Checking OCD is a subtype of OCD that causes intrusive doubts, and a compulsive need to check past actions—which, in turn, reinforces those doubts. The most effective treatment, exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy, helps you confront uncertainty and reduce compulsions.
It’s common to double-check or retrace your steps from time to time—making sure the stove is off, or the door is locked. It’s also not unusual to want reassurance. However, for some, these behaviors can become extreme, constant, and compulsive—reinforcing an exhausting cycle that’s hard to break.
Maybe you’re out with friends when a nagging thought hits: Did I lock my car? Even if you remember doing it, you second guess yourself. You find yourself stepping away just to check. Or, you repack your bag over and over, never feeling certain that you have everything.
If this sounds familiar, you might be experiencing checking OCD—a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) that fuels persistent doubts and the urge to check, even when there’s no logical reason to do so. Let’s take a closer look at this form of OCD, and how to get help.
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What is checking OCD?
To better understand checking OCD, it helps to have a solid understanding of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) itself. OCD is a mental health condition marked by intrusive thoughts, feelings, urges, images, and sensations that cause distress. In an attempt to find relief, people with OCD engage in compulsions—repetitive behaviors or mental rituals meant to ease anxiety. However, these compulsions only provide temporary relief, making symptoms worse over time.
Checking OCD is a subtype of OCD where intrusive thoughts create intense doubt and fear—often centered around the possibility of causing harm, making a mistake, or being responsible for something bad happening. To manage this distress, you might feel the need to check your past actions, even when there’s no obvious reason to do so.
Experts say the lengths people go to in order to check vary from person to person. “Some people are satisfied by reassurance from someone else—for instance, your husband telling you that you turned off all the lights before you left home,” says Gary VanDalfsen, PhD. “Others need visual confirmation, like driving home from the office in the middle of the workday to check for themselves.”
These compulsions may seem like they’ll ease your worries, but any relief is short-lived—strengthening anxiety, and reinforcing the idea that you need to check again.
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What causes checking OCD?
There’s no single cause of OCD, but research suggests that a combination of neurobiological, genetic, cognitive, behavioral, and environmental factors play a role. While researchers are still learning more about what leads to OCD in some people and not others, we do know what keeps OCD symptoms going.
Compulsions, like checking, offer a temporary sense of relief from anxiety. Because that relief feels reassuring in the moment, the brain learns to rely on it as a way to ease doubt. “This becomes a closed loop in which the person with OCD gets trapped, never learning that there is another way out,” explains Dr. VanDalfsen. The more someone checks, the stronger the habit becomes, making it even harder to resist compulsion in the future.
Signs and symptoms of checking OCD
If you have checking OCD, you probably experience significant concerns about bad things happening—either to yourself or others—and you may feel an overwhelming sense of responsibility. Common obsessions associated with checking OCD include
- Safety: You may fear causing a fire, flood, burglary, or other disaster that could lead to harm.
- Health: You may worry about developing a serious illness, or infecting someone else.
- Mistakes: You may fear making an error, no matter how small.
- Inappropriate behavior: You may worry excessively about unintentionally saying or doing something offensive.
“These obsessive concerns create intense distress, usually in the form of anxiety,” explains Dr. VanDalfsen. In response, people engage in checking to try to gain certainty that these feared outcomes haven’t happened—or won’t happen. Common compulsions include:
- Physical inspection: Closely examining objects, taking photos for “proof,” or physically re-checking locks, appliances, or documents.
- Reassurance seeking: Asking others to confirm you haven’t made mistakes. You may also reassure yourself by repeating reminders out loud.
- Mental rituals: Replaying past events in your head to try to gain certainty that nothing bad has happened.
- Avoidance: Avoiding responsibility entirely, so you don’t put yourself in situations where you could make a mistake. This might look like asking your partner to lock up when you leave the house, or avoiding sending emails, or having important conversations.
These compulsions might provide temporary relief, but they ultimately reinforce your fears, making the need to check even stronger over time.
Is checking OCD treatable?
The good news is that checking OCD—like every other form of OCD—is highly treatable. The most effective, evidence-based treatment is a specialized form of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), called exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy.
ERP is evidence-based and highly effective. It works by helping you gradually face your fears through exposure exercises, while learning response prevention techniques to resist compulsions. Instead of relying on checking or reassurance seeking to ease anxiety, ERP teaches you that you can tolerate uncertainty. This therapeutic approach can help you learn to sit with your distressing thoughts and let them pass—giving them less power over you. “ERP teaches people that they can handle uncertainty and that their anxiety will subside on its own,” explains Dr. VanDalfsen.
What does ERP look like for checking OCD?
Let’s imagine your OCD is causing you to continually be late to work. Every day, you wake up early, get ready on time, but find yourself experiencing intrusive thoughts once you get to the door. You can’t remember if you turned off your stove, and you worry about accidentally starting a fire. The doubt feels unbearable, so you go back to confirm, losing precious time, until you’re embarrassingly late for work.
Your ERP therapist might work with you to practice leaving your home without checking—even though it feels uncomfortable. At first, your anxiety might spike, and the urge to check will feel overwhelming. But, instead of giving in, you’d practice sitting with the discomfort, allowing it to pass on its own. With time and repetition, your brain will start to recognize that nothing bad happens when you resist your compulsions. In fact, you may even find the distress passes sooner than you expected.
ERP doesn’t aim to eliminate intrusive thoughts, but it does help you stop wasting precious time on compulsions. In doing so, you learn that you’re stronger than you may think, and that you don’t need to check to feel safe or certain enough to go about your day.
Bottom line
Checking OCD can make daily life feel exhausting, turning simple tasks into rituals that take hours to complete. But, effective treatment is available. ERP therapy helps you break free from the checking cycle by teaching you that you don’t need compulsions to feel safe. While facing uncertainty can feel difficult at first, recovery is possible with the right support. If checking rituals are taking over your life, consider reaching out for professional help. You deserve to reclaim your time, energy, and confidence without getting stuck in the checking cycle.
Key takeaways
- Checking OCD is a subtype of OCD that involves intrusive doubts and the compulsive need to check for reassurance.
- Compulsions like physical checking, avoidance, reassurance seeking, and mental review provide temporary relief but ultimately reinforce the OCD cycle.
- Exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy is the most effective treatment for OCD, helping you learn to resist checking behaviors so you can reclaim your time.
