My therapist told me about a technique called cognitive defusion in which I would learn to detach myself from obsessive thoughts. The reason why my OCD had got so out of control was because I’d become completely absorbed in its content. Learning to take a step back, knowing that these thoughts aren’t necessarily true, accepting their presence and allowing them to float by began to take the sting out of them.

I also found it helpful to think of OCD as a little monster on my shoulder that was constantly vying for my attention and focus. As anxious thoughts fired at me, instead of giving ‘the monster’ what it needed through engagement and performing mental and physical compulsions, I started to try and ignore it instead. Although, at first, the thoughts became louder, instead of my engaging with it my therapist asked me to instead visualise the monster getting angrier as it was starved of attention. Eventually, it gets tired.

Of course, this all takes practice, and some days were, and continue to be, easier than others. If I find myself engaging with an obsessive thought or doing a compulsion, I try to remember that this doesn’t mean that I’ve undone my progress. After all, recovery is not a straight line but a jagged up-and-down one.

Finally, I’ve found a new kind of peace in practicing acceptance and being kind to myself. Instead of fighting with it, I can accept that, for me, anxiety may often be present in my life. However, I don’t need to accept it as the truth; because it is an irrational thing that will always try to predict the worst-case scenario or outcome.

It has also been about drowning out OCD’s negativity by building up a kind of deep, inner trust and faith in myself. Knowing that I can cope, and that I am a capable, good person. That those angry, frightening, obsessive thoughts might be there sometimes, but they aren’t me.

“Last year, I suffered one of the worst OCD flare-ups of my life. Here’s how I got through it”