OCD is a life-long condition?

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I have OCD. Pretty bad OCD, I used to have a lot of physical compulsions with it but I've curbed those in favour of mental compulsions. It's awful, there are techniques to help manage it but I've read and keep being told that it's a life-long condition and that scares me.
I can't go a single day without an enormous amount of rumination over OCD thoughts, or "what if?" thoughts, or feeling like a terrible person because of a "false memory", or completely blowing a real event out of proportion and mentally replaying the situation over and over, even if it was a decade ago.

I don't really know how I'm supposed to live a life like that. I'm 24 now so statistically I have a long way ahead of me, but it's going to be hell if it's going to be full of OCD until the day I die.

I struggle with a lot of other ASD comorbidities but OCD in my opinion feels like the most crippling.

It is a lifelong condition, however its severity often changes with time.

I believe that with the right environment and attitude, you can manage it to the point that life is livable. Medication can likely help a lot as well.

You will need to be steadfast and diligent. For example, if you need to find a medication, be scientific about it. Try one for a few months, and if it doesn't work try another for a few months. Try them at different doses. Don't give up because you tried one thing that wasn't the right one.

When you try a technique, practice. Understand that these are skills, and at first they probably won't help much. Meditation and mindfulness techniques are really helpful.

You may do well to move. Maybe living in a quieter place can help. Maybe living in a different climate would help.

Remember, there is always a solution to a problem, even if you can't think of it at the moment. There is always more that you don't know than there is that you do know. You don't know how good your life can be, so never give up because you think it is always going to be horrible.

I will only deal with OCD. I have trained myself not to do certain things. Eventually the compulsion leaves. It did take me a while and it is not easy. I am aware that if I start obsessing or doing something unhealthy, that I do need to check myself so it does not become habbit forming.

I do replay situations over and over again from many different angles, but they are real memories, and though the process is a slow one, I can sometimes find answers to what went wrong years later! For me this is something positive rather then negative.
I can also find I can piece together clues in this way and find things out. I am very patient in this way, and I have found out many things. It is a big advantage to have a slow processing mind which can go into dept on any given subject, so my thoughts are, if you can concentrate on facts you know to be true and latch onto them, you have a quality which few have.

So if you can, learn to use your mind to your advantage rather then thinking it of a problem. Hopefully, with some self adjustment where neccessary, you have something good.