Defeating Anxiety/OCD by Surrendering
Hi Everyone,
I’ve posted before on this topic, but it is an area that I keep getting questions about and it is fundamental to managing OCD so I thought it warranted another post.
The Problem with Avoidance
As a species we are programmed to scan our environment for danger and then carefully avoid it. When the danger is something physical such as a grizzly bear, avoiding makes perfect sense and is the right choice, but in our current time the dangers we face aren’t usually grizzly bears, but more often things such as giving a presentation at work, paying our taxes, retirement and worrying about who will win the presidential race. Avoiding presentations at work will most likely lead to more anxiety in the future because you have now “learned” that avoidance reduces anxiety in the short run. And giving presentations at work may be an integral and expected part of your job and by avoiding presentations you don’t perform as well as you could and most likely limit your advancement potential.
Some Examples
With anxiety/OCD you can win by accepting/surrendering. This doesn't mean that you stop trying to manage your anxiety/OCD, it means that you stop trying to make things perfect, stop trying to figure things out, stop trying to analyze things to death. And rather than avoid what you’re afraid of, you accept your anxiety and decide to turn and face it. In the example above, you decide to face your fears and work on getting more comfortable with giving presentations. Or if we look at OCD as an example, you have just touched a doorknob and fear that you have gotten your hands covered with germs and that if you don't wash them immediately you will get sick and die and there's a good chance you will infect your family, they will all get sick and die as well and, worst of all, it will be your fault (if you don’t have contamination OCD this may seem far fetched, but this is exactly how someone with contamination OCD thinks).
You’ve Been Here Before
You have been here many times before and are familiar with this rather scary situation. In the past, you have learned that if you wash your hands carefully numerous times then you may achieve a temporary sense of safety from the risk posed by the germs you now think are on your hands. However, as you have learned about OCD (if you’ve been listening to your therapist and/or reading my posts) you now realize that your attempts to achieve safety ultimately are futile and you are now trying to do things differently. You "surrender" the need to even attempt to be clean because you now recognize that this is part of the OCD, ignore the urges to once again go and carefully wash your hands and just go about your business as if there was no danger in the first place. And you also now realize that when you resist the urge to wash your hands you will feel uncomfortable for some time and you are willing to accept that discomfort, and may even welcome it because you know this means you are on the right track.
Surrender to Win
You are surrendering the need to be "certain" and you do this because you have come to understand the tricks and maneuvers this devious disorder has used in the past to get you to comply. You accept the uncertainty, surrender (i.e. let go of) any attempts to find safety and don’t wash your hands.
The Futility of Doing Compulsions
Most people who suffer from OCD are, especially at first, unwilling to consider this idea of acceptance/surrender. They mistakenly believe that their quest for certainty will lead to a positive outcome and that it is somehow possible to feel certain that what they fear won’t happen. It is often only after repeated attempts to achieve this mythical state of certainty that people eventually become willing to consider trying something different. Part of OCD's deviousness is that it continues to convince you that if you just try a little harder, try it one more time, think about it a bit more, wash just that one more time, check that door lock just one more time, etc. then relief will come and you can feel sure everything is safe and secure. Of course, this is a false promise, but it is seductive and difficult to ignore.
The “Mirage” of Certainty
I have sometimes used the analogy of a mirage that looks so very appealing in the distance, but which when pursued keeps receding further and further into the distance. Performing the compulsion can be reinforced because when you do wash your hands, check that lock, etc., there is an immediate sense of relief but, if you pay careful attention you will see that this relief is fleeting and is soon replaced by doubt and dread once again. Nonetheless, that immediate relief following doing the compulsion is seductive and gets people caught in a compulsive repetitive cycle. It is only once that cycle is recognized, and the futility of doing the compulsions over and over again is finally accepted and recognized, can you turn to surrendering your attempts to achieve certainty and that is when true recovery starts to happen.
As always, I hope you find this helpful and I welcome questions and/or feedback. Let me know if there are any topics you would especially like me to address in this blog. This post is meant for educational purposes only and isn’t intended to be a substitute for therapy. If you’re struggling with any of the above issues, please consult a qualified therapist.
If you know of anyone who might benefit from this post, please forward it to them and if someone forwarded this post to you and you’d like to subscribe, you can do so here.
Stay safe,
Dr Bob
