More OCD Tricks
As I mentioned in my last post, OCD can be a difficult disorder to manage because it is full of tricks and unless you understand these tricks and learn how to play the game to win, then OCD has the upper hand. It's almost as if the OCD has a tenth degree black belt in karate and you are just beginning. In this blog post I will list three tricks that OCD uses to "trick" people into doing compulsions. Understanding and recognizing some of the tricks and distortions that OCD uses can be helpful when seeking to manage OCD.
If I’m a little responsible then I’m totally responsible
Responsibility (or I might call it “hyper responsibility”) is a huge theme for many of my OCD clients as they often believe “If I'm a little bit responsible then I am totally responsible”. Some examples from my clients are picking up all the pins on the floor of a dressing room (people often will drop pins on the floor of a dressing room when trying on new clothes) in case the next person might step on a pin and hurt themselves or picking up a banana peel from the sidewalk in case someone might step on it, slide and hurt themselves. While being responsible for the most part is an admirable trait, when it comes within OCD it is often exaggerated.
If it doesn’t feel right then it must not be right
Another OCD trick is "if it doesn't feel right then it must not be right." This is usually referred to as emotional reasoning. Just because something doesn't "feel" right doesn't mean that there's anything wrong. In fact, within the OCD world many things feel wrong and/or dangerous when they are not. In a very real sense when you have OCD you cannot trust your feelings in those portions of your life where the OCD has become active. Just because you "feel" that your hands are still dirty does not mean that it’s true. So in coming to manage OCD it is important to notice these feelings and then mindfully pause before responding to them. Rather than simply react and do what feels necessary, to pause, to reflect and then to choose the response that makes the most sense. For many clients it is rather disconcerting to consider the idea that they really cannot trust their feelings when it comes to the OCD. A particularly troublesome example of this is when the client suffers from Scrupulosity OCD. Many scrupulous clients make the assumption that these "feelings" are actually a message from God and/or the Holy Spirit and thus must be listened to and obeyed.
If a thought is “loud” it must be important
Another trick is the idea that because a thought is somehow "louder" or "brighter" in one's mind that it must be more significant and worthy of attention that other thoughts. The idea here is that just because a thought is brighter and louder it means more, which of course isn't true at all. Scary thoughts will always seem louder than other thoughts, but that doesn’t make them correct thoughts. It's as if we are saying that when driving down the street the brightest neon sign is the most important neon sign or that the person who is speaking the loudest must be saying the most important things. As with all forms of OCD, one way to not be taken in by this trick is to be mindfully aware of what your mind is telling you. Work to step back from your thoughts and try to look "at" these thoughts rather than "from" these thoughts. To notice that your mind is telling you the brightest and loudest thoughts are somehow different from the rest of your thoughts, which, of course they are not. To then mindfully resist the urge to treat these thoughts in some different way and put them into your usual thought stream and treat them like you would any other thoughts.
I hope you find these tips useful and let me know if you have any questions. As always, let me know if I can be of any help and I’m happy to answer any questions you might have. This post isn’t meant as a substitute for therapy and so if you’re struggling with anxiety/OCD please consult a qualified therapist.
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Stay well,
DrBob