The Power of Peer Support

When someone at 10 years old tells you that you suffer from an uncurable mental disorder, its a hard pill to swollow. I can confidently say that at the time of my diagnosis, I couldn't fully grasp what my diagnosis meant or how deep it infiltrated my own sense of self.

I remember sitting across from my doctor, and hearing her say, "Yep, that sounds like you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder."

Huh. Alright. Now what?

I remember thinking in that moment that OCD was just like an extreme case of anxiety. It wasn't that serious in my mind and it wouldn't ever get worse beyond the slight drive I had at the time to keep things in order and symmetrical. If I just talk to a therapist for a while, it will go away and surely a doctor will be able to fix this for me.

The more I got older, the more aware I became of the behaviors that were linked to my OCD. The compulsive verbal and external rituals, the perfectionistic behaviors, skin picking, reassurance seeking, and internal rituals were becoming something that was interfering with my day to day life. This wasn't something that would just go away. This was apart of me and I was going to have to learn to live with it.

From the age of 10-15, I was in continuous therapy, both individual and group therapy. I was constantly working on my disorder, trying to understand how me and this distorted voice in my head interacted with eachother. During these 5 years, I connected with many doctors, therapist, counselors, and groups and I still felt extremely alone. I felt like no one in the world understood me. That if I could just show people how I thought or what my thoughts were saying, then someone could understand. Even in my group therapy sessions, it felt like no one understood what I was talking about. We were a large group of teens who were suffering from all ranges of mental health conditions and ailments. I don't think any of us ever truly understood eachother because we couldn't. Each person was suffering from something completely different.

I can't say I truly felt like I had come across someone with the same disorder as me. I had professionals telling me how to "fix" my disorder, but no one who actually saw me. In reality, what I was really missing at the time, was a peer. I felt misunderstood alongside this voice in my head.

At the age of 15, I stopped going to regular therapy. I didn't feel like I needed it as much and didn't feel like it was useful for me during my young adult/adolescent years. Many years later however, at the height of the pandemic and at the age of 22, my OCD intensified to an extreme level overnight. I started experiencing extreme intrusive thoughts, internal compulsions, and reassurance seeking behaviors. I had never experienced intrusive thoughts like this before, and I was so scared by what I was experiencing in my own head.

At first I didn't realize what was happening. I didn't make the connection that these intrusive thoughts that I was experiencing had anything to do with my OCD. I assumed these thoughts were just a confirmation of the person I truly was deep down.

Luckily, and unluckily for me, a huge form of reassurance seeking for my intrusive thoughts was "Googling". I loved to search the internet high and low for answers to my intrusive thoughts, mostly Reddit and Quora. I wanted to "figure out" if there was truth behind my intrusions and I should be put away for ever, or if these intrusions were normal and everyone had them. After awhile, I started to see that very similar questions/answers were being posted under subreddits called "OCD" or "OCD Recovery". It suddenly clicked. After almost a year of the worst OCD I had ever expereinced, to the point where I was nearly sucicidal, I finally found what the problem was, and even better, the solution to it.

I immediatly started reaching out to OCD therapists in my area. I needed the help right away. Fast forward almost 6 months of disappointing therapy sessions with therapists that I didn't click with or who didn't understand OCD, I came across a therapist profile that seemed like it would be a good fit. I reached out to him, scheduled an appointment, and kept my expectations low.

Our first appointment was a success. It wasn't because he had any better tools or tricks that other therapists had, or more time in the field, or a certain personality that I just clicked with.

It was because he had OCD himself.

If it wasn't evident by the pillow he straightened for a while before our session started than it was clear by the honest confession that he too had OCD, sharing many of the themes I was currently experiencing.

I cried. Not from sadness but because for the first time, I didn't feel alone. This was a professional man, with a career, children, and a family. He was doing it all with the same thoughts and disorder that I had. He was okay, even with this loud shadow that followed him. He was thriving.

I won't bore you with the next two years that came after this initial appointment. It involved intense exposures, acceptance therapy, and an overall intense journey through working with my Pure O. All of this to say, I learned something really important from my therapist. The power of peer support in a therapeutic setting.

There was something so comforting knowing that the person I was talking to about my deepest darkest intrusive thoughts and OCD obsessions, had or experienced similar thoughts. It took the fear out of everything I said. I could lay everything on the table without fear of being mislabeled.

OCD is an isolating disorder, particulary because it picks on the extreme and darkest fears one has. It makes you not want to speak out about the disorder in fear of judgement from people who don't understand what it is like to have it. Its not easy to talk about these intrusive thoughts to just any person or therapist. There is a strong fear that a person uneducated in OCD will misjudge these intusive thoughts and believe that you are a bad person. This leaves people with this disorder feeling extremely isolated.

I finally felt like the person sitting in front of me saw me. He didn't just see me through the lens of a text book or DSM edition. He understood, and because of this, I felt like he wanted to help me more than any other professional I had ever worked with.

He was the perfect mix of a professional therapist and a peer supporter, only interjecting his own lived experience if I had asked or needed it. He knew when I needed to be shown that I wasn't alone, knew exactly when I was digging for reassurance, and knew what my OCD was doing before even I could. The confirmation that I wasn't alone was half the battle or my OCD. He not only was the professional I needed, but the peer I needed as well. After reaching a state of recovery with the help of my therapist, I knew what I wanted to do.

I graduted with a bachelors in psychology in 2022 and am now working towards contnuing my education in professional counseling. I hope to be the person my therapist was for me one day. Until then, being a peer support specialist and helping those with OCD through peer support has been a blessing and I am grateful to be able to connect with others over their strengths, struggles, and triumphs. Always remember, you are not alone. I see you and so many others do too. No mater what you are going through, you are stronger than the thoughts. Never stop fighting because recovery is possible and this life is beautiful.