You may have heard that obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) can be very sneaky. As someone who lives with the disorder, I can confirm this to be true. You can be humming along one day, not even thinking about anything stressful, and then BAM. Suddenly, the floodgates are open and the intrusive thoughts rush in.
But while OCD can be unpredictable, some of its schemes for grabbing our attention are exactly the opposite. There are certain tricks OCD might turn to more regularly—and they don’t have to take us by surprise. Learning to recognize the patterns of these ruses can make us more prepared to catch OCD in its act.
Trick #1: Making things feel urgent
Creating an intense sense of urgency is a classic tactic for OCD. What makes this trick a clever way of attempting to grab our attention is that it plays off of something that, on its own, isn’t inherently negative. In fact, urgency can often be helpful. In situations where we need to act quickly, our ability to respond to urgency can make us more effective at handling day-to-day threats.
But the urgency OCD tries to create is different. It’s false—even though it might feel very real. To explain why that’s the case, I like to compare the anxiety response of someone with OCD to a faulty alarm system: It means well (it’s trying to keep you safe), but it might activate at times when it doesn’t need to. For those of us who suffer from OCD, that means a false alarm—like an uncomfortable feeling or a passing “what-if”—can feel like a legitimate threat to our brains.
This feeling of being unable to tolerate uncomfortable thoughts or emotions is also known as distress intolerance. The idea of experiencing anxiety, distress, doubt, or uncertainty can seem overwhelming to people with OCD, which can cause them to avoid anything that might provoke those feelings. When they end up facing these emotions, as every human being eventually does, they can feel a strong urge to neutralize their discomfort.
That’s where OCD likes to latch on and demand that we “do” something to feel certain about a thought or to prevent a negative outcome—and thus, compulsions are born. This can lead to countless hours spent trying to thwart thoughts and feelings, chasing after certainty and control.
How you can fight back:
One way you can combat this false sense of urgency is calling OCD’s bluff. If OCD is demanding that you wash your hands “right now,” see what will happen if you don’t. Wait out that sense of urgency and find out if the threat is as serious as OCD says it is.
This can be easier said than done, as people with OCD will often wonder, “But what if there really is a danger and I don’t respond?” The truth is, OCD will never let you feel “certain enough” of the difference between its false sense of urgency and actual danger.
At first, choosing to “wait and see” might be easier said than done, but in time, it can help you realize that the events OCD promises are often the most unlikely outcomes, and that its demands for you to do things immediately don’t have to control your life. The more you learn what OCD sounds like and the more you call it out, the more you’re able to see that you can trust yourself to respond in moments of actual urgency.
Trick #2: Creating unlikely scenarios and consequences
When you have OCD, it can feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. This disorder often creates an inflated sense of responsibility in people, making them believe that they are responsible for preventing negative outcomes.
Trying to take advantage of this hyper-responsibility, OCD can then make the false promise that if they listen to what it says, they’ll feel better and prevent bad things from happening. These bad things could be anything. It doesn’t matter how improbable something is or how impossible it might be for an individual to prevent; to OCD, it’s all likely to happen.
Anxiety and guilt are often at the root of this inflated sense of responsibility. People with OCD can end up thinking of all the possible repercussions of not acting in a particular scenario. They may then feel deeply guilty for these potential negative outcomes, often engaging in magical thinking, or the belief that their thoughts and actions can impact the world around them, and performing compulsions in an attempt to feel certain that the events they’re imagining won’t come true.
The problem is that any relief that compulsions provide will be short-lived. When we attempt to “do” things about our intrusive thoughts, we’re fighting a losing battle, trying to gain control of things that we cannot possibly be in control of. OCD doesn’t want you to realize that you have the ability to tolerate uncomfortable feelings and that you don’t need to do anything to “get rid of” them. You can simply allow them to pass on their own.
How you can fight back:
Think of OCD like a hungry beast: The more you give it what it wants, the bigger it grows. The less you give it what it craves, the smaller it shrinks. And what does OCD want and crave? It craves your attention and your engagement. It wants you to attach meaning to every distressing thought and to keep performing compulsions.
In other words, when an individual with OCD refuses to give in to the urges to do compulsions and ignores OCD’s nudges to engage with intrusive thoughts, they can start to learn that they never needed to do these things in the first place. They can begin to realize that uncomfortable emotions will pass without them needing to take any action. This is how OCD loses its power.
That said, this can be extremely difficult for someone who experiences Harm OCD or any other form of OCD that focuses on disturbing or taboo topics. The idea that their inaction could cause someone else harm, especially someone they care deeply about, can keep them listening to OCD’s demands. In these situations, the guidance of an OCD specialist, who will deeply understand all types of OCD, can be especially helpful.
Trick #3: Insisting that all thoughts, images, and urges must have meaning
OCD likes to play off of our biggest fears, which means that the focus of our intrusive thoughts, images, and urges can tell us a great deal about what we value and care about the most. But as those living with OCD likely know all too well, OCD often wants us to assign the opposite meaning to everything we think and feel.
For example, let’s say someone has a sudden, distressing urge to drive off of a bridge while their family is in the car. The reason that this particular thought caused this person so much distress is because they love their family and would never want to hurt them. OCD, however, might tell them that this thought means they’re a horrible person.
The meanings OCD attaches to intrusive thoughts can attack a person’s identity, causing them to doubt who they are and what they could be capable of. Guilt and shame are often OCD’s co-conspirators as they work alongside one another to accuse the sufferer of all of the worst-case scenarios.
What OCD doesn’t want us to focus on is the fact that everyone has intrusive and unwanted thoughts from time to time. If you were to look at the brain like a computer system, you could say that most people’s brains have a spam filtration system that works well. In other words, they can easily identify and disregard thoughts that don’t need their attention.
Unfortunately for those of us who suffer from OCD, our brains’ filtration systems seem to get overwhelmed by “spam” thoughts and the possibilities they suggest. As a result, we spend excessive amounts of energy trying to suppress, avoid, or neutralize our unwanted thoughts. The problem lies not within the thoughts themselves, but in the idea that they mean something about us, and that we need to respond to them.
The truth is that if OCD didn’t latch onto these thoughts, we probably wouldn’t even pay any attention to them. Instead, we would weed them out as unimportant and unhelpful, living our lives with confidence despite the occasional disturbing thought.
How you can fight back:
When you suffer from this condition, there can be times when it might feel hard to see the parts of you that are not related to OCD and to know who you are outside of the OCD symptoms. Remember that you are so much more than this condition, and that the thoughts that might feel overwhelming right now don’t have to feel that way forever.
When someone with OCD allows thoughts to be present without giving them importance or attempting to find a hidden meaning, OCD’s grip on their life loosens. Practicing different responses to intrusive thoughts can help decrease their power over time, making it easier to live life on your own terms.
The benefits of an OCD specialist’s perspective
When we’re overwhelmed by OCD, it can be challenging to identify these tricks on our own. This is what makes the guidance of an OCD specialist invaluable. With their expertise, they can help us spot OCD’s tactics, change our responses to them, and work towards conquering OCD with effective treatment.
But while many therapists claim to specialize in OCD, few of them receive the deep training necessary to effectively treat it. To figure out if the provider you’re considering is a qualified OCD specialist, it’s important to ask if they’re trained in the gold-standard treatment for OCD: exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy. ERP is a form of therapy that was designed specifically to treat OCD. It works by breaking the cycle of obsessions and compulsions, which helps OCD lose its power over time.
At NOCD, every therapist specializes in treating OCD with ERP. NOCD Therapists go through in-depth training and testing before ever seeing a single member, in a program designed by top OCD experts. Our therapists’ extensive training empowers them to deliver a world-class treatment experience personalized to each of our members and their families, leading to life-changing results.
To prevent cost from being a barrier to accessing treatment, NOCD offers affordable options and partners with many insurance plans. You can learn more about NOCD Therapy by scheduling a free call with our team.
