I started therapy in junior high at this office which housed a group of psychiatrists and psychologists.  The first psychologist I saw was a woman who didn't seem all that bright, so we'll call her Stupid Lady; I remember her asking really banal questions and things that were really stupid, like if I ever wanted to just curl up and have a good cry.  She did this while squeezing a teddy bear, by the way.  Perhaps to suggest I should grab a Paddington Bear and just bawl my eyes out.  Despite the fact that I was 13, not 5.  And since it was clear that Stupid Lady wasn't going to cure me, I also saw a psychiatrist for medications.  Now, this psychiatrist, I liked.  We'll call him My Guy.  So, after maybe a month of seeing Stupid Lady, I asked to switch to My Guy.  And so I was switched over.  Which is a damn good thing, because as I later found out (and this was confirmed by My Guy, but shh you don't know that) Stupid Lady wasn't terribly qualified and was just there because her husband was also a psychologist there.  You know, like what's good for the gander is good for the goose, except the goose is hopelessly stupid.  But anyway, I saw My Guy for the rest of junior high, and through high school.  And yeah, the term My Guy sounds affectionate, because it is.  I was in love with him for many years, and I'm still very fond of him.  Despite the way he keeps trying to get me to stop toying with my medication because he's worried about me.  Something about death or something, I don't know.  I think My Guy rules, but that doesn't mean I listen to everything he says.  So, I ended up going to college in my hometown, and by that time I wasn't seeing him on a regular basis.  But, lo and behold, my life didn't automatically become awesome after entering college, despite what all the movies had promised me.  And it was during this special time in a young man's life when my mind decided to start deteriorating, and I became a total hypochondriac.  That was bad, but even worse obsessions were on the way.  As these manifested, I went running back to My Guy to try and fix myself.  At this point I was not yet diagnosed as obsessive-compulsive, I was just told I was obsessive.  I was put on various medications and continued traditional therapy with My Guy.  I didn't seem to be making a whole hell of a lot of progress.  I even took a rorschach test.  Now, granted, the lady who analyzed it was spot on with her analysis, but it wasn't anything I didn't really know already.  So, she clearly had a gift for interpreting people's responses to pictures of junk, but it was kind of like having a psychic tell you your present, not your future.  "You are sitting in a chair."  Yes, I know that, thank you.  And I'm so glad I spent $500 on this.  Now, I wasn't terribly social in college, I didn't know that many people (and didn't like most the ones I met–I'm kinda picky), and I hadn't dated ever.  In my junior year, I finally started dating.  Over time, my OCD lessened and while it didn't completely go away it became much more manageable.  As I felt better, I just went to My Guy for quarterly check-ins.  Which I'm sure thrilled my father no end since he was footing the bill for My Guy all those years.  After graduating, it took forever to find my first job (a piece of advice to anyone pursuing a liberal arts degree–unless you're planning on becoming a professor in your major, reconsider!) but I finally became employed.  My OCD started to become a little harder to manage.  Then, a few months later my relationship ended and I moved back in with my parents, and the OCD started to snowball.  I wanted to go back to My Guy but he had a full schedule, and could only meet me every few weeks to discuss my medications.  He referred me to a psychologist he was now working with (having left the office where Stupid Lady worked).  Unfortunately this psychologist was basically the male equivalent of Stupid Lady.  And he had an unfortunate resemblance to Stuart, that spastic kid from Mad TV.  So, I'm going to call him Stupid Stuart.  Like I said, Stupid Stuart was just like Stupid Lady; he asked a lot of really pointless questions that did not address my OCD whatsoever, despite my OCD now having been diagnosed and he being well aware of this.  He clearly came from the "I learned how to ask questions in a sympathetic voice therefore that makes me qualified to charge $150 an hour" school of psychology.  I think he and Stupid Lady were study buddies.  And they slept in and missed the final.  So, this arrangement goes on, and I get worse and worse, and I'm popping ativan like no tomorrow to even get through the day.  So I take My Guy's advice and try some other avenues of therapy in addition to him and Stupid Stuart.  I took personal yoga lessons from someone My Guy referred me to, which were sorta relaxing, but also rather strange because I wasn't that comfortable with being touched and the yoga teacher was rather handsy.  So we'll call him Handsy Yogi.  But not Sexual Handsy Yogi, because he never did anything inappropriate, he was just very hands-on.  And on top of that, I was also going to group therapy with my mother and a bunch of other poor people who hoped they could fix their children but instead sat around awkwardly sharing too much.  And since my father had had enough of footing the bill for my therapy, I was paying for My Guy, Stupid Stuart, Handsy Yogi and the family therapy.  Literally everything I had was going to some form of therapy.  Fortunately, living with my parents, I didn't have to pay rent or anything.  And even without having to pay rent, the only reason I didn't go into debt is because my father gave me advances on the inheritance that my grandmother left me.  So, finally, I decided, enough with the group therapy, enough with Handsy Yogi, and to hell with Stupid Stuart.  I learned about CBT and decided to give that a go.  At first I met Miss CBT on an outpatient basis, but it didn't seem to do much, mostly because I was still taking anti-anxiety meds.  Miss CBT told me about their intensive program, and since I had finally gotten the remainder of my inheritance, I could afford it, so I decided to give it a shot.  I was there 8 work days, where I was repeatedly broken down, until finally I didn't feel much of a response.  Miss CBT told me that I was well enough to leave the intensive program and move to outpatient treatment or try to manage things on my own.  I opted to manage things on my own.  After the CBT I did see My Guy every now and then, and I also took a few different medications.  Unfortunately, over time the OCD started to rebuild and became increasingly difficult to manage.  So I started seeing My Guy on a regular basis again.  That was probably a year ago.  And while I have felt better today than I have in a while, I can't help but wonder if I'm going to spend the rest of my life with My Guy.