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’m Shala Nicely, LPC, and I’m a cognitive behavioral therapist specializing 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
- 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, and you can browse them by category.
- I produce the free Shoulders Back! Tips & Resources for Taming OCD email newsletter.
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 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 FredTalks blog, where I share posts you can read in a few minutes 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 by category, 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.
A new response to trauma and PTOCD
Watch my talk from the 2024 IOCDF Conference to find out how I learned first-hand that post-traumatic growth is available to those of us with intertwining OCD and PTSD, otherwise known as post-traumatic OCD.
I was held hostage and scammed because I’m a therapist. Don’t let it happen to you!
I was held hostage and scammed because I'm a therapist. Here's how to recognize the scam so it doesn't happen to you. Plus....forgiving those who hurt us and becoming anti-fragile!
Self-punishment as an OCD ritual
The belief that we're bad can turn into its very own sub-type of OCD: self-punishment as a ritual. Here's how you can use an expected type of exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP) to break free.
The OCD blame game
When was the last time you blamed someone or something for a negative occurrence in your life? I’m asking because I used to be an expert at blaming (both myself and other people), and for that I blame (yes, pun intended) my OCD.
