Check out below a personal account of a previous patient we treated for OCD and how beneficial our services were to them! Their name will be redacted to adhere to privacy.
Pretty neat! Glad we could be of assistance to help build a life worth living for them!
Dear Dr. Marino and Staff:
I am writing to express my profound gratitude for the treatment I received at PBS and the enormous positive difference it has made in my life. All the staff who helped me during my intensive week, somewhere around April 2019, were awesome. Laura Cusamano and Verity Brown, my individual providers, were especially great – empathetic, caring, very effective, and always clearly in my corner. (I realize they both left the practice, but if feasible and appropriate, please share this message with them.)
The last few months of quarantine and COVID-19 issues could have been, and without the successes of my treatment surely would have been, hell on earth. I can only imagine being essentially cooped up in our townhouse with my wife, constantly in an agitated or anxious mood, and dealing with both real and imagined triggers and stresses. Without the treatment I received, this period could have been miserable.
Instead, although it has been a strange and stressful time in the country and world, for me the current crisis has been a period of personal renewal. I’ve only taken two “extra” showers – which used to be certainly a weekly if not a daily occurrence – since I started working from home on March 16. My mood is generally at a much higher and happier “default,” so to speak. That’s not to say my life is one big idyllic paradise, as I doubt it is for anyone; rather, the baseline is just so much higher. I feel like I’m in a position of strength to deal with real stresses and challenges while largely ignoring the old artificial ones.
My marriage has also improved tremendously. In fact, if I’m honest, I have to admit that the treatment and its success really saved my marriage. Here too, we’re not living in the final scene of a romantic comedy; I don’t want to give the impression that all my problems have magically been solved or that everything is easy now. However, in general, life is much easier with a lower level of anxiety and worry. I have more energy and attention to focus constructively on the relationship and am not so constantly focused inward. I also have much more time for positive things, without so much time spent ritualizing.
With my psychiatrist’s full awareness and approval, I’ve stopped taking about half of the medicines I used to take. I no longer take any Xanax for anxiety. I stopped taking it when, through a mix-up, I couldn’t get it filled in the early part of the current quarantine period, and I figured – and the doctor agreed – that if I don’t need it during the pandemic, I don’t need it. I also totally stopped taking Geodon.
I’ve also lost 40 pounds, which is an outward manifestation of feeling much better. That has probably been due to a combination of factors. I’ve certainly tried to be more healthy, but that has been much easier during the quarantine because I’m eating the vast majority of my meals at home, not grabbing junk food during the work day, and especially not constantly traveling for work, which is a challenge as far as remaining healthy. I have to assume that being off some of the medications has also been helpful.
There are regular daily activities I do with very little angst now, as far as ignoring the urge to shower or wash at certain times, that would have been inconceivable or very stressful before my treatment at PBS. On behalf of myself, my wife, and indeed my whole family, thank you all for putting me on a better path.