Yesterday I returned home after attending the IOCDF conference. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to have this experience year after year, both in terms of the financial means to do so and the physical ability to leave my home. My heart goes out to all the loved ones who attended on behalf of someone housebound with OCD.
I thought about setting up a twitter account just to liveblog the conference, but unfortunately I didn't have any phone reception in the conference rooms. I did take copious notes and thought that this first post back would be about the messages and ideas that stood out to me most, but I realize now that I'm still processing quite a lot of what I heard.
One thing I have realized, though, is that the conference is a yearly marker that forces me to consider how I have progressed in battling my disorder since the last one. This year, I attended sessions that I would never have stepped foot in before-- not because they did not apply to me, but because in my hierarchy of symptoms, the symptoms were so far down I couldn't fathom addressing them yet. Emotionally, I feel ready to do these exposures.
Perhaps the best part of the weekend: seeing old therapists and being able to report back my successes.
5 years ago
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I, too, was at the conference and really enjoyed the experience. It was my first time being there!
ReplyDeleteI can relate to the idea of addressing symptoms that were always there but couldn't be addressed when there were more pressing things to tackle! I often forget that getting over my most recent spate of symptoms doesn't mean that life has to go back to the way it was before...it means that I will have the opportunity to work on other things that I hardly knew OCD had dug its claws into. Now that I know that I have OCD and can recognize all the ways in which it affected my life on a daily basis even before my relapse, I will have the chance to make everyday life better once I get my most recent struggles under control!
I know this feeling of uncovering layer after layer of OCD--at first it's frustrating, but it's also exciting at times to realize I could do exposures and change some things I never thought I could change.
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