus pandemic, please see my COVID-19 / Coronavirus and OCD News & Resources Center. I’m currently taking new clients for my wait list, and you can learn more on my FAQs page.
BLOGS ABOUT TAMING OCD
OCD can influence your life in subtle (and not so subtle) ways that can affect how you view the world, how you approach treatment, how you manage your recovery, and how you function in relationships with others and the world around you. Often when I’m reading books or watching movies or videos, even ones that have nothing to do with OCD, I have moments of epiphany where I say, “Aha! That applies to people who have OCD!” In my Aha! Moments blog posts, I use my own experience with OCD to explain these epiphanies and how I apply them to my own recovery. In recent years, I’ve also expanded the blog to include descriptions of tools and techniques I’ve found helpful in my journey to tame OCD.
I also post on the Beyond the Doubt Psychology Today blog, where OCD advocate and author Jeff Bell and I share an inside perspective on life with OCD and the lessons of uncertainty.
If you’re pressed for time and would like some action-focused tips & tricks to help you tame OCD and reclaim your life, then check out my new FredTalks blog, where I share posts you can read in a minute or two that are based on stories and concepts from my memoir, Is Fred in the Refrigerator? Taming OCD and Reclaiming My Life.
You can browse my blog posts below, or go to a list of all of them. As you probably already know :), my blogs are not a replacement for therapy, and I encourage all readers who have OCD to find a competent ERP therapist. See the IOCDF treatment provider database for a provider near you.
We Don’t Need OCD Now … or Ever
In this era of COVID-19, OCD is being misused ever more frequently, such as “I wish I had a little OCD” or “we need OCD now,” as if having a mental illness is an adaptive benefit that can protect people from becoming infected with coronavirus.As a person who has obsessive compulsive disorder, I can tell you that nothing could be further from the truth.
Respond Instead of React: Managing COVID-19 Anxiety
Borrowing from some cognitive-behavioral therapy tools for anxiety, in my new Psychology Today blog post, Respond Instead of React: Managing COVID-19 Anxiety, I share five ways we can learn to turn our anxious reactions into more useful responses, helping us and our loved ones cope well in this time of crisis.
An Open Letter to My OCD re: COVID-19
My OCD has been extra riled up lately due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so much so that I decided I needed to reestablish my authority over it. After writing my OCD a letter and reading it out loud, I felt empowered, and my OCD has been much quieter as a result.
Expectations for OCD Recovery During the COVID-19 Pandemic
If you have OCD and it’s acting up because of the COVID-19 pandemic, you’re not alone. But don’t let your self-critical voice or OCD get you down if you’re struggling right now. Instead, empower yourself by validating your experience, modifying your expectations, and self-compassionately accepting your OCD recovery efforts.
