Words from a former patient of the OCD day therapy programme

Read a former patient’s answers to frequently asked questions about the OCD day therapy programme and their experience at Nightingale Hospital.

Did you have any fears or anxieties coming to the programme?

I had never done ERP. I knew what it was, but I had never done it and didn’t fully understand the theory around it.

I have been struggling for a very long time. I’ve done so many therapies that have not helped. I had done talk therapy for almost a year and EMDR. Looking back now, I was just seeking reassurance from my therapist every week, feeding the OCD cycle and reinforcing my obsessions and anxieties. It got to the point where I was doing all these things, it had been three years, and it still wasn’t helping. So instead, I tried this.

I had been reading lots of things that says ERP is the gold-standard treatment, but I was still doubting that ERP would help. I think it’s one of the hardest therapies because you’re doing something that is opposite to what you want to do and can cause so much anxiety but when you trust the process and do it, it actually does work and keeps on working.

I was worried that it wouldn’t be intense enough. I thought I needed something every day and I didn’t think four weeks would be enough.

That wasn’t the case at all. Really you can make the programme as intense as you want because a lot of the work that you do is by yourself. I had been struggling for a really long time and OCD has changed my life in really intense ways. I stopped hanging out with my friends, I stopped hanging out with my brother even because that was very anxiety-probing for me. But now that’s completely gone which is crazy to me because in four weeks, that’s quite a big change after avoiding for several years.

I came in with a mindset of, ‘I’m going to do everything I can’. This meant that I was doing several ERPs a day, even when I wasn’t here. But coming back to the groups, discussing my ERPs with the team and debriefing on them really helped me stay on track. We would sometimes change the ERP task or build on them to keep seeing progress.

I’m now on my second month. I was able to make a lot of progress in my first month so coming back now it’s about working on some of the more ‘sticky’ obsessions. But I know I can because the way the programme is structured and tailored towards you is really good. I go into every session and I can tell that the therapist knows my case and that they’ve been reviewing it outside of the programme sessions because they come and say, ‘You should try this’ or ‘Maybe you should try it this way’. You can really tell that they take each detail into account and tailor it to you which makes a big difference to the kind of progress you can see.

I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to share my obsessions and anxieties in the group. I had never done a day programme and I had only done individual therapy online so it was nerve racking going into a hospital. The first day was quite anxious for me, but the team were warm and welcoming, and I felt comfortable with them. I think every patient thinks that their thing, their thoughts, their obsessions are the worst. Although everyone is at different stages, I actually found it fine sharing with the group.

What advice would you give to someone considering participating in the day programme?

I would say that what you’re feeling is really difficult and that’s valid.

Before I started this programme, I thought that how my life was now was how it’s always going to be. It’s true that OCD is a chronic condition and if you are prone to OCD, you will always be prone to OCD. But how you’re feeling now is not always how it’s going to be and there are things you can do to get better.

When I heard OCD is chronic, I thought, ‘I’m always going to feel this way’, ‘I’m always going to be stuck’, but that’s not the case and this programme helped me realise that.

It’s really scary. When you read about ERP, your OCD is going to trick you and say, ‘This isn’t going to work for you’, ‘You’re lying to yourself’, but you need to persevere. This programme structures the treatment really well and educates you on the condition and why the treatment is structured how it is. A lot of times, people hear ERP and they understand the idea of it, but still there are questions like, ‘Why am I doing this?’, ‘How does this work?’. But once you do proper ERP treatment, you get tools to reframe your mind and have a different understanding of your thoughts and how the OCD cycle works.