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.
Managing climate anxiety
Worried about climate change and/or the environment? You're not alone! Climate anxiety, or eco-anxiety, is manageable, and in this post, I share how to get started.
OCD, self-criticism, and wearable technology
I share some of my own examples of how wearables and OCD can interact, as well as criteria you can use to make decisions about whether wearable technology is right for you and your OCD recovery.
Empowering & hopeful book recommendations
Three books I've enjoyed and recommend—even though they have nothing to do with OCD—to help you feel more empowered, hopeful, and optimistic. Also, find out more about your own primal world beliefs and how they might change over time.
The truth about people pleasing
You don't have to have OCD to engage in people pleasing, but people with OCD often end up participating in this compulsive behavior of doing things for others for fear-based reasons.
