Some people believe that OCD can be totally cured. However, I believe that, it is a chronic mental health condition, that can be managed and controlled with Exposure Response Prevention Therapy (ERP); medication or a combination of both. Sometimes people have OCD from a very young age. My OCD started when I was about 3 years old. For others the onset is later on in life. 

I believe that if a person develops OCD later on in life then it is possible to live without OCD again. However, if a person has OCD from a very young age, then I believe it is more difficult to manage. This is because the neural pathways that have developed throughout childhood are much more entrenched and more difficult to change.

Throughout the pages of this website, the different subtypes or themes of OCD have been identified and discussed. Sometimes, one peson will have obsessions and compulsions that revolve around the same theme throughout their whole life, only very occasionally dipping into other themes. Others however will switch themes frequently and not really have a main theme. Themes also often change when a person is succeeding in their ERP therapy.

Also, within any given theme the obsessions and compulsions can switch too. For example, for several years a person might have to check the cooker before they leave for work to make sure it is not switched on; then for no apparent reason and almost without warning, this obsession subsides, only to be replaced with having to check that all the water taps are turned off before leaving the house. The person with OCD can often be left with the feeling that they can't believe that they worried about that particular thing for so many years, only for something else to replace it.

Recently, I have been having a course of ERP and one of the things I have been working on is 'not recording on my phone, my partner giving me reassurance all the time.' To reduce the level of recording I started by limiting myself to just two recordings a day and then I reduced it down to one after a couple of weeks. Eventually, I was able to stop recording altogether and now I can't believe that I was forever seeking reassurance in this way.